Project seminar: Paulo Abe

Abstract

The present project seeks to explore the relation between despair and paradox in Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy. For that, it will be necessary to analyze primary concepts such as the self, the stages of the aesthetic, ethical and religious life. Throughout this emerge the concept of paradox in its various meanings and sketch a trail of its development where it is presented implicitly and explicitly

After this part, we discuss other concept related to the paradox, as the repetition, the moment, the Other, the unknown, transparency and also humility. In some sense the end of this part is concerned with the more philosophical part of the religious sphere. 

We devided the paradox in two ways. Primarily, we deal with it in the field of the individual himself and his coming into existence, namely, the rebirth in life. In other words, the concept of repetition. Posteriorly, we face the incarnation of the eternal, that is, the coming into existence of the pure Essence. Both concepts are paradoxical once they deal with the coexistence non-contradictory of various dualities of opposites, such as the eternal and the temporal. This process of them both opens a communication, wich is the teaching-learning action, that Kierkegaard calls “the moment”. This proceeding will turn the man able to have consciousness of himself and of the absolute difference that separates him from God. But for that to happen it is necessary to become humble and transparent to himself, hence only by doing this the paradox will be reached by the spirit of man.

On the second part, the concept of despair will be analyzed in two sets of three stages: 1), the self as synthesis, the self as self-relating and the self as dependent to God. 2), aesthetic, ethical and the religious stages. 3), despair will be discussed in the sphere of consciousness.