This chapter first offers an overview of key concepts in The Sickness unto Death, such as human nature, self, despair, and wholeheartedness. It then discusses the relation between Part One and Part Two of The Sickness unto Death, offering a comparison of different types of despair (or doublemindedness). In this connection, it discusses the relations between faith and reason, and philosophy and theology. It is argued that the relatively neglected Part Two of The Sickness unto Death, entitled “Despair is Sin,” reinterprets the problem of despair from Part One by introducing the Christian concept of sin. In Part Two, sin represents an unwillingness to be oneself before God that involves self-deception. Overcoming despair, on the other hand, requires an unconditional will to be oneself before God. However, the latter does not accept everything as it is but rather hopes against hope to reconcile ideals with reality. For Kierkegaard, this hope is interconnected with Christian faith, charity, and moral commitment. Indeed, overcoming despair by forming a wholehearted or coherent self represents a fundamental moral and religious task according to Kierkegaard.

Chapter 9 examines different readings of the notorious thesis that “subjectivity, inwardness, is truth” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. It is argued that, instead of involving objectionable subjectivism, subjective truth involves an original, adverbial theory of truth that is relatively unexplored. Specifically, subjective truth concerns living truly by being wholehearted (as suggested by Daniel Watts). In addition, it is closely associated with subjective, practical justifications of religious belief found in pragmatism (practical nonevidentialism) concerning religious belief. However, these subjective justifications of belief need not involve subjectivism or fideism, since belief could be supported by practical reasons that are objective by holding even if they are not subjectively recognized. Indeed, Concluding Unscientific Postscript seems to presuppose objective truth and some form of metaphysical and metaethical realism. For Kierkegaard, there are objective, formal constraints on selfhood that prevent relativism and subjectivism. Specifically, wholehearted selfhood, which is to be true to oneself, requires full moral commitment and faith, hope, and charity.