Kierkegaard's and Heidegger's Analysis of Existence and its Relation to Proclamation

Abstract

In its first five chapters, this book offers a comparative assessment of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, drawing out both similarities and differences. In the remaining three chapters, their views are subject to critique. The interpretation focuses on certain key ideas that are central to both thinkers, such as ‘life in the crowd’ or ‘das Man’; how this uniformity can be avoided; and what an authentic life requires instead. The critique argues that Kierkegaard holds that the only way to escape life in the crowd is through a relation to an infinite demand which is left empty, and Heidegger avoids offering any kind of ethics. In contrast to both, it is argued that it is instead possible to have an ethic which is not just a set of social rules on the one hand, but is more contentful than Kierkegaard’s infinite demand on the other: namely, the requirement or ethical demand to take on responsibility for the other person whose life is placed in your hands. This responsibility for the other, which sets the responsible individual apart, frees them from the crowd and thus offers an ethical route to an authentic existence, which both Kierkegaard and Heidegger overlook.