synopsis:

In Either/Or Kierkegaard writes that there are two ways of life, the "aesthetic" and the "ethical." The aesthetic life is based on sensory pleasures, intellectual or physical, which is based in temporality, and the ethical life is based in moral codes and the infinite, the eternal. The aesthetic way of life leads to "dread" (angst, (existential anxiety), the call of the infinite, and eventually leads to despair.

Once this is realized, the individual may enter the ethical sphere. One either has to live aesthetically, or one has to live ethically. There is not yet in the strictest sense any question of a choice; for he who lives aesthetically does not choose, and he who after the ethical has manifested itself to him chooses the aesthetical is not living aesthetically, for he is sinning and is subject to ethical determinants even though his life may be described as unethical. Either/Or does not in the first instance denote the choice between good and evil, it denotes the choice whereby one chooses good and evil / or excludes them. The crucial thing is not deliberation, but the baptism of the will which lifts up the choice into the ethical. The title refers the two ways of life. An "either/or" confronts us with a choice, and it is Kierkegaard's meaning to force the reader into making a decision. He must decide how he wants to live out his life, instead of simply drifting passively down the river of life.

Our task is to be ourself. But what does it mean "to be ourself?" To begin to understand this, it is helpful to think of the "essence" of an individual which at first exists only "potentially," but which gradually becomes "actual." As human beings we sometimes lose (or even flee) ourselves or become otherwise alienated from our essence. Our ability to consciousnessly reflect--which is our greatest asset so long as we stay in tune with ourselves and our task--is a mixed blessing inasmuch as it opens up the possibility of despair--of our wanting to be other than that which we are. Often, we despair because the conditions in which we find ourselves makes our "success" extraordinarily difficult and "accomplishments" unlikely--regardless of how hard we strive to become that which we are. But such despair can only exacerbate our hardships.

on this book:

This is one of Kierkegaard's early works and his longest. He is seen as the father of existentialism and this book is seen as one of the main influences on existentialist thinkers. It was written in two parts and, like his other early works, written under pseudonym because he wished to avoid giving the impression that the views expressed in the books constituted any definitive religious position, or even that they necessarily represented his own position.