Hans Lassen Martensen supervised Søren Kierkegaard's master's thesis. The document emerged after three years of intensive study focused on ancient sources like Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Plato.
Søren Kierkegaard submitted his master's thesis in 1841. He was only twenty-seven years old when he defended it before the university faculty while living in Copenhagen during the early nineteenth century.
Part One of the dissertation examines how Aristophanes portrayed Socrates in his play The Clouds. Kierkegaard argued that this comedic depiction offered the most accurate representation of the historical figure compared to writings by Xenophon or Plato.
Kierkegaard defined Socratic irony as an existential stance involving a deliberate distance between what one says and what one means. This method allowed Socrates to question others without claiming absolute knowledge himself and served as a tool to expose ignorance rather than assert truth directly.
The shorter Part Two of the dissertation compares Socratic irony against modern interpretations by Fichte, Schlegel, and Hegel. Kierkegaard also included notes on Schelling's Berlin Lectures which he attended shortly after finishing his work.