Kierkegaard's Homosexuality: Opening up the Question
                                                                 by
                                                     Alastair McKinnon
                                            Professor Emeritus, Philosophy
                                                     McGill University
                                                     Montreal, Quebec

Abstract

This brief study argues that Kierkegaard's Journals show beyond reasonable doubt that he was homosexual. It does so because he believed that the recognition of this fact was central to the understanding of his life and thought, because he could not bring himself to say this openly even in the privacy of his own Journals, because he hoped and prayed that his "reader" would discover and reveal it after his death, because even distinguished scholars privy to his "secret" have remained silent and because, given these facts, it is surely time to open up this question.

 This very preliminary study has eight parts. The first assembles a number of entries from his Journals showing that he was homosexual and seen as such by at least some of his contemporaries. The second looks again at his relation with Regine and examines some of his own accounts of his relations with other men. The third provides other evidence of his homosexuality, particularly from his youth. The fourth briefly outlines his conceptions of and relations to Socrates, Christ and God. The fifth attempts to trace the history of his understanding of the relation of Christianity and homosexuality. The sixth repeats some of his own accounts of the homosexual origin and character of the central notions of his existentialism. The seventh presents homosexuality as his hope and agenda for future. Finally, the eighth attempts to summarize and make sense of the preceding.

Inquiry: Abrahim H. Khan
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