The Beloved Difference

Ontology of Relationship and Aesthetics of Love in S. Kierkegaard

Abstract

The “I”, man, is a derived relationship that owes its existence to an Other. Recalling Christian spirituality and tradition, Kierkegaard situates the question of the subject in its difficult equilibrium between identity and relation, between proximity and transcendence. The “I” recognizes itself as such only through its relation with Someone else and this means both with another I, and the Absolute, God, who as creator, establishes the same rapport. Kierkegaard re-presents interiority as a way of approaching the transcendent by seeing the person not as alien to us but as one who, through love and by means of love, becomes our neighbor.