Toward a Positive Defense of Existential Truth

Abstract

Kierkegaard’s conception of the truth as “subjectivity” has sparked a lot of debate throughout the years, since some people—mistakenly, in my opinion—have interpreted it solely as a dismissal of objectivity or the “what” of truth. As a counterweight, many other authors have tried to defend Kierkegaard from these accusations and take away the label of “irrationalist”. But I think that this is not enough: to do justice to the depth of his thought, it is not enough to point out what Kierkegaard is not or does not say; rather than soften his position to make it compatible with the atmosphere of scientism in which we are immersed today, perhaps it would be more appropriate to try to understand the meaning of his forceful assertions and look for the positive aspects of that “existential truth”. That is what I aim to do in this article.