Abstract

According to the standard interpretation, Kierkegaard advocates an atomistic individualism that precludes positive relations with others. The thesis here is that this is incorrect. Two versions are advanced. The milder claims that the logic of Kierkegaard's concept of the individual and critique of association does not entail a rejection of community; specifically a community of Christians. The stronger claims that Kierkegaard himself affirms such community. Its generality notwithstanding, Kierkegaard's criticism is of particular types of association: generically, "the crowd." Theologically, his objection is not to the Church qua Church but to a departure from its genuine mission and nature. ;To substantiate this we must determine precisely what Kierkegaard means by "individual" and "crowd." The hermeneutical context for this is his goal of reintroducing Christianity into Christendom. Responsibility is identified as the defining characteristic of life as an individual and Christianity its completion. Correlatively, the flight from responsibility is the driving force of life in the crowd. The attack on the established Church is the logical and polemical culmination of this parallel dialectic. ;Going beyond exposition, we argue for the essential truth of Kierkegaard's dialectic; specifically, that there are limits to what we can do for one another and that these limits are required by the concepts of freedom and responsibility. Logically, however, this does not entail a rejection of relations with others, which suggests the possibility of forms of association compatible with life as an individual . Kierkegaard confirms these logical reflections in Works of Love which explicitly affirms the need to love others. In support of our stronger thesis, a rationale is developed to reconcile these positive comments on relations with others with his more characteristic indictment. Textual evidence is advanced showing that Kierkegaard consciously presupposes a working concept of the Church and distinguishes between authentic community made up of single individuals, which he affirms, and the crowd which he rejects. The Church ought to be the former. When it is not, Kierkegaard denounces it--for the sake of the true Church