Kierkegaard and the Strategy of Time

Abstract

This paper aims at locating certain arguments developed by Søren Kierkegaard as eminent discoveries for his day, ideas that had a huge impact on major 20th-century thinkers, such as Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. More than a historical synthesis, this paper focuses on two issues. On the one hand, I analyze the notion of original sin, restructuring its meaning out of a religious context and describing its specific function for the construction of subjectivity. On the other hand, I describe a concept of time that derives from the philosopher’s specific use of language, showing thus how Kierkegaard sought to work out an explicit transition from theory to experience.