ABSTRACT
The lexical meaning of Andethed in Danish is a quality of being something else, characteristic of a different nature. Andethed is similar to the Danish Anderledeshed (otherness, difference), which carries the meaning of a positive quality of an existence in something loftier, without which a human being is worthless.1 Det Andet, a concept that translates as “the other,” appears several times in Kierkegaard’s writings. Det Andet finds resonance in the Danish anden, or “second,” which also means “other” as in det andet køn or “the other sex” (about women), that which is in contrast in kind or what is not the same, ulig (unlike), forskellig (different), fremmed (foreign). Anden can be a reference to something that replaces something else, the nye (new), or what is modified or completely different from what has been in the past.2 The philosophical connotation of anden relates to the Danish verb alterere as well as the noun Alteration (from the French altérer and Latin alterare), meaning to transform or alter, literally in philosophy “to other.”3
