Elisabete M. De Sousa

This article describes the state of the art of the issue of the aesthetic in the work and thought of Søren Kierkegaard. It does not aim at being an exhaustive analysis of the reception of the aesthetic. Instead, it is conceived in order to show the main misunderstandings that have sentenced the idea of the aesthetic to secondary roles in face of the ethical and the religious. In addition, it presents an update of a sample of the most recent works which already take the aesthetic as a key category, and it draws attention to what still lies ahead to be done, namely to study the philosophical and theoretical sources that inspired Kierkegaard in order to be able to define the philosophical role of the aesthetic, in particular its pivotal role in the Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy.

In this didactic article several perspectives of the philosophical anthropology are presented, showing at the same time the difficulties in delimiting “the question of Man” as an autonomous discipline. Starting from the ambivalence contained in the expression “philosophical anthropology”, we present some data about the history of the word “anthropology”. Next, the typologies elaborated by Max Scheler and Ernst Cassirer illustrate large explanatory models of what “human-being” means, concluding at the same time by the failure of a historical path leading to uncertainty. Finally, the identification of philosophy with anthropology is referred in Kant and in Ludwig Feuerbach.

O artigo apresenta uma análise cronológica da recepção de Kierkegaard em Portugal. Na primeira parte, analisam-se as traduções até agora publicadas em língua portuguesa, contextualizando-as no panorama filosófico e literário em que vieram a lume; na segunda parte, comentam-se os artigos de diversos quadrantes que, sensivelmente, desde a década de quarenta do século passado foram publicados em Portugal, realçando-se ainda o papel desempenhado por alguns desses comentadores na divulgação de Kierkegaard. É dado particular relevo às mais recentes traduções realizadas a partir do original dinamarquês, bem como ao lugar ocupado na actualidade pelo filósofo, na investigação e no ensino, nas universidades portuguesas.

The present essay presents the content of the landmarks that punctuate the long dialogue between verbal language and musical language during the 19th Century, by means of examples taken from the critical and theoretical writings of Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner. In the search for the dramatic essence of music, such dialogue took different forms: the possibility of verbal language being translated by musical language, the pre-existence of a musical-poetic idea in any musical composition, eventually contributing to the appearance of program music, and finally, the principles presiding over Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk. Special emphasis is given to Richard Wagner’s Parisian article De l'Ouverture, as well as to the impact on Soren Kierkegaard.