Can you choose your own life, or are you merely drifting through existence?
In short: Søren Kierkegaard’s 1843 masterpiece Either/Or challenges the reader to confront the fundamental question of how to live. Through two distinct, pseudonymous life views—the pleasure-seeking aesthete and the duty-bound ethical judge—Kierkegaard explores the tension between fleeting enjoyment and the profound, often difficult, necessity of making a conscious, personal choice.
Published in February 1843, Either/Or was written in just eleven months. Kierkegaard employed multiple pseudonyms, including Victor Eremita, who supposedly discovered the manuscript in an antique desk. The work is split into two volumes representing opposing modes of existence: the aesthetic and the ethical. The aesthetic life, written by the character 'A', is defined by the pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of boredom, and the cultivation of the 'interesting'. This mode is marked by poetic reflection, music, and the manipulation of others, exemplified by the infamous 'Diary of a Seducer'.
In contrast, the ethical life is presented through letters from Judge Vilhelm. He argues that true identity is forged through commitment, responsibility, and rational choice, rather than the capricious longings of the aesthete. While the aesthete risks falling into despair—a state Kierkegaard describes as a precursor to existential angst—the ethical individual seeks to integrate their life into the objective, civic world. The book serves as a direct critique of Hegel’s philosophy, which Kierkegaard believed dehumanized the individual by replacing personal freedom with a deterministic, natural process.
Ultimately, Kierkegaard suggests that both the aesthetic and ethical realms are incomplete. He hints at a third, higher 'religious' sphere, a theme he would expand upon in later works like Fear and Trembling. The central challenge remains for the reader: to move beyond the surface and discover the 'second face' hidden within themselves and others. By rejecting the idea that life can be systematized, Kierkegaard insists that existence is not a scientific problem to be solved, but a personal responsibility to be lived through the act of choosing.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Either/Or (Kierkegaard book)
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