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pressupostos para a compreensão da existência como tarefa em Kierkegaard

Abstract

The concept of task (Opgave) is central to understanding Kierkegaard's philosophy of existence. However, this is a very counterintuitive notion, demanding the understanding of some specific presuppositions. The article seeks to elaborate the main presuppositions for this understanding and, for doing this, initially shows how despair concerns individual responsibility, not being inherent to human beings, and to what extent the existential task consists, in part, in overcoming it. From this development, the understanding that this overcoming could take place from the actions of the individual is problematized. On the contrary, relying on different Kierkegaard’s texts, the article shows that the task of existence must begin with doing nothing. This doing nothing will then be related to the concept of love as the possibility of providing a new foundation for the actions of the individual. Due to its emphasis on the initial ineffectiveness of action, the article concludes that the idea of existence as a task in Kierkegaard must be understood from some presuppositions elaborated in the Protestant Reformation, namely Lutherans.