Presence-absence. Woman in Kierkegaard’s philosophy.

 Within his body of work, and in particular in the context of the dialectic of stages, articulated in Enten-Eller and in Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard develops a conceptualization of female subjectivity which, in its subordinate and complementary relation to the male Subject, is configured as Non-subjectivity. Through a dialectic of inclusion-exclusion, woman represents the Other of Kierkegaardian philosophy, at once included and excluded from the boundaries of the ethicaluniversal. Woman thus represents the shadow of male subjectivity, which is aff irmed only to be denied in a more fundamental sense; only posited to represent the antithesis, necessary and subordinate, of the neutral-masculine Subject.

Woman, Subject, Dialectic of stages, Difference, Exclusion, Metonymy.

DOI

10.53129/gcsi_01-2023-15