''The Book on Adler'' (subtitle: ''The Religious Confusion of the Present Age, Illustrated by Magister Adler as a Phenomenon, A Mimical Monograph'') is a work by the Danish

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , ; ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danes, Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical tex ...

, written during his second authorship, and was published posthumously in 1872. The work is partly about

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

Adolph Peter Adler who claimed to have received a revelation. After some questionable acts, Adler was subsequently dismissed from his pastor duties. Adler later claimed it was work of genius, and not of revelation. The rest of the work focuses on the concept of authority and how it relates to Adler's situation. Kierkegaard was against claims of received revelation without due consideration.

Reception

The American philosopher

Stanley Cavell Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, ...

helped to re-introduce the book to modern philosophical readers in his collection ''Must We Mean What We Say?'' (1969).

Johannes Hohlenberg Johannes Hohlenberg (1881–1960) was a Danish author, artist and Anthroposophist. Early life and work Hohlenberg was born in Copenhagen, the son of assistant pastor at Holmens Church Ove Hohlenberg (1835–98) and Emilie Dahlerup (1852–19 ...

, a student of Kierkegaard's writings, said of the work: "The book is extraordinarily revealing, because it shows the working of Kierkegaard's mind better than any of the other books. If we want to get an idea of what qualitative dialectics has to say when turned upon a very definite question, we ought to study the book about Adler".Hong, Howard V. & Edna H. ''The Essential Kierkegaard''. Princeton University Press, 2000.

References

Book on Adler Book on Adler {{philo-book-stub