ABSTRACT
The most frequent occurrence of the word “spiritlessness” in Kierkegaard’s published works is in The Concept of Anxiety, followed by The Sickness unto Death, then the essay entitled “Does a Human Being Have the Right to Let Himself Be Put to Death for the Truth?”—which originally appeared as the first of the Two EthicalReligious Essays. This, in its turn, means both that the concept of “spiritlessness” is present throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship and that it has, as such, notwithstanding its relative invisibility, a prominent role in terms of the structuring of this same production. However, since it operates precisely as a concept of a more structural nature throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship, the fact that it appears more in some works than in others should not divert one’s attention from the fact that the concept of “spiritlessness” may be as much implied by Kierkegaard as it is effectively demanded by him; thus, he may address the issue of spiritlessness either through the use of the adjective “spiritless” or through its implication, as when he indirectly deals with it through a related constellation of concepts such as “busyness,” “double-mindedness,” “despair,” “worldliness,” and the like. In sum, the concept of “spiritlessness” is one of the most representative concepts in the entire work of Kierkegaard, on account of its semantic concision or concentration.
