A path to authenticity: Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky on existential transformation

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87 (1):81-108 (2020)
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Abstract

While there has been considerable interest in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and Fyodor Dostoevsky, both of whom are considered seminal existential thinkers, relatively little has been said about similarities in their thought. In this paper, I propose to read their philosophical and literary works together as texts that offer an elaborate model of an existential religious transformation. Both Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky sketch a path leading from the inauthentic, internally fragmented and egotistic self to the authentically Christian, humble and loving individual. By examining the underlying structure of this transformative process, I try to show that its portrayal is in many ways similar in the account of both writers. Furthermore, I maintain that they set out not only to describe the inner workings of the existential religious transformation, but that their effort constitutes a direct appeal to the reader to initiate the transformative process herself or himself.

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Petr Vaškovic
Charles University, Prague

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References found in this work

Eros and self-emptying: the intersections of Augustine and Kierkegaard.Lee C. Barrett - 2013 - Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co..
The Outsider.Colin Wilson - 1982 - TarcherPerigee.
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Kierkegaard.Alastair Hannay - 1984 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 15 (1):95-96.
Kierkegaard's kenotic Christology.David R. Law - 2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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