Summary
The Sickness Unto Death, published in 1849 under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, is Kierkegaard's most rigorous psychological and theological analysis of despair — which he defines not as an emotion but as a structural failure of selfhood. The title comes from the Gospel of John (the story of Lazarus), but Kierkegaard reinterprets the sickness unto death as despair: a condition from which there is no exit except through faith, and which can be fatal to the spirit even while the body survives.
The opening definition is one of the most demanding in the entire philosophical tradition: a human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, the temporal and the eternal, freedom and necessity. The self is the relationship between these poles — not one of the poles but the relational activity itself. Despair arises when this relationship fails: when the self either loses itself in the finite (failing to become itself) or exhausts itself in abstraction from the finite (also failing to become itself). Both failures are forms of despair, and the person in either form is not at rest in the relationship that they are.
Kierkegaard identifies three intensifying forms of despair. The first is unconscious — the person does not even know they are in despair, which Kierkegaard considers the most common and most dangerous form. The second is conscious despair about something temporal — the refusal to accept a loss or failure. The third is defiance: the most intense form, in which the self, conscious of despair, refuses to be itself as it is constituted and instead wills to be itself on its own terms, independent of the power that establishes it. This last form is closest to sin in Kierkegaard's theological framework.
The second part of the book is explicitly theological: sin is defined as despair in the face of what one knows about God. The only exit from despair is faith — the condition in which the self rests transparently in the power that constitutes it. This is not intellectual assent to doctrine but a total orientation of the self, a rest in relation to God that ends the perpetual flight and misrelation. Kierkegaard does not claim this is easy, common, or comfortable, but insists it is the only genuine resolution of the human condition.
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Key takeaways
- 1.
Despair is not an emotion but a structural failure of selfhood: the self failing to be what it is constituted to be, in relation to the power that establishes it.
- 2.
A human being is a synthesis of infinite and finite, temporal and eternal, freedom and necessity; the self is the relational activity between these poles.
- 3.
The most common and most dangerous form of despair is unconscious — the person does not know they are in despair and calls it contentment.
- 4.
Defiance — willing to be oneself on one's own terms, independent of the power that establishes the self — is the most intense form of despair.
- 5.
The only exit from despair is faith: the self resting transparently in the power that constitutes it, not fleeing or defying but accepting its own constitution.
- 6.
Sin, in Kierkegaard's framework, is despair in the presence of knowledge about God — the refusal to accept the relationship that would heal the self.
- 7.
Much of what passes for self-possession and contentment is actually a form of despair that has succeeded in becoming unconscious — this is why Kierkegaard calls it the most dangerous form.
- 8.
The deepest despair is not pain but the absence of authentic selfhood — the condition of having no self genuinely constituted at all.
Discussion questions
Use these on your own, with a book club, or as chat starters in Superbook.
- 1.
Kierkegaard's opening definition of the self as a relational synthesis is famously difficult. In plain terms, what do you think he means by the self being a 'relation that relates itself to itself'?
- 2.
He argues that the most common and most dangerous despair is unconscious — the person believes they are content. Where in your own life might that apply?
- 3.
Defiance — willing to be yourself on your own terms alone — is presented as a form of despair. Is there a meaningful distinction between authentic self-determination and the defiance Kierkegaard criticizes?
- 4.
Kierkegaard says faith is the only exit from despair. What would it mean to 'rest transparently in the power that constitutes you'?
- 5.
The book presents a typology of despair organized by intensity and consciousness. Do those gradations match psychological reality as you experience it?
- 6.
Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author, is presented as a Christian of extraordinary intensity — someone Kierkegaard himself felt he was not. Why might Kierkegaard have needed that distance?
- 7.
The synthesis of finite and infinite in the self sounds metaphysical, but it might also describe something psychological: the tension between particular commitments and open-ended possibility. Does that translation hold?
- 8.
Kierkegaard connects despair to the concept of sin. Is that connection illuminating or does it load the psychological analysis with theological assumptions?
- 9.
The text argues that most people who feel fine are actually in despair. Is that a profound insight or a move that makes the concept unfalsifiable?
- 10.
Kierkegaard was writing in 1849, responding to what he saw as the spiritual hollowness of bourgeois Danish Christianity. Does his diagnosis of despair seem more or less apt today?
- 11.
What would a life free from despair in Kierkegaard's sense actually look like? Is it a coherent image?
Themes
Frequently asked questions
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What is the sickness unto death?
Kierkegaard's term for despair — understood not as a temporary emotional state but as a structural failure of selfhood, a persistent misrelation of the self to itself and to the power that constitutes it. It is a sickness from which there is no exit except through faith.
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How difficult is The Sickness Unto Death?
Very difficult. The opening definitions are among the most compressed and demanding in philosophical literature. Alastair Hannay's translation (Penguin) is readable with patient attention; Howard Hong's (Princeton) is more scholarly. A secondary introduction is strongly recommended.
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What is despair in Kierkegaard's sense?
Not sadness or grief but a structural failure of selfhood: the self failing to rest in the relationship it is, trying either to lose itself in finitude (avoiding the infinite) or in abstraction (avoiding the finite), or defying the power that constitutes it. It can be conscious or unconscious.
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What is the relationship between this book and Fear and Trembling?
Both address faith and selfhood, but from different angles. Fear and Trembling examines faith through Abraham's action — its relationship to ethics and to the absolute. The Sickness Unto Death examines the failure of selfhood through despair and argues that faith is the only genuine resolution. They are complementary.
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Who is Anti-Climacus?
Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author for The Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity. Unlike most of his pseudonyms, Anti-Climacus represents a higher religious standpoint than Kierkegaard himself felt he had achieved — someone who has genuinely attained faith, not merely analyzed it.
