Works ofLove and the Structure of Interpretation: The Likefor-Like of Neighbour and Metaphor

Abstract

A central problem posed by Kierkegaard's works, by his edifying or acknowledged no less than by his pseudonymous works, is their universal applicability. The problem of universality is the issue posed by all texts, by the hermeneutical problem of self and other, of unique and universal. But, following Spinoza, Kant and Hegel who demonstrate that reason is the universally ethical practice of mutually acknowledging the authority of the golden rule — spirit recognizing spirit, in the language of The Phenomenology of Spirit — Kierkegaard raises the problem of interpretation to a new pitch. He both invests Christianity and its central figure, the God-man, with the truth — in opposition to what he calls the system, Christendom, paganism along with its archetypal figure Socrates, and also Judaism (the Old Testament) — and insists at the same time on the incommensurability of the single individual, the truth of subjectivity, the leap of faith. Kierkegaard not only identifies Christianity, truth and the individual- the individual is the truth of Christianity, Christianity is the individual truth, truth is the individual Christian and so on — but he also demonstrates, with unrelenting if infinitely subtle rigor, that Christianity, truth and the individual are historical. All three must come into existence historically in order to be Christian, true and individual. History and Christianity are identified, history and truth are identified, history and the individual are identified. Kierkegaard ultimately identifies existence itself with history, Christianity and the individual.