‚Für das Bestehende spendiert‘: Die Kategorie des Korrektivs als Instrument der schriftstellerischen und existentiellen Selbstpositionierung Kierkegaards

Abstract

Abstract The concept of the corrective is among Kierkegaard’s pivotal categories of self-interpretation. Situated mainly in his journals, it is used by Kierkegaard for the purpose of specifying his task as a religious author. The overall goal of the present article is systematically to develop the concept and its relation to and relevance for Kierkegaard’s entire oeuvre. In doing so, it will contextualize the term and its use by invoking related concepts, such as the martyr, the fool in Christ or the reformer, in order to shed new light on the corrective’s meaning and function/s. In particular, four motives for the usage of the „corrective“ will be distinguished; they help to identify those elements and parts of Kierkegaard’s authorship which are obviously supposed to function as a corrective to „the established order.“ The identification of these parts allows for making sense of and for critically evaluating Kierkegaard’s viewpoints, in particular those which appear to be one-sided and/or exaggerated. After all, a corrective is meant to do its job in the service of an existing order, not as its opposition or enemy. Hence, according to Kierkegaard, the task of a corrective is deeply dialectical, both affirmative and critical at the same time. And yet, considering the latter, the historical and cultural context is paramount and as such must not be overlooked; for otherwise a corrective is erroneously taken as an absolute norm—a mistake, which fatally repeats the very flaw that it is supposed to correct.