1 Paper forthcoming in The Hegel Bulletin. Please see published version for citation purposes.
Kierkegaard and the Limits of Thought
Daniel Watts
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we have just contradicted ourselves. (Graham Priest) The ultimate can be reached only as limit. (Søren Kierkegaard)
Graham Priest’s Beyond the Limits of Thought (Priest 2001) parades an eclectic line-up of thinkers to show how the history of philosophy has been shaped by the spectre of paradoxes at the limits of thought. One name that is missing from Priest’s line-up is ‘Søren Kierkegaard’. This omission is something of a surprise, especially given Hegel’s centrality in the book and its (secondedition) inclusion of Heidegger and Derrida. For, Kierkegaard’s writings are famous for nothing if not the way they involve such notions as ‘the absurd’, ‘the incomprehensible’ and ‘the Absolute Paradox’ and for their opposition to Hegelian ‘mediation’. But one can appreciate why an author might hesitate to venture something pithy about Kierkegaard on the limits of thought. For one thing, there is a real question whether we are supposed to take at all seriously talk of ‘the Absolute Paradox’ and the like in his enigmatic and often playful texts. And, as we shall see, the critics are so far from consensus in this regard as to associate Kierkegaard with nearly every imaginable view.