KNOWLEDGE
134a theologian of his day and age. Even if
the latter is true, Kierkegaard’s thought
and work had a huge influence on the
subsequent direction and development of
European philosophy and theology.
Kierkegaard reacted to the Hegelian
views prevalent amongst his contempo-
rary Danish theologians, although his
views are themselves strongly permeated
by Hegelian ideas and assumptions. His
work and thought could be characterized
as an inversion of Hegel’s thought: one
that attempts to return to more romantic
notions and an alternative conception
of the relationship between humanity
and divinity. In this regard, Kierkegaard
charges Hegelianism with being unable
to account for, or having failed to do jus-
tice to, human subjectivity. This move is
basically an attempt to defend Christian
faith against the onslaught of philosophi-
cal reason in the manner of Kant.
Kierkegaard takes David Hume’s
skeptical point, that Christian faith can-
not be conclusively justified in virtue of
human reason, and he uses this as a
point in Christianity’s defense. If reason
cannot conclusively prove faith, Kierkeg-
aard argued, then neither can it disprove
it. In fact, Kierkegaard claimed, the very
attempt to consider faith a matter of proof
is a misunderstanding of its nature. Chris-
tian faith is not a philosophical argument,
nor is coming to faith the result of being
persuaded of a conclusion. It is rather,
Kierkegaard held, a movement under-
taken on the basis of the paradox of the
Christian message and as such, an irratio-
nal leap into the arms of God. Kierkeg-
aard’s works include Either / Or: A
Fragment of Life (1843), Fear and Trem-
bling (1843), Philosophical Fragments
(1844), Concluding Unscientific Postscript
(1846), Works of Love (1847), and The
Sickness unto Death (1849).KNOWLEDGE. See EPISTEMOLOGY.KUHN, THOMAS S. (1922–1996). An
important contributor to twentieth-cen-
tury philosophy of science, Kuhn chal-
lenged the idea that science is practiced in
a disinterested fashion. He also analyzed
the way in which scientific change occurs.
At any given time, science may have a
central model or ideal for an explanation
(a paradigm), but this can shift due to sys-
tematic anomalies. Kuhn has been inter-
preted as advocating a strict anti-realism,
but this is not necessary the case. Some
have used Kuhn’s model of scientific rev-
olution to chart revolutions in philoso-
phy, religion, and theology. Kuhn’s works
include The Copernican Revolution
(1957), The Structure of Scientific Revolu-
tions (1962), The Essential Tension:
Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and
Change (1977), Black-Body Theory and
the Quantum Discontinuity (1978), and
The Road Since Structure: Philosophical
Essays, 1970–1993 (published posthu-
mously, 2000).