Lord of the door

Before anything else Søren Kierkegaard is considered a philosopher however Jean André Wahl writes “He is not a philosopher, he would say ... and had no philosophy to call ‘philosophy of existence’ or to oppose other philosophies.” Wahl’s depiction raises essential questions. If Kierkegaard is not a philosopher how should we regard him? Furthermore, what might we learn about contemporary life (if not philosophy itself) if we understand Kierkegaard’s persona and insight independent of its philosophical frame? To develop our understanding Kierkegaard is considered akin to Wallace Stevens’s concept of “a poetry of thought” which designates a theory of poetry according to poets distinct from philosophy. For both Kierkegaard and Stevens authored singular prose thus we should not ignore the nature of his theory which may belong to poetry as potentially validated by Jean Wahl, a philosopher whom Stevens befriended.