Kierkegaard published the Concluding Unscientific Postscript on February 28, 1846, and many individual bits of evidence indicate that it is a crucial text in his literary corpus as a whole. It was of course the companion volume to the Philosophical Fragments and was therefore published under the same pseudonym, Johannes Climacus. Moreover, the Postscript represents one of the most comprehensive statements of his mature views: not only do earlier ideas find their full expression there, but outlines of a number of views developed later can also be discerned. The Postscript is one of the most philosophical texts authored by Kierkegaard and has been regarded by some commentators as the origin of the existential tradition of European philosophy. All of this has made it one of his most read works and one of the most important for the reception of his thought in general.

In reviewing his authorship as a whole, Kierkegaard himself reserves a special place for the Postscript, designating it “the turning point” in his literary work. In his own account of his literary career in The Point of View for My Work as an Author, he explains his general publication plan and the unique role of the Postscript therein. There he omits his early book-review, From the Papers of One Still Living, and his dissertation, The Concept of Irony, and declares that his authorship began in 1843 with Either/Or.