A verdade da existência na existência da verdade: a epistemologia paradoxal-amorosa de Kierkegaard

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to situate the epistemological issue in Kierkegaard as an existential one, as well as an issue of love. We will therefore, especially through the pseudonymous works of Johannes Climacus, explore the notions of knowledge and truth, which will provide us with the structure of Kierkegaard’s epistemology. We will then point out two epistemological dimensions: a negative one, that states the impossibility of knowledge; and a paradoxical one, that states its possibility. We will show that the second dimension relates itself to that which Climacus in his Philosophical Fragments calls the Absolute Paradox, and we will than see that a relation with the truth is only possible through a relation with the paradox. We will also, through Climacus’ Post Script, understand the subjective aspect of this relation. It is, nevertheless, only through AntiClimacus that this knowledge will be presented as a dynamic and living relation, which simultaneously encompasses and goes beyond its cognitive aspect. Lastly, we will seek to understand, through a non-pseudonymous work, The Works of Love, in which sense this relation goes beyond the cognitive aspect and reveals not only a subjective but also an intersubjective dimension when we understand this paradoxical knowledge as a loving knowledge.