Essay On Kierkegaard

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directly willed.
C. Stephen Evans, in "Does Kierkegaard Think Beliefs Can Be Directly Willed?"3 responds to Pojman's position, arguing that the attribution of direct volitionalism to Kierkegaard is too strong a claim. Evans does admit Kierkegaard as an indirect volitionalist, i.e. as holding that we can bring about belief states indirectly, as consequences of other actions that are themselves directly willed. (An example might be my taking up a winter sport, in order to produce a belief that winter is an enjoyable season.)
Additional articles4 have appeared in the literature recently, which respond to Pojman's position in Religious Belief and the Will, as well as views presented in Pojman's book entitled The Logic of Subjectivity5, and a paper Pojman recently contributed to the ongoing discussion, viz. "Kierkegaard on Faith and Freedom."6 Various related issues are dealt with in these discussions, many of which would make interesting topics for another paper.
In this paper I ...

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to Pojman. The issue of the strength of Evans's own position will be addressed. I will offer an alternative to Evans's critique.
In my final section I will investigate the relevance of the discussion of volitionalism to a general reading of the Postscript. Are there grounds for supposing that Climacus is advocating either direct, or indirect, or prescriptive volitionalism? Is there reason to suspect that he would oppose these positions?
2. Pojman's view that Kierkegaard is a volitionalist
In Religious Belief and the Will, Pojman offers an overview of how the relation of willing to faith and belief varies throughout the history of western thought. He provides descriptions of ...

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