ABSTRACT
The discussion of Soren Kierkegaard's texts in this chapter has three aspects. Firstly, the chapter explores the way Kierkegaard takes up the themes and problems identified in linguistic thought. Secondly, it traces the continuity of Kierkegaard's interest in issues surrounding language and words throughout his authorship, from journal entries of 1837 to Practice in Christianity (1850) and beyond. Finally, the chapter shows how Kierkegaard approaches the question of language through the 'boundary disputes' between language and various philosophical, aesthetic and dogmatic concepts: immediacy, consciousness, music, sin, ethics and the paradox. Kierkegaard's concern was to stop Christian terms being divested of their supernatural content by incorporation into philosophical systems. Kierkegaard seems to have toyed with the idea of identifying language with the serpent, an indication perhaps of its potentially demonic consequences. It is a consideration of language in the abstract which appears to lead us to doubt the possibility of communication.
