| My doctoral dissertation focuses on the various meanings and implications of the notion of alterity in Soren Kierkegaard's thought. My interpretation unearths, in this sense, three senses of otherness which are explicitly informed by the Christian religion: the infinite alterity of God, the paradoxical alterity of Christ, and the alterity of the human other. My principal aim is to develop each of these forms and thematize how they relate to one another. Methodologically, I elaborate my topic by combining Kierkegaard's theology with his distinct philosophical psychology. First, I argue that the human individual is, according to Kierkegaard, other-related. Second, this otherness is construed by means of a deliberate appropriation of the Christian doctrine of God, salvation, and creatureliness. My argument will, therefore, be holistic in nature, engaging with Kierkegaard's authorship as a whole. The primary contribution of this work is that it recounts a uniquely Christian narrative of alterity, voiced by one of the greatest religious thinkers of the 19 th century. Moreover, within the extant scholarship, its originality consists of a thematic and comprehensive analysis of alterity, in general; the construal of a link between Kierkegaard's philosophical anthropology and Christology; the central significance of the doctrinal notion of sinfulness in Kierkegaard's soteriology; the coherence and consistency of Kierkegaard's views of God and Christ given his interpretation of sin; a complete description of human otherness in relation to the self's task of fulfilling the imperatives of salvation. Finally, some major criticisms against Kierkegaard's Christian philosophy are addressed in a new way on the basis of all the elements enumerated above. |
