SOURCE: "Repetition and Kinesis: Kierkegaard on the Foundering of Metaphysics," in Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, Indiana University Press, 1987, pp. 11-35.

In the following essay, Caputo examines Kierkegaard's Repetition (written under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius), maintaining that Kierkegaard argued against philosophy and metaphysics in favor of the concept of "becoming" over "Being." In other words, according to Caputo, Kierkegaard defended movement or kinesis, which philosophy, since Plato' time, has denied.

For Kierkegaard, the question is whether movement in the existential sense is possible, whether it is possible for the existing individual to make progress. Taking his point of departure from the Eleatic denial of motion, which is for him the paradigmatic gesture of philosophical speculation, Kierkegaard argues on behalf of existence and actuality. He takes his stand against philosophy and metaphysics, for which movement is always a scandal, and argues the case for existential movement...