Lust zwischen ästhetischer Selbst- oder Ideenliebe und religiösem Leidenwollen beim frühen Kierkegaard
Pleasure Situated Between the Aesthetic Love of Self or Ideas and the Religious Suffering as Developed in Early Kierkegaard

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to offer a provisional, though coherent overview of the different phenomenal aspects of lust (dan. Lyst) with respect to the three existential stages stated by Kierkegaard. It proceeds in four steps: first, Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety and its relation to personal freedom is introduced as background for the question of how lust comes about in the individual. Second, it exposes the aesthetic character of lust, consisting in the fulfilment of a multitude of desires rather than in any of their specific objects themselves. A third step reconstructs the main critique of the hedonistic ‚view of life’ as articulated from the ethical standpoint. The dialectic of religious joy as an intentional suffering for a higher form of fulfilment is being analyzed in the final step.

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