A Politics of Inwardness: Rousseau and Kierkegaard in Dialogue

Abstract

This thesis draws out some political implications of Kierkegaard’s concepts of faith, identity, and ethics. It does so by positioning Kierkegaard alongside Rousseau, whose work evinces a conflict over whether a good person can also be a good citizen. Via Rousseau, Kierkegaard’s religious individual is examined from a political perspective, putting in a new light some of the concerns that Kierkegaard’s believer is unsuitable and even noxious to political life. Kierkegaard’s own critique of Rousseau’s ideal citizen as amoral is then posited as a reason to reject Rousseau’s citizen as an alternative to the life of faith. Finally, Kierkegaard’s believer is shown to have a unique relation to politics. She participates passionately in political life as a gadfly, while maintaining a level of remove from political outcomes. Her identity does not stand or fall with the success or failure of political projects.