Kierkegaard’s Place in the Hermeneutic Project

Abstract

The basic theme of radical hermeneutics – the effort to restore life to its original difficulty, i.e., To take stock of life in all of its uncertainty and undecidability – draws deeply upon kierkegaard's project as a writer. The key terms here are "restore" and "original". For if something needs to be restored to its original form or status, the implication is that it has been covered up, bastardized, or falsified. According to radical hermeneutics, the classic western metaphysics of presence, which takes being as an abiding permanence ("essentia, natura, eidos, ousia") has engendered this illusion. It is for this reason that caputo (in his recent book "radical hermeneutics") endorses heraclitus, not parmenides; aristotle instead of plato; nietzsche instead of hegel. The religious insight that animates radical hermeneutics – its attempt to cope with the sufferings induced by the flux, and its rejection of metaphysics – brings it into a deep and genuine association with kierkegaard's thought.