Kierkegaard on Imitation and Ethics: Toward a Secular Project?
This essay demonstrates the prominence of imitation in Kierkegaard’s ethics. I move beyond his idea of authentic existence modeled on Christ and explore the secular dimension of Kierkegaard’s insights about human nature and imitation. I start with presenting imitation as key to understanding the eth...
| Published in: | Journal of religious ethics |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2020]
|
| In: |
Journal of religious ethics
|
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Kierkegaard, Søren 1813-1855
/ Human being
/ Individuality
/ Immitation
|
| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism NCB Personal ethics VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Ethics
B Gabriel Tarde B Comparison B Søren Kierkegaard B Imitation B Friedrich Schleiermacher |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This essay demonstrates the prominence of imitation in Kierkegaard’s ethics. I move beyond his idea of authentic existence modeled on Christ and explore the secular dimension of Kierkegaard’s insights about human nature and imitation. I start with presenting imitation as key to understanding the ethical dimension of the relationship between the universal and individual aspects of the human self in Kierkegaard. I then show that Kierkegaard’s moral concepts of “primitivity” and “comparison” are a response to his sociological and psychological observations about imitation from an ethical point of view. In the final section of this paper, I briefly engage Friedrich Schleiermacher’s “ethics of individuality” and Gabriel Tarde’s “laws of imitation” to explore Kierkegaard’s consideration of ethics and imitation as situated within the context of a broader conversation on imitation. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1467-9795 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/jore.12322 |