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BY-NC-ND 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access October 2, 2019

Patheticness and the Mundane Phenomenalisation of Transcendence according to Kierkegaard

  • Maria Gołębiewska EMAIL logo
From the journal Open Theology

Abstract

Referring to the Platonic division between the transcendent and the immanent world as but a manifestation of the former, Søren Kierkegaard grasped the phenomenal character of the earthly world. According to Kierkegaard, in Transcendence, God is, and the transcendent Ideas exist as patterns of beings given to us in temporality, the fontal phenomenal character of which (as manifestations) intertwines with the real mundane ontological character. Kierkegaard argued against the Hegelian theory of dialectics, as well as the pathos theory, presenting dialecticity and patheticness as two ways in which the existing subject refers to the immanent world of temporality and the spiritual realm of Transcendence. The process of phenomenalisation, accomplished along with the existence of all earthly beings, is accompanied by a singular, subjective response of each individual to the immanent world. This response assumes the form of a dialectical balanced reaction, or a pathetic, hyperbolic, in the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages of individual existence (in the religious stage, it is a response to the world of Transcendence). The paper is dedicated to discussing the relations of the process of the phenomenalisation of Transcendence to its individual, religious responses, particularly the relations to the pathetic type of religious response, as indicated by Kierkegaard.

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Received: 2019-04-23
Accepted: 2019-08-08
Published Online: 2019-10-02

© 2019 Maria Gołębiewska, published by De Gruyter

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

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