In the Middle of Love

At the Fringes of Personhood. An Explorative Essay on the Dialogue of I and Thou and the Poetics of the Impersonal

Bibliographic Data

ID3311642
AuthorsKasper Lysemose (0000-0001-9360-2112, Aarhus University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume12
Issue6
Pages435
Publication date2021-06-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel12060435
OpenAlexW3170884874
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

In Works of Love, Søren Kierkegaard introduces the idea that God's love is "the middle term." It is a love that manages to be in the middle of all created being. To that extent, love is not just one relation among others, but the "being-in-relation" as such. It is, in Heideggerian terms, "the with" of being-with. This implies, further, that the middle is as inconspicuous as it is ubiquitous. According to Martin Buber, however, there is a privileged relation to the middle in the I-Thou relation. It is here that it reveals itself. For Buber, this is so on the strength of two important traits of this dyadic relation: that it is dialogical and personal. It is in dialogue that I and You are responsive to the word of God; and it is in personal co-presence that the theophany of "the absolute person" may occur. This paper explores these tenets of "philosophy of dialogue" at their fringes. Accordingly, it explores the impersonal in the person and the monologue in dialogue. More specifically, it aims to show how: (a) the impersonal in the person is disclosed in love and angst and how (b) the monologue in dialogue is expressed in a poetics of the impersonal

Dialogical self · Epistemology · Linguistics · Personhood · Poetics · Poetry · Sociology · Theology · Thou · Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism

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