Giveren, gaven, modtageren og gensidigheden

Resumé

In this article we will read Kierkegaard in continuation of the
un-going debate about the economy of the gift. I will argue that Kierkegaard’s
notion of love as a three-part-relation in many ways exceeds
the insights in the economy of the gift that Marcel Mauss gained hold
of in his anthropologic studies in 1925. Insights which have led to an
un-going debate about the “pureness” of the gift between philosophers
like Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Lévinas and Jean-Luc Marion and
in recent theological studies as the ones by Bo Holm og Niels Henrik
Gregersen. In what follows I will put attention to how Kierkegaard in
his upbuilding discourses and in Works of Love describes love as a special
mutual relation between the lover (the giver) the beloved (the receiver)
and love itself (the gift). Hereby I wish to show that Kierkegaard’s notion
of love contains a deliberate contribution to the recent debate of the
economy of the gift.