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Soren Kierkegaard knew that the religious relationship calls the human being into a twofold process involving language. On the one hand, human beings are called to name and describe in language the reality being experienced; yet, on the other hand, they are called to negate the naming and the discursive, linguistic descriptions because such naming and descriptions always fall short of giving proper expression to the reality being named. Kierkegaard's potency as a religious and philosophical thinker resided in his singular capacity for carrying out both sides of this calling. He could engage in naming with the best of them, but he was also unrelenting in his engagement in the activity of negating. A rationality of the deepest sort is at play more obviously in naming but also less obviously in negating, and Kierkegaard's dialectical gifts served him well in the two arenas. One element of language that plays an important role in both naming and negating is the concept. Some concepts come to be very important for a thinker because they are terms that express in a word a whole set of claims being affirmed. To gain an understanding of these central concepts can facilitate the inquirer's grasping the viewpoint of the thinker employing them. This surely is the case with Kierkegaard: learning the meaning of his central concepts is the key into his world of thought. |
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