Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 40 No. 2, 2025.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21464/sp40208
The Demonic and its Modes in Kierkegaard. With a Discussion on the Ineffable Suffering in Mental Disorders
Yu-hui Yan
orcid.org/0009-0001-8843-377X
; Tongji University School of Humanities, No. 1239 Siping Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai, China
Abstract
Kierkegaard’s demonic theory offers a critical framework for analysing ineffable suffering in mental disorders. The demonic manifests as anxiety toward the Good, where temporal totality becomes perceived as suffering’s source through a sin-redemption spiral. This process involuntarily excludes sufferers from universal discourse by fixating on sin while resisting redemption. Our examination reveals two volitional paradoxes producing four archetypes: Satan’s absolute defiance, Abraham’s sacrificial suspension, Antigone’s silent devotion, and the Merman’s existential ambiguity. Through analysing their immediacy/mediacy and possibility/necessity dialectics, we demonstrate how Abraham and Antigone’s failed transcendence patterns form the demonic’s essential movement. Their paradoxical evasion of Merman-mode despair ultimately propels Satanic actualization – an endless antagonism with universality achieved through ineffable psychoanalytic perversity. This perpetual motion sustains suffering by paradoxically avoiding its apparent culmination.
Keywords
SørenAabye Kierkegaard; sin-redemption; demonic; ineffability; mental disorders; suffering
Hrčak ID:
338871
URI
Publication date:
20.11.2025.
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