Kierkegaard's Dialectic of the Imagination (American University Studies Series V, Philosophy)

Although so important to him that he calls it the capacity for all capacities, Kierkegaard's concept of the imagination has received little in-depth attention. This study argues that implicit in Kierkegaard's writings is a dialectic of the imagination that finds its sources in his two-edged polemic against early German Romanticism and Idealist rationalism. Kierkegaard's dialectical alternative - developed by examining the imagination's varied uses in thinking and in the aesthetic, ethical, and religious spheres of existence - gives a functional and nuanced analysis of the imagination as an activity, a capacity, a style of artistic creativity, a passion, and a long-term disposition of a person. David J. Gouwens. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [283]-296.