Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Marzieh Bigdeli ¹
• Bijhan Abdolkarimi ²

¹ Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Philosophy, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran

Abstract

This article revolves around Kierkegaard's arguments about love. Kierkegaard is a pioneer existentialism and one of the main theologians of the 19th century. Love is one of the fundamental concepts of Kierkegaard's thinking, as he dedicated one of his significant books entitled Works of Love (1847) to this concept. In this book, Kierkegaard has created a constellation of concepts related to love and has proposed a new interpretation of the Christian love. Then, he designs new concepts through separating divine love from erotic love. In modern times, love is considered a category of emotions and feelings, but for Kierkegaard it has different connotations. For him, love is a philosophical, existential and fundamental concept. He considers Christian love to be the only true love and believes that in the holy scripture, true love has found meaning in relation to God. In this article, we are going to outline Kierkegaard's opinions about divine love and love for the other and delineate the relationship between the two, while criticizing and evaluating them.

Keywords

• Soren Kierkegaard
• works of love
• Christian love
• Agape
• Philia
• Eros

Main Subjects

• philosophy