Fear and Trembling: Dialect of the Lyre. Johannes de Silentio

S. Kierkegaard — one of the founders of 20th-century philosophy, a precursor to existentialism. At the center of his philosophical reflections, Kierkegaard places the problem of the existence of the singular — the unique and only — human, opposing the universal and objective foundations of human existence. A human, according to Kierkegaard, unlike an animal, is not a generic being but an existing one.
. In this paradigm, the philosopher analyzes three "spheres of existence" of a person — aesthetic, ethical, and religious. Historically, the first stage is aesthetic, when "a person is overwhelmed by pleasures, possessed by passions," when he "becomes a prisoner of his own aspirations." The outcome of this is "saturation and a sense of the meaninglessness of existence, accompanied by despair." The second stage of human life is ethical, which is opposite to the aesthetic. Its foundation is the consciousness of responsibility and duty of each person to their fellow human beings, to humanity. The main requirement for a person becomes the demand to become themselves. The third stage of human development, opposing the first two, is religious. "Faith is the highest passion in a person. Perhaps, in any generation, there are many people who have not even reached it, but there is not a single one who could go beyond it... However, even for one who has not yet reached faith, life presents enough tasks, and with an honest attitude towards them, their life will not remain fruitless, even if it does not resemble the life of those who understood and found the greatest — FAITH." Faith is the foundation of the highest stage of human development, that is, the stage of existence.
. To examine the source of faith, its specificity — is the task of the treatise "Fear and Trembling." Kierkegaard introduces as the main character — the knight of faith — the biblical Abraham and seeks to show the existence of Abraham and his actions from the heart. The consideration of the faith embodied by Abraham allows us to see his unique singularity, bearing wonder.