Publication Details

Abstract

There have been a considerable number of reactions against scholars who put radical subjectivity at the center of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. These reactions emphasize the importance of social existence in Kierkegaard’s works. The pre- sent paper agrees with these reactions, but it goes one step further by arguing that: once individuality has been established, the individual should, in certain circumstances, cut back on their individuality to become open to others. In this paper, the phrase “forgoing the self” is used as an umbrella term to discuss various forms of this process, e.g., forgetting the self, denying the self.