In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.1 (2000) 78-88 [Access article in PDF] Kierkegaardian seduction, or the aesthetic actio(nes) in distans Begonya Saez Tajafuerce The one who cannot seduce people cannot save them either. --Søren Kierkegaard, Papirer IX A 383 Being an heir of Romanticism, Søren Kierkegaard appropriates the figure of seduction in his works and thought, yet he does so in a critical and unconventional manner. For Kierkegaard, seduction can no longer be (...) described or conceived of as an exclusively aesthetic undertaking, as the sheer fulfillment of pleasure and desire, as the factual consolidation of immediacy and sensuousness, but, on the contrary, seduction must be redescribed and reconceived within the realm of ethics or, to be more precise, within the confinium or border area between ethics and aesthetics. In this sui generis no-man's-land, which to a certain extent is formally inaugurated and categorially established by the notion of aesthetic action, as we will see--resides the ethical seduction.In effect, such a reconception of seduction presupposes an organic and dialectic recomprehension of the well-known Kierkegaardian theory of the stages, according to which any significant relation between the aesthetic and the ethical is not grounded on the evident divergences between both but, on the contrary, on their coadjuvancy. The point is that neither the aesthetic nor the ethical can or should be understood if disconnected, if incommensurably read, if seen only in the light of (an) Either/Or [E/O 1, 2].Forged within the aforementioned ambivalent frame, the Kierkegaardian figure of seduction becomes more than just a category, a sheer theoretic or analytic tool to reflect upon existence: it becomes a literary strategy as well, of philosophical and specifically ethical signification.Through an examination of some texts of E/O 1 (especially "The Seducer's Diary") and of Kierkegaard's journals and papers, I will pursue a typology of seduction with three modes: the musical seduction, or Don Juan's; the linguistic seduction, or Faust's; and the literary seduction, or Johannes's. The johannesque seduction will be stressed as the first janus frontis of the dilemma between the aesthetic and the ethical stages, to blur the conventional differences between both. Then I will bring Johannes, the seducer, and A, the aesthete, close to each other in order to illuminate what might be understood as [End Page 78] the aesthetic action. It will be argued that the aesthetic can no longer be deprived of all pragmatic connotations. Therewith, not only are the limits or chiasm between aesthetics and ethics blurred, but a common categorial space is established. The paradigmatic action in this context will be the johannesque actio(nes) in distans, that is, the second janus frontis of our dilemma. Finally, I will briefly consider Søren Kierkegaard's own aesthetic action or actio(nes) in distans, that is, his own literary practice. Seducers: Don Juan and Faust A typological consideration of the figure of seduction in E/O 1 quickly makes it clear that Kierkegaard's main source of inspiration, or rather of conceptual kleptomania, is to be found in Romanticism. 1 In this spirit, A, the aesthete, would let himself be brought from reflection to reflection, from insight to insight, and from glimpse to glimpse, by the experienced guiding hands of (his colleagues) Don Juan and Faust.In 1836, several years before the publication of E/O, where Don Juan and Faust are characterized as and related to the phenomenological realm of the demonic (det dœmoniske), Kierkegaard significantly writes in his journals that both cases, or figures, incarnate two "ideas," that is, two paradigmatic vital ideals or even two conceptions of life, which take shape "beyond the religious" [Pap I A 150]. 2 Consequently, seduction presupposes a nonreligious conception and/or way of life. It seems unclear, however, whether seduction presupposes, as Judge Wilhelm claims it does, a full rejection of the ethical. In E/O 2 Wilhelm states that all seducers share the virtue of holding the "ethical determinations" in check [SKS 3: 196], but he is by no means aware of what the game may... (shrink)