Abstract

This dissertation proposes a new interpretative thesis concerning the role of silence in Soren Kierkegaard's ethics. Although previous scholarship has detailed silence's negative relationship with ethics, I argue that Kierkegaard's texts indicate his consideration of silence's positive ethical role. After clarifying the distinction between Kierkegaard's first and second ethics and enquiring into Kierkegaard's particular meaning of silence, I show that silence fulfills the imperatives of the Kierkegaard's second ethics. In conclusion, I apply the notion of ethical silence to the broader task of interpreting Kierkegaard's views on freedom and responsibility