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The Politics of Selfhood with Constant Reference to Kierkegaard

  • Louis Klee
Published/Copyright: December 22, 2017
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Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
From the journal Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Volume 2017 Issue 1

Abstract

In searching Kierkegaard’s authorship for a politics, what emerges most clearly is the negativity of his task: he does not so much write about politics, as lay the foundations for one through his conception of the self. Kierkegaard’s notion of the self challenges the prevailing understanding of selfhood in classical liberal economic models as an egoistic individual engaged in the maximisation of preferences-a vision that entails a community posited on the endless growth of material means to fulfil these preferences. In contrast, Kierkegaard presents a rich and nuanced depiction of the dialectical path of selfhood through immediacy and negativity to faith. The result is a complex understanding of the self in faith as answerable to its own ideals and dependent on the infinite that exceeds it. Such a self also demands a form of community: one that is dialectical and non-teleological, structured by each individual’s responsibility to their better I and the relationality of the self. This model of the self and community, I suggest, holds the potential for a Kierkegaardian politics.

Published Online: 2017-12-22
Published in Print: 2017-12-20

© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Preface
  3. Contents
  4. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
  5. Unfinished Business: The Time and Space of Irony
  6. Textual Immediacy and Sexual Intimacy: Kierkegaard’s Diary of a Failure
  7. The Politics of Selfhood with Constant Reference to Kierkegaard
  8. Der Mensch als Selbst. Zum Begriff des präreflexiven Selbstbewusstseins in Kierkegaards Krankheit zum Tode (1849)
  9. Prayer as God-knowledge (via Self)
  10. Le phénomène de la souffrance comme élément constitutif de la théophilosophie affirmative de Kierkegaard
  11. Re-reading the Religious – Aesthetically: A Literary Analysis of “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” and The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air
  12. De te fabula narratur. A Re-active Interplay with Kierkegaard’s Authorship
  13. Section 2: Sourcework Studies
  14. “Everything Has Its Time.” Kierkegaard’s Reading of Ecclesiastes
  15. Schelling in the Kierkegaardian Project: Between Kantian Critique and the Second Ethics
  16. On Kierkegaard’s Reaction to H.N. Clausen
  17. “Philosophy and Christianity can never be united”: The Role of Sibbern and Martensen in Kierkegaard’s Reception of Schleiermacher
  18. On the Origins of Kierkegaard’s Climacus Writings and Paradox Christology
  19. Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
  20. Kierkegaard’s Reception in Lithuania
  21. The Voice of Conscience, Kierkegaard’s Theory of Indirect Communication, and Buber’s Philosophy of Dialogue
  22. A Promise Kept, a Self Repeated? Reading Gjentagelsen with Ricoeur
  23. «Être sans destin»: Imre Kertész, ou le concept d’existence constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard
  24. Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
  25. Hans Lassen Martensen’s “The Present Religious Crisis”
  26. Section 5: Bibliography
  27. Kierkegaard Literature from 2005 to 2013. A Descriptive Bibliography
  28. Abbreviations
  29. List of Contributors
https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2017-0003

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Preface
  3. Contents
  4. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
  5. Unfinished Business: The Time and Space of Irony
  6. Textual Immediacy and Sexual Intimacy: Kierkegaard’s Diary of a Failure
  7. The Politics of Selfhood with Constant Reference to Kierkegaard
  8. Der Mensch als Selbst. Zum Begriff des präreflexiven Selbstbewusstseins in Kierkegaards Krankheit zum Tode (1849)
  9. Prayer as God-knowledge (via Self)
  10. Le phénomène de la souffrance comme élément constitutif de la théophilosophie affirmative de Kierkegaard
  11. Re-reading the Religious – Aesthetically: A Literary Analysis of “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” and The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air
  12. De te fabula narratur. A Re-active Interplay with Kierkegaard’s Authorship
  13. Section 2: Sourcework Studies
  14. “Everything Has Its Time.” Kierkegaard’s Reading of Ecclesiastes
  15. Schelling in the Kierkegaardian Project: Between Kantian Critique and the Second Ethics
  16. On Kierkegaard’s Reaction to H.N. Clausen
  17. “Philosophy and Christianity can never be united”: The Role of Sibbern and Martensen in Kierkegaard’s Reception of Schleiermacher
  18. On the Origins of Kierkegaard’s Climacus Writings and Paradox Christology
  19. Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
  20. Kierkegaard’s Reception in Lithuania
  21. The Voice of Conscience, Kierkegaard’s Theory of Indirect Communication, and Buber’s Philosophy of Dialogue
  22. A Promise Kept, a Self Repeated? Reading Gjentagelsen with Ricoeur
  23. «Être sans destin»: Imre Kertész, ou le concept d’existence constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard
  24. Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
  25. Hans Lassen Martensen’s “The Present Religious Crisis”
  26. Section 5: Bibliography
  27. Kierkegaard Literature from 2005 to 2013. A Descriptive Bibliography
  28. Abbreviations
  29. List of Contributors
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