Resumen: El objeto de estudio es mostrar la relevancia de la paciencia en el pensamiento kierkegaardiano. Abordaremos, en primer lugar, los textos fundamentales donde Kierkegaard la analiza. Mostraremos seguidamente la idea que tiene sobre la paciencia el paradigma clásico de San Agustín y Santo Tomás para valorar la peculiaridad del pensamiento de Kierkegaard. Explicaremos, en tercer lugar, las características de la paciencia en relación con el tiempo, el bien, el sufrimiento, la libertad y Dios en el pensador danés. Esto nos (...) permitirá valorar su aporte y la actualidad del tema.: The purpose of the study is to show the relevance of patience in kierkegaardian thought. First of all, we will deal with the fundamental texts where Kierkegaard analyses it. We will then show the idea that the classical paradigm of St. Augustine and St. Thomas has about patience in order to assess the peculiarity of Kierkegaard's thought. Thirdly, we will explain the characteristics of patience in relation to time, good, suffering, freedom and God in the Danish thinker. This will enable us to assess his contribution and the topicality of the subject. (shrink)

El presente artículo quiere acercarse al misterio del mal en la obra de S. Kierkegaard. Tomando como punto de partida la obra lanzada al mundo en vida del autor, tanto la pseudónima como la firmada por él mismo, este texto aborda el misterio del mal y su relación con el Amor de Dios, misterio central del citado pensador. Aquí se pone en valor la importancia de acercarse al misterio de la iniquidad también desde los discursos edificantes así como en Las (...) obras del amor. Al hacer esto aportamos una aproximación diferente al misterio del mal en la recepción kierkegaardiana y se pone de relevancia el amor como la manera de abordar el mal sin hacernos cómplices del mismo. Esto se hace posible, entre otros elementos, porque Dios y el que ama, mutatis mutandis, no ven lo malo del mal. (shrink)

Resumen En el siguiente artículo se ofrece un análisis del denominado “diario de Gilleleje” del filósofo danés Soren Kierkegaard. Se intenta argumentar que en este escrito temprano de 1835 y de un carácter eminentemente literario es posible encontrar las reflexiones filosóficas incipientes de un joven Kierkegaard acerca de la cuestión existencial del descubrimiento del propio Yo y la construcción de la personalidad, uno de los temas fundamentales en la obra del escritor danés. El desarrollo del texto culmina con la exposición (...) de uno de los conceptos claves del pensamiento kierkegaardiano: la verdad subjetiva.In the following article I offer an analysis of the so-called “journal of Gilleleje” by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. I would like to argue that in this early writing of 1836, a piece with a distinct literary tone, it ispossible to observe young Kierkegaard’sfirstphilosophi- cal insights on the existential question about the discovery of the self and the development of personhood, one of the key topics in the Dane's writings. The journal concludes with the exposition of a central concept in Kierkegaard’s thought: subjective truth. (shrink)

El artículo presente explica por qué Kierkegaard afirma que los pensadores modernos se equivocan cuando comprenden su propia filosofía como una filosofía cristiana. El principal problema del pensamiento moderno es que carece de un concepto correcto de pecado. Por ello, la filosofía de la modernidad solo puede desarrollar una teoría ética pero no una ética para la vida real. Únicamente el cristianismo tiene un concepto apropiado de pecado y por eso la única ética verdadera es la ética cristiana. Primero, el (...) artículo expone y critica dos objeciones a la ética intelectual desde el punto de vista de Kierkegaard. Segundo, el artículo reconstruye la noción de voluntad humana que es desarrollada en O lo uno o lo otro. Tercero, el artículo analiza el argumento principal de La enfermedad mortal: sin la idea cristiana de la voluntad, como Kierkegaard la interpreta en La enfermedad mortal, la concepción socrática e intelectual del pecado no puede ser superada. (shrink)

This article investigates difficulties in defining the concept of God by focusing on the question of what it means to understand God as a ‘person.’ This question is explored with respect to the work of Søren Kierkegaard, in dialogue with Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas. Thereby, the following three questions regarding divine ‘personhood’ come into view: First, how can God be a partner of dialogue if he at the same time remains unknown and unthinkable, a limit-concept of understanding? (...) Second, if God is love in person and at the same time a spiritual reality ‘between’ human agents, in what ways are his personal and trans-personal traits related to each other? Third, what exactly is revealed through God’s ‘name’? By way of an inconclusive conclusion, divine personhood is discussed in regard to prayer, where the problems of predication that arise in third-personal speech about God are linked with the second-personal encounter with God. (shrink)

This paper addresses ethical questions surrounding death given imagined but not unlikely technological advancements in the near future. For example, how will highly detailed interactive simulations of deceased personalities affect the way we deal with dying and interact with the dead? Most cultures have at least a vague sense of duties to the dead, and many of these duties are related to the memorial preservation of decedents. I worry that our advances might be paralleled by a deteriorating grasp of what (...) proper preservation is all about. With the phenomenological assistance of the 19th and 20th century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre, we can get a sense of some potential problems for what we ordinarily call ‘progress’. (shrink)

In the book Forgotten Connections. On Culture and Upbringing, originally from 1983, the late German educator Klaus Mollenhauer interprets Johann Friedrich Herbart’s educational concept of Bildsamkeit, i.e., the ability and willingness to be educated. Furthermore, Mollenhauer conceives Bildsamkeit as growing out of a primitive state towards a cultivated life. The Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard, however, conceives the Christian concept of ‘primitiveness’ as a growing in the opposite direction, i.e., as a growing out of a cultivated state towards a primitive one, (...) in which the self shall let itself be invented by ‘God’. Thus, I investigate whether the concept of primitiveness may enrich the reflection on the educational concept of Bildsamkeit, as it is conceived by Mollenhauer. Towards the end of the paper I turn to Emmanuel Levinas, whose ethical reading of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud may reveal a weakness in Kierkegaard’s concept of primitiveness. But rather than rejecting the concept of primitiveness, I suggest that we re-consider the concept, with the help of Levinas’s transcendental perspective of ‘God’. Essentially, I try to address the following question: Can Bildsamkeit be something more than the ability to be educated? Can not Bildsamkeit also be defined as being susceptible to ‘God’, who transcends our existence, after which we are lead towards a teaching and education otherwise? (shrink)

Feminist scholars adopt wide-ranging views of self-sacrifice: their critiques claim that women are inordinately affected by Christianity's valorization of self-sacrifice and that this traditional Christian value is inherently misogynistic and necrophilic. Although Søren Kierkegaard's Works of Love deems Christian love essentially sacrificial, love, in his view, sets significant limits on the role of self-sacrifice in human life. Through his proposed response to one who requests forgiveness, “Do you now truly love me?” Kierkegaard offers a model of forgiveness that subverts traditional (...) ideals of the self-sacrificing and submissive woman while keeping love central. The question asserts self-love, involves redoubling and double danger, and expresses a refusal to imitate Christ's suffering. I propose a reading in keeping with Grace Jantzen's vision for a feminist philosophy of religion, which reads against the grain and “seeks to break through to new ways of thinking that may open up divine horizons.” My reading is further supported by Kierkegaard's contention that everything essentially Christian bears a double meaning. In light of the subversive potential found in the discrepancy between apparent love and actual love, as well as the duty to name the sin of one who has behaved in an unloving manner, I argue that Kierkegaard's philosophy of love resists simplistic understandings of self-sacrificing love. (shrink)

This essay tries to show that there exist several passages where Kierkegaard (and his pseudonyms) sketches an argument for the existence of God and immortality that is remarkably similar to Kant's so-called moral argument for the existence of God and immortality. In particular, Kierkegaard appears to follow Kant's moral argument both when it comes to the form and content of the argument as well as some of its terminology. The essay concludes that several passages in Kierkegaard overlap significantly with Kant's (...) moral argument, although Kierkegaard ultimately favors revealed faith over natural theology in general and Kant's moral faith in particular. Whereas Kant uses the moral argument to postulate the existence of God and immortality, Kierkegaard mainly uses it as a reductio ad absurdum of non-religious thinking. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to develop a postmetaphysical conception of reading by following Kierkegaard’s Either/Or Part I (1843) through such Derridian concepts as secret, hospitality, and spectrality. The work focuses on the three essays addressed to the Symparanekromenoi (“the community of the dead”), a fellowship neither young nor old with an aphoristic way of life (2010b, pp. 137–225) that can be understood as a figure of alterity. Special attention is paid to paratextual features of the book: the texts (...) are actually presented as old papers found in a secretary desk by a pseudonymous editor (“Victor Eremita”), which suggests that every text is a posthumous paper, that is to say, it will always be read after the death of its author. Instead of finding a solid author who holds the semantic weight of the text, these papers are based in a blank of sense, a specter, a secret: if they are sustained on its author, then they are sustained in a mystery, not in a sort of revelation of meaning. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s Works of Love has often been accused of being unable to deal adequately with ‘special relationships’. This debate has re-emerged in a fresh form in a recent disagreement in the secondary literature between M. Jamie Ferreira and Sharon Krishek. Krishek charges Ferreira with failing to acknowledge some important conflicts in Kierkegaard’s account of preferential love. In this article, I argue that some key passages are indeed insufficiently addressed in Ferreira’s account. Yet ultimately, I argue, Krishek ends up condemning the (...) Kierkegaard of Works of Love unfairly. As a solution to Krishek’s concerns, I present a defence of Kierkegaard’s position centred round the image of God as a ‘filter’ through which our loves must pass. Also, while acknowledging that Krishek raises some important questions for Ferreira’s account, I outline a possible response, based in part on Kierkegaard’s idea that neighbour love is only a ‘sketch’ until brought to fruition in any given manifestation of concrete love. Ultimately, I claim, Kierkegaard’s position in Works of Love can indeed be defended from Krishek’s critique. (shrink)