Q 01/05

The surname Kierkegaard is a variant of a Danish word ending in 'gård', or yard, that names which place?

A) Vineyard

B) Shipyard

C) Churchyard

D) Timberyard

Answer · why

C) Churchyard

Churchyard, in the sense of a cemetery, is the word's everyday meaning in Danish, built from the words for church and for a yard or farm.

Q 02/05

Kierkegaard broke off his engagement to which young woman, then spent years writing books that secretly addressed her?

A) Bolette Rørdam

B) Regine Olsen

C) Jenny Lind

D) Louise Rasmussen

Answer · why

B) Regine Olsen

Regine Olsen was engaged to him for about a year; she went on to marry her former tutor, yet Kierkegaard's will still named her as heir to what little...

Q 03/05

Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling circles around which biblical figure, whom its narrator admits he cannot understand?

A) Jeremiah

B) Solomon

C) Elijah

D) Abraham

Answer · why

D) Abraham

Abraham's journey to sacrifice his son Isaac opens the book in four different retellings, each imagining another way the story might have gone.

Q 04/05

Kierkegaard is widely called the father of which philosophical movement, later taken up by Sartre and Heidegger?

A) Existentialism

B) Pragmatism

C) Positivism

D) Utilitarianism

Answer · why

A) Existentialism

Existentialism got its name nearly a century after he died: the word was coined in the 1940s, and Sartre at first rejected the label.

Q 05/05

Which phrase for believing beyond proof is popularly credited to Kierkegaard, who never used it in that form?

A) Will to believe

B) Leap of faith

C) Benefit of the doubt

D) Suspension of disbelief

Answer · why

B) Leap of faith

Leap of faith is the popular label, but his own term was a 'qualitative leap': a change that no chain of reasoning can carry a person across step by s...