Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
This work began in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dundee where I was both challenged and encouraged by John Ó Maoilearca, James Williams, Beth Lord, Brian Smith, Dominic Smith and especially Rachel Jones. The postgraduate community at Dundee offered a constant source of friendship, debate and good spirits, without which this work would have been impossible. The friendship and conversation of Alex Andrews, Dave Mesing, John Van Houdt, Thomas Lynch, Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler served as a constant source of motivation and inspiration. Many thanks to the staff of the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, and in particular Gordon Marino and Cynthia Wales Lund, for providing a wonderful intellectual home away from home. I am especially thankful to Alison Assiter, Maria J. Binetti, Adrian Johnston and Steven Shakespeare for their encouragement, friendship and philosophical inspiration. I owe a great deal to each of them and this book would not exist (either conceptually or materially) without them. Finally, I owe much to the friends and family whose love keeps me sane: Jeanne and Jennifer Burns, Alicia Harvey, Matthew Bear Kronz, Philipe Navarro and Dan Olson.
This book is dedicated to Thomas E. Burns.