| Abstrakt: |
In his self-published periodical The Moment, Søren Kierkegaard warns his reader against the possibility of 'useless suffering' ( unyttig Lidelse). Not only that, he urges the reader to make use of her suffering. Taking this caution as a point of departure, I investigate the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus' deliberations on ethico-religious suffering in the Postscript. I demonstrate that Climacus construes suffering as useful, and with that outlines an economy of suffering that Kierkegaard delineates across his pseudonymous and non-pseudonymous work. The paradigmatic expression of this is the use the subject makes of her suffering in 'the moment' ( Øieblikket), in which suffering is defined according to its relation with the eternal. Suffering is thus a key element of the individual subject's self-development: The subject is transformed, and transforms herself, in suffering. Finally, I argue that this economy of suffering produces a notion of the subject as actively involved in securing the contribution her suffering can make to her self-transformation. I criticize this notion, showing it renders problematic any ethical or ethico-religious account of the response of the subject to the suffering of the other: The subject is not first and foremost attuned to the other's suffering, rather she is attuned to the possibility of her own transformation. Suffering becomes in this way both a key exegetical tool for understanding Kierkegaard's view of the subject and, more significantly, a way to problematize Kierkegaard's ethical account of the subject's response to others' suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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