Prefaces
Prefaces, Danish title page
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| Author | Søren Kierkegaard |
|---|---|
| Original title | Forord |
| Translator | Todd W. Nichol |
| Country | Denmark |
| Language | Danish |
| Series | First authorship (Pseudonymous) |
| Genre | Philosophy |
| Publisher | Princeton University Press 1977 |
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Publication date
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June 17, 1844 |
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Published in English
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1997 – first translation |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | ~68 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Philosophical Fragments |
| Followed by | The Concept of Anxiety |
Prefaces (Danish: Forord) is a book by Søren Kierkegaard published under the pseudonym Nicolaus Notabene. The meaning of the pseudonym used for Prefaces, Nicholaus Notabene, was best summed up in his work Writing Sampler, where Kierkegaard said twice for emphasis, “Please read the following preface, because it contains things of the utmost importance.” He was trying to tell his critics to read the preface to his books because they have the key to understanding them. Nota bene is Latin for "note well".
Prefaces was published June 17, 1844, the same date as The Concept of Anxiety (also by a pseudonym: Vigilius Haufniensis). This was the second time Kierkegaard published his works on the same date, (the first being Oct 16, 1843, with the publication of Repetition alongside Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 and Fear and Trembling). Kierkegaard published 14 separate works between the publication of Either/Or on February 20, 1843 and Four Upbuilding Discourses which he published on August 31, 1844.
Kierkegaard contrasted one fictional author with another frequently. This book and its companion piece, The Concept of Anxiety, contrasts Notabene, who is mediated by his wife as well as his reviewer, with Haufniensis, who is against his knowledge of sin being mediated by Adam.
If mediation were really all that it is made out to be, then there is probably only one power that knows how to use it with substance and emphasis; that is the power that governs all things. And there is only one language in which it belongs, the language that is used in that council of divinity to which philosophers send delegates no more than landholders do, and from which philosophers receive regular couriers no more than small landholders do. Prefaces p. 35
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