Abstract

The dissertation initiates the attempt to "make sense" of a particular stylistic feature that frequently emerges in Kierkegaard's language: the imagery of the detective, be this the agent or the milieu. ;This imagery and its peculiar Metaphorik are particularly significant in the first part of Either-Or. Instead of connecting this imagery and Metaphorik to the biographical "ambiance" of the author, Kierkegaard, the dissertation considers them as integral parts of Either-Or both as a work of philosophy and as a work of fiction. Thus it merges content and manner of writing in order to achieve--via literary interpretation--a new reading of the first part of Either-Or. Such a reading has been heretofore precluded by the critical presuppositions that the imagery of the detective is to be understood only in connection with the personal biography of SK. ;The center of the analysis emerges from the texts themselves: the guiding metaphor, the "confidence man" in its various Kierkegaardian forms, is employed as a leitmotif that structures the analysis. In order to demonstrate my thesis, I connect this leitmotif with the peculiar philosophical rigor that Kierkegaard employed: his displacement of the "metaphysical assumption" of German idealism from the realm of philosophy into the realm of religious faith. How does this step, so runs my inquiry, affect the traditional role of philosophy and its caretaker, the philosopher? A possible answer appears to be hidden in the very Schreibart and Metaphorik of Either-Or. This literary-philosophical approach chronicles the emerging significance of the "modern" detective from Kierkegaard's rejection of classical metaphysics