This book is a succinct guide to Søren Kierkegaard's contribution to educational thought.
Kierkegaard is not usually known as an educational thinker but the book shows how his key
notions and ideas are nevertheless highly relevant to educational theory and practice. It
places them within the context of Kierkegaard's philosophy and the philosophy of his time
while also exploring their significance to issues of contemporary concern like the question of
how far education should aim at fostering useful skills or support more ambitious goals. The
central topics are Kierkegaard's diagnosis of the limitations of objective knowledge and his
corresponding emphasis on know-how personal appropriation and subjective attitude his
analysis of more or less successful forms of self-realization his ideas about fostering
personal development through indirect communication and dialogue and the elements strengths
and shortcomings of the ideal of self-cultivation (German Bildung ).
