ABSTRACT
The word Experiment (Kierkegaard’s spelling) is derived from the Latin experimentum, a “trial,” “test” (from the verb experiri, “to try,” “put to the test”). Psykologi is from the post-classical Latin psychologia, which is derived from the Greek ψυχή, meaning “life” or “breath,” and λόγος, meaning “word,” “reason,” or “discourse.”1 For Kierkegaard the “psychological experiment” or “imaginary psychological construction” is a literary strategy. It enables him to dramatize an existential conflict in an experimental mode.2 Kierkegaard’s aim is to study the source of movement that animates the existing individual (this is the psychological part). 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; this allows him to set the categories in motion “in order to observe completely undisturbed what these require”3 without caring to what extent someone has met this requirement or is able to meet it (this is the experimental part).
