SKC Annual Conference 2024

“Kierkegaard Between Individuality and Sociality”

”. . . were I to require an inscription on my gravestone, I would require nothing other than ‘that individual,’” Kierkegaard wrote in 1847, thereby contributing to the reinforcement of his image as individuality’s spokesman. Neither can it be denied that both his published writings and his journals dwell ceaselessly upon the importance of choosing—and taking ownership of—one’s self in conscious distance from the multitude, from the mass, and from other agents of depersonalization, including the philosophical systems, the populist press, and the continual levelling that characterize modernity. But Kierkegaard is something other and more than individuality’s thinker. This emerges most strikingly in Works of Love, in which “the other” has constitutive significance for the self-relationship, but it is also attested to in the edifying discourses, which often employ a social vocabulary and have a critical consciousness of the risks inherent in religious individualism. Correspondingly, the alternative to Kierkegaard’s critique of the rise of popular government is neither aristocratic isolation nor intellectual elitism, but is rather a qualified form of community, composed of independent individuals. And his anti-totalitarian stance is visible in the suspicious attitude with which he approached the growing vogue of asocial cliques, the dissolution of conversation into non-committal chatter, and the continually growing “fear of people” (Menneskefrygt) that unavoidably gives rise to unease and resentment in social space. As a sort of democrat prior to the establishment of democracy, Kierkegaard enjoyed his daily “people bath” and understood early on that humanity (Menneskelighed) was connected to human equality (Menneske-Lighed).

The goal of the conference is to discuss and develop the relation between individuality and sociality, approached from viewpoints of theology, philosophy, and politics—in fact, all the way down to the level of Kierkegaard’s choice of pronouns and his grammatical usage in texts of various types. What is the status of “I”, “we”, “you” in both the pseudonymous and the edifying works? Over the course of Kierkegaard’s authorship is there a shift in emphasis in the relation between individual and social—and if so, why? What role is played by his personal experiences with the surrounding world? Is it possible to produce an ideological profile of Kierkegaard? Can we make use of Kierkegaard’s understanding of individuality and sociality in working with the problems that confront us in the 21st century? Is his concept of individuality in danger of degenerating into existentialist hyper-subjectivism? In a world threatened with global catastrophes, is his critique of sociality something from a bygone era? In brief, how can Kierkegaard be retained as a “corrective” to “the established order?” Is there still a use for his radicality—individually as well as socially?

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