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S. Kierkegaard's Psychological Experiment

  • The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
  • Abbr : JASA
  • 2018, 54(), pp.135-170
  • DOI : 10.17527/JASA.54.0.05
  • Publisher : 한국미학예술학회
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Published : June 30, 2018

Young-So Yoo 1

1홍익대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This treatise is on the ‘psychological experiment’ practised by Søren Kierkegaard in his pseudonymous writings. For Kierkegaard the ‘psychological experiment’ or ‘imaginary psychological construction’ is a literary strategy. Kierkegaard’s aim is to study the source of movement that animates the existing individual. However, he is not interested in the representation of historical individuals in actual situations, but in the construction of fictional characters that are placed in hypothetical situations. The ‘psychological experiment’ enables him to dramatize an existential conflict in an experimental mode. Kierkegaard’s psychology is very different from how we understand psychology as science today. The first part of this article attempts to establish a general framework of early history of philosophical psychology in Copenhagen, in the 19th century as formative background of Kierkegaard’s psychology. In the next step, the conception of an imaginary psychological construction as a performative strategy for indirect communication will be discussed concretely. In conclusion, this essay will enlighten on the aesthetic significance of Kierkegaard’s psychological experiment.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.