Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition

In this paper, I reconstruct the understanding of selfhood in The Sickness unto Death. Using Leo Tolstoy's character Ivan Ilyich, I argue that one can become alienated from oneself, although one is completely socially recognized. I critically engage this reconstruction with the theories of soci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Kierkegaard studies / Yearbook
Subtitles:Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
Main Author: Lundsgaard-Leth, Kresten (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter [2018]
In: Kierkegaard studies / Yearbook
RelBib Classification:KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
NBE Anthropology
VA Philosophy
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Summary:In this paper, I reconstruct the understanding of selfhood in The Sickness unto Death. Using Leo Tolstoy's character Ivan Ilyich, I argue that one can become alienated from oneself, although one is completely socially recognized. I critically engage this reconstruction with the theories of social agency of Axel Honneth and Robert Pippin and the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. In the end, Anti-Climacus offers a notion of self-relating selfhood, which keeps a balance between the radical self-construction of Sartre and the theories of social dependency of Honneth and Pippin by understanding "God" as the necessity of having irreducibly personal reasons for becoming oneself.
ISSN:1612-9792
Contains:Enthalten in: Kierkegaard studies / Yearbook
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/kierke-2018-0007