Safe space or shirking accountability? A new journal will allow academics to write under pseudonyms
Welcome to the ‘Journal of Controversial Ideas’, a space for unpopular views. May 06, 2021 · 07:49 pm
In the 1840s, a series of strange books started to appear in Copenhagen. The books were credited to outlandish pseudonyms: Victor Eremita (“victorious hermit”), Hilarious Bookbinder, Vigilius Haufniensis (“the watcher in the marketplace”), and more.
The author of these books was a theology graduate named Søren Kierkegaard. He wasn’t using pseudonyms to hide his authorship, however, but to make a point about what it is to truly inhabit a view of life. That, he complained, was precisely the problem with the other philosophers of his era. They published under their real names, but wrote as if they weren’t living, breathing, mortal people at all, but mere abstract conduits for pure reason.
In the 1840s, a series of strange books started to appear in Copenhagen. The books were credited to outlandish pseudonyms: Victor Eremita (“victorious hermit”), Hilarious Bookbinder, Vigilius Haufniensis (“the watcher in the marketplace”), and more.
The author of these books was a theology graduate named Søren Kierkegaard. He wasn’t using pseudonyms to hide his authorship, however, but to make a point about what it is to truly inhabit a view of life. That, he complained, was precisely the problem with the other philosophers of his era. They published under their real names, but wrote as if they weren’t living, breathing, mortal people at all, but mere abstract conduits for pure reason.