Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
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Amanda Houmark
Abstract
This paper seeks to emphasize the connection between the concepts of anxiety and love as central phenomena in both Kierkegaard’s anthropology and ethics. Through the analysis of these two concepts, which Kierkegaard says “to be in the ground of man,” this paper argues that love or purity of heart should not be seen as an alternative or solution to anxiety or ambiguity. Instead, it suggests that understanding the two concepts jointly unveils how the single individual in subjectivity is in a constant flux between entangling oneself in a self-enclosed reserve on the one hand and opening up to the risks of being on 70,000 fathoms of water and yet being joyful on the other hand.
This article is a revised version of SKC Project Seminar paper “Subjectivity is the Problem: Love and Anxiety in Kierkegaard” presented on September 29th 2017 (Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen).
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
- There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral Exceptionalism
- Kierkegaard on Variation and Thought Experiment
- Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
- Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
- Anti-Climacus’ Inverted Dialectic of Divine Grace and Human Activity
- Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition
- A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
- The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
- Section 2: Source–work Studies
- Kierkegaard and the Danish Golden Age: The Strengths and Limits of Source-Work Research
- From Enthusiasm to Irony: Kierkegaard’s Reception of Norse Mythology and Literature
- Die Ausnahme bei Christian Garve und Søren Kierkegaard
- Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
- Erkenntnis und Liebe. Zur Nähe und Ferne zwischen Heinrich Barths und Søren Kierkegaards Verständnis von Gemeinschaft
- Communication of Existence: Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel
- Pseudonymous Voices Talking Back: Kierkegaard’s Plural Perspectives and a Wittgensteinian Point of View
- Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
- Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
- There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral Exceptionalism
- Kierkegaard on Variation and Thought Experiment
- Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
- Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
- Anti-Climacus’ Inverted Dialectic of Divine Grace and Human Activity
- Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition
- A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
- The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
- Section 2: Source–work Studies
- Kierkegaard and the Danish Golden Age: The Strengths and Limits of Source-Work Research
- From Enthusiasm to Irony: Kierkegaard’s Reception of Norse Mythology and Literature
- Die Ausnahme bei Christian Garve und Søren Kierkegaard
- Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
- Erkenntnis und Liebe. Zur Nähe und Ferne zwischen Heinrich Barths und Søren Kierkegaards Verständnis von Gemeinschaft
- Communication of Existence: Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel
- Pseudonymous Voices Talking Back: Kierkegaard’s Plural Perspectives and a Wittgensteinian Point of View
- Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
- Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
