Abstract

In this project, a Kierkegaardian concept of community is developed despite Kierkegaard's emphasis on the individual over and against the collective. It will require a new reading of Kierkegaard that moves beyond Kierkegaard as the champion of the individual. This new reading suggests that the retrieval of the individual is necessary for important concepts like religion, relations, faith, and community to be enriched and developed. This reading, first and foremost, provides a consistent account of Kierkegaard's authorship from his earliest works in the University to his attack at the end of his life. This reading provides a framework to discuss the role of the individual in the formation of community within Kierkegaard's thought. This framework is a new and unique contribution to discourses concerning community and the relation between unity and difference. Under this reading, no single doctrine, set of dogmas, or tradition is sufficient to bring unity and solidarity. It is only through the individual that there becomes a possibility of community. These themes are manifested throughout this project. The individual in Kierkegaard's thought is characterized as a corrective. The individual remedies the establishment's emphasis on the collective. This blocks the temptation to diminish the individual for the sake of relations between people. Finally, the relation of the individual to others is examined through Kierkegaard's development of Church. This discussion provides a means to discuss in concrete the role of the individual in relation to other individuals of a community