Kierkegaard as an Antimodern Moralist: Re-Thinking “Socio-Political” Categories in Recent Kierkegaard Scholarship

Abstract The aim of this paper is to reassess Kierkegaard’s position as a “sociopolitical” thinker. In Section I the limitations of certain prevailing interpretations of Kierkegaard’s socio-political thought are discussed. In Sections II and III I advance a hermeneutic label which I believe to be more adequate to his thought, that of “antimodern.” Finally, in Section IV I draw some general conclusions with regard to the importance-not only for socio-political studies of Kierkegaard but also for other approaches-of understanding his place in the tradition of thought to which he belongs: that of the “moralists.”