THE PROMISE OF KIERKEGAARD

Mr. Hamilton's book is intended to present, simply and clearly, the main lines of Soren Kierkegaard's thought. That is not an easy job, and it is not to the author's discredit that, while he has attained precision, he has bypassed clarity in his discussion especially of the dialectic and existential aspects of the Dane's work. Despite that, this work will serve well as a synthesis of Kierkegaard's accomplishment for students of philosophy and theology as well as for the serious general reader who is willing to accept Kierkegaard's dictum that religious faith is ""not a class for dunces in the sphere of the intellectual, nor an asylum for the feeble-minded."" Even such readers must be warned, however, that chapters three and four (""The Strategy of the Dialectic"" and ""Reflections on Existence"")--which the author, with a truly Kierkegaardian disregard for order, has placed in the first part of the book--should be read last in order to be more easily intelligible.