“Existence is the Spatiating”: Typographical Thinking and the Concept of Existence in Kierkegaard’s Postscript
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Elizabeth X. Li
Abstract
This paper argues that Kierkegaard uses “spatiation”—a typographical mode of emphasis—to conceptualise human existence and simultaneously call into question the givenness or stability of a concept of existence. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, spatiation serves as a potent visual of the problem of existence. By conceptualising existence as spatiating, Climacus at once emphasises and dissolves his concept to encourage thinking about what it means to exist without resolving the difficulties of actual existence. While largely overlooked in Kierkegaard scholarship, taking into account spatiation thus offers insights into Kierkegaard’s influential foregrounding of existence and his existentially oriented approach to philosophising that seeks to engage his readers as existing and embodied individuals.
I am hugely grateful for all the invaluable comments and suggestions received on earlier versions of this paper. My thanks in particular go to colleagues in the Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion and the University Center for Human Values Postdoc Seminar; respondents at the APA Eastern 2022, and participants at SKC’s Annual Conference 2022 and Aarhus University’s Research Unit for Kierkegaard Studies.
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Titelseiten
- Preface
- Titelseiten
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
- Demonic Pantheism: Either/Or on Boredom as the Modern Crisis of Faith
- Kierkegaard, Spiritual Crisis, and Anxious Faith: Battling for Faith in Fear and Trembling and Strengthening in the Inner Being
- “Existence is the Spatiating”: Typographical Thinking and the Concept of Existence in Kierkegaard’s Postscript
- The Sickness unto Death Penalty: To Condemn the Other to Despair for the Sake of One’s Own Despair
- Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
- Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
- Re-Staging Existence: Revisiting Kierkegaard’s Theory of Life Stages
- Ignorance, Frailty, and Defiance: The Anxiety of Freedom
- Not a Negation, but a Position: Kierkegaard on Evil and Sin
- Original Sin and Transmission of Trauma: A Dialog between Kierkegaard’s Hamartiology and the Phenomenon of Transgenerationality
- “A Satire on What It Is to Be a Human Being”: A Kierkegaardian Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity
- Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Who Is the Father of Existentialism? The Historical Context of Kierkegaard’s Criticism of Hegel’s Interpretation of Actuality
- Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit Magnús Eiríksson: Werkstattbericht und Übersetzung
- Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Zwischen Glauben und Verzweiflung. Franz Werfel und Søren Kierkegaard
- La pensée existentielle de Kierkegaard et la philosophie de Charles De Koninck: contexte et résonances
- Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
- Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
- Martensen’s Review of Heiberg’s New Poems and the Discussion on Speculative Poetry and the Crisis of the Age
- Hans Lassen Martensen’s “New Poems by J.L. Heiberg”
- Abbreviations
- Abbreviations
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Titelseiten
- Preface
- Titelseiten
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
- Demonic Pantheism: Either/Or on Boredom as the Modern Crisis of Faith
- Kierkegaard, Spiritual Crisis, and Anxious Faith: Battling for Faith in Fear and Trembling and Strengthening in the Inner Being
- “Existence is the Spatiating”: Typographical Thinking and the Concept of Existence in Kierkegaard’s Postscript
- The Sickness unto Death Penalty: To Condemn the Other to Despair for the Sake of One’s Own Despair
- Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
- Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
- Re-Staging Existence: Revisiting Kierkegaard’s Theory of Life Stages
- Ignorance, Frailty, and Defiance: The Anxiety of Freedom
- Not a Negation, but a Position: Kierkegaard on Evil and Sin
- Original Sin and Transmission of Trauma: A Dialog between Kierkegaard’s Hamartiology and the Phenomenon of Transgenerationality
- “A Satire on What It Is to Be a Human Being”: A Kierkegaardian Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity
- Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Who Is the Father of Existentialism? The Historical Context of Kierkegaard’s Criticism of Hegel’s Interpretation of Actuality
- Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit Magnús Eiríksson: Werkstattbericht und Übersetzung
- Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Zwischen Glauben und Verzweiflung. Franz Werfel und Søren Kierkegaard
- La pensée existentielle de Kierkegaard et la philosophie de Charles De Koninck: contexte et résonances
- Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
- Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
- Martensen’s Review of Heiberg’s New Poems and the Discussion on Speculative Poetry and the Crisis of the Age
- Hans Lassen Martensen’s “New Poems by J.L. Heiberg”
- Abbreviations
- Abbreviations
