Project seminar: Paulo Henrique Lopes

What does Kierkegaardian pseudonymity tells us about the contemporary metaphysical crisis?

Abstract

On my study upon the kierkegaardian writing style, focusing on the dialectics between form and content of the authorship, I tried to lead Kierkegaardian pseudonymity to its limits: the point where – if the pseudonyms must be treated as authors – Kierkegaard’s name becomes equivalent to the pseudonyms among the authorship. This radical deconstruction of a central author’s authority poses itself as a fundamental philosophical question, with profound implications to the study of the Kierkegaardian work. Since the pseudonymity now becomes more than an aesthetic detail, but an aesthetic trait by which the religious, the existential and the subjective content avoids to contradict itself, the form of this content must not impose an absolute point of view or an objective/direct/systemic intention over the whole work. The form must be indirect. Considering the Kierkegaardian “meta-texts” and some diaries entries, I defend that pseudonymity is not a question of a mere stylistic choice, but an indispensable philosophical/theological resource that performs a textual metaphysical turn that gets close to some contemporary issues (such as The Death of the Author, by Barthes, and the overcoming of the author by the work, as points us Derrida and Deleuze).

Keywords: Indirect communication; form and content; writing style; metaphysics; post-structuralism.