Autopsia: Self, Death, and God After Kierkegaard and Derrida

There are certain things that *can* be explained and certain things that *cannot* be explained. This book is about the latter. It is a book about death: how death interrupts and influences the reflection on the self. It is a book about God: a detailed and critical discussion on how Kierkegaard and Derrida apply the concept of God in their philosophical reflections. The most ground-breaking analysis concerns the famous passage on the self (A.A) in *The Sickness unto Death*, where the author combines logical, rhetorical and dialectical means to establish a new perspective on Kierkegaard's thinking in general. The Cartesian *doubt* then constitutes a common trait for his detailed and rigorous analysis of Derrida and Kierkegaard on death, madness, faith, and rationality - showing how they both seek to break up the Hegelian *Aufhebung* from within, but still remain dependent on Hegel. *After* Kierkegaard and Derrida, the certainty and total uncertainty of death - and of God as infinite other - gives the self a basic, though non-foundational, responsibility. The significance of this responsibility, of this other, of this death, requires sustained and thorough consideration. Where others mark a conclusion, this book therefore marks a point of departure: reflecting on oneself at the graveside of a dead man - thus introducing an *Autopsia*.