Kierkegaard and Levinas on More Perfect Human Love

Abstract

The article examines how both Søren Kierkegaard and Emmanuel Levinas offer a challenging vision of human love, a demanding paradigm that is radical and uncompromising in its demands. Although their prophetic stance is admirable, the author argues that both thinkers tend to divorce eros from agape. In their later writings especially, they prefer to set aside eros altogether, even though there is an occasional and grudging acknowledgment of its value. But as a rule they refuse to recognize any kinship between these two kinds of love, and instead treat them as distinct realities. Thus they fail to offer an adequate depiction of human love in all its fullness, and their contribution needs to be complemented by an approach that affirms the similarities between these two types of love without thereby denying the enduring differences between them.