Despite the fact that they are both known as leading figures of existentialism, the relationship between 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and 20th century French philosopher and novelist Albert Camus has largely gone unexplored in secondary scholarship. In the few times that their relationship is discussed, focus is heavily placed on the most obvious difference between the two thinkers: their religious orientations, which tends to prevent any further analysis or discussion. Furthermore, popular conceptions of each thinker-largely informed by their most popular works, arguably Fear and Trembling and The Myth of Sisyphus, respectively-tend to depict them as pessimistic and individualistic figures, the former basing his philosophy on an irrational leap of faith and the latter basing his own on the world's meaninglessness and absurdity. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an alternative, or rather a corrective, to these aforementioned views on the two thinkers. Through literary and philosophical analyses, I will attempt to demonstrate not only that there is a concrete, fecund relationship between Kierkegaard and Camus, but furthermore that this relationship is grounded in a practical, duty-based philosophy of love. The thesis will look at three concepts that play a key role in both philosophies: the absurd, love, and aesthetic creation. As the analysis progresses, it is repeatedly shown that the thinkers' opposing views on theology do not prevent us from finding similar conceptions and practical manifestations of selfhood, neighborly and romantic love, and the social role of the artist. Thus, I shall argue that they are most properly understood as philosophers of love who saw themselves as social critics whose main goal was to help eradicate the corrupting and dangerous nihilism of their respective eras rather than as traditional philosophers.

My thesis argues that Søren Kierkegaard provides a perspective on grief that validates emotional experience while offering the opportunity for transcendence beyond the immediacy of grief through the work of love in recollecting one who is dead. Conventional philosophical approaches offer an incomplete picture by focusing on grief either as exclusively emotional or exclusively moral. The alternative methodology of phenomenology serves to draw out common threads from the intensely subjective, inward experience of grief. Kierkegaard’s writings on the topics of grief, sorrow, and love for the dead reflect the complexity uncovered in the phenomenological analysis. Traditional interpretations of Kierkegaard’s call to love the dead focus on this love as a metaphor for how to love the living, while more recent scholarship identifies love for the dead as valuable in itself. Taking up this approach, I seek to provide a reading that takes seriously the emotional experience of loss and justifies the value of continued love for the dead consistent with the phenomenology of grief and Kierkegaard’s writings.

This is a study of love (erōs) in Plato’s Symposium. It’s a study undertaken over three chapters, each of which serves as a stepping stone for the following and addresses one of three primary aims. First: to provide an interpretation of Plato’s favored theory of erōs in the Symposium, or as it’s referred to here, a theory of Platonic love. This theory is understood to be ultimately concerned with a practice of living which, if developed correctly, may come to constitute the life most worth living for a human being. On this interpretation, Platonic love is the desire for Beauty, ultimately for the sake of eudaimonic immortality, manifested through productive activity. Second: to offer a reading of the Symposium which attends to the work’s literary elements, especially characterization and narrative structure, as partially constitutive of Plato’s philosophical thought on erōs. Here it’s suggested that Platonic love is concerned with seeking and producing truly virtuous action and true poetry. This reading positions us to see that a correctly progressing and well-practiced Platonic love is illustrated in the character of the philosopher Socrates, who is known and followed for his bizarre displays of virtue and whom Alcibiades crowns over either Aristophanes or Agathon as the wisest and most beautiful poet at the Symposium. Third: to account for how to love a person Platonically. Contra Gregory Vlastos’ influential critical interpretation, it’s here argued that the Platonic lover is able to really love a person: to really love a person Platonically is to seek jointly for Beauty; it is to work together as co-practitioners in the art of love. The art of Platonic love is set up in this way to be explored as a practice potentially constitutive of the life most worth living for a human being.

O escopo desta pesquisa de doutorado é examinar as narrativas que Hannah Arendt elabora em A vida do espírito (1992). A partir dessas narrativas, busca-se pensar e dar significado a cada atividade das faculdades do espírito e de compreender a relação de cada uma delas com o âmbito da política, do viver junto uns aos outros. Para tal análise, tem-se por fio condutor os eventos que a autora vivencia durante o totalitarismo, um acontecimento central no mundo e que desencadeia em Arendt o desejo de compreender e de se reconciliar com este mundo. Tal aspiração leva Arendt a se direcionar para as atividades do espírito, isto é, para as faculdades do pensar, do querer e do julgar; e também, da compreensão dessas faculdades em relação ao domínio público, o espaço da política e da pluralidade humana. Para compreender as três faculdades do espírito, a autora destaca da história da filosofia três filósofos não profissionais que se relacionaram com o mundo em que viveram, manifestando um cuidado com o mundo e com a pluralidade humana. Quer dizer, são três modelos que servem como exemplo do entrelaçamento para aquilo que Arendt investiga: a relação entre as faculdades do espírito e o âmbito da política. Por fim, esta pesquisa apresenta uma possibilidade de pensar a educação das faculdades do espírito para um cuidado do mundo. Isso quer dizer: uma educação que acolhe os recém-chegados no mundo e se responsabiliza por eles. Uma educação como tentativa de despertar o desejo de tais alunos de se relacionar neste mundo e de pertencer a ele. Visto que este é o local em que, futuramente, este novo chegante por nascimento será inserido e no qual a tríade das faculdades do espírito - pensar-querer-julgar - será fundamental para que seja possível a manutenção e preservação do mundo para as futuras gerações. / The aim of this doctoral research is to examine the narratives that Hannah Arendt sets out on The Life of the Mind (1992). From these narratives, we try to think and give meaning to each with perspective of politically living together with others. For this analysis, we have to thread the events that the author experiences during totalitarianism, a central event in the world and sets off on Arendt\'s desire to understand and be in harmony with this world. Such an aspiration lead Arendt to direct herself to the activities of the mind, in the same way, to the faculties of thinking, of will, and of judging; and also the understanding of these faculties in relation to the public domain, the space of politics and human plurality. For a deeper understanding and a greater perception of the three mind faculties, the author highlights from the history of philosophy, three philosophers non-professionals For whom the world, they lived in, was related to. Equally important, is the theory of expressing care for the world and for human plurality. Consequently, there are three models served as an example of intertwining for what Arendt investigates: the relationship between the faculties of the mind and the scope of politics Accordingly, this research presents a possibility of thinking the education of mind faculties for a care of the world. This means: an education that welcomes newcomers to the world and takes responsibility for them. Education as an attempt to awaken the desire of such students to relate to and belong to this world. Since this is the place where, in the future, this new arrival by birth will be inserted and in which the triad of the faculties of the mind: think, will and judge; - will be essential if the world is to be maintained and preserved for future generations.

O escopo desta pesquisa de doutorado é examinar as narrativas que Hannah Arendt elabora em A vida do espírito (1992). A partir dessas narrativas, busca-se pensar e dar significado a cada atividade das faculdades do espírito e de compreender a relação de cada uma delas com o âmbito da política, do viver junto uns aos outros. Para tal análise, tem-se por fio condutor os eventos que a autora vivencia durante o totalitarismo, um acontecimento central no mundo e que desencadeia em Arendt o desejo de compreender e de se reconciliar com este mundo. Tal aspiração leva Arendt a se direcionar para as atividades do espírito, isto é, para as faculdades do pensar, do querer e do julgar; e também, da compreensão dessas faculdades em relação ao domínio público, o espaço da política e da pluralidade humana. Para compreender as três faculdades do espírito, a autora destaca da história da filosofia três filósofos não profissionais que se relacionaram com o mundo em que viveram, manifestando um cuidado com o mundo e com a pluralidade humana. Quer dizer, são três modelos que servem como exemplo do entrelaçamento para aquilo que Arendt investiga: a relação entre as faculdades do espírito e o âmbito da política. Por fim, esta pesquisa apresenta uma possibilidade de pensar a educação das faculdades do espírito para um cuidado do mundo. Isso quer dizer: uma educação que acolhe os recém-chegados no mundo e se responsabiliza por eles. Uma educação como tentativa de despertar o desejo de tais alunos de se relacionar neste mundo e de pertencer a ele. Visto que este é o local em que, futuramente, este novo chegante por nascimento será inserido e no qual a tríade das faculdades do espírito - pensar-querer-julgar - será fundamental para que seja possível a manutenção e preservação do mundo para as futuras gerações. / The aim of this doctoral research is to examine the narratives that Hannah Arendt sets out on The Life of the Mind (1992). From these narratives, we try to think and give meaning to each with perspective of politically living together with others. For this analysis, we have to thread the events that the author experiences during totalitarianism, a central event in the world and sets off on Arendt\'s desire to understand and be in harmony with this world. Such an aspiration lead Arendt to direct herself to the activities of the mind, in the same way, to the faculties of thinking, of will, and of judging; and also the understanding of these faculties in relation to the public domain, the space of politics and human plurality. For a deeper understanding and a greater perception of the three mind faculties, the author highlights from the history of philosophy, three philosophers non-professionals For whom the world, they lived in, was related to. Equally important, is the theory of expressing care for the world and for human plurality. Consequently, there are three models served as an example of intertwining for what Arendt investigates: the relationship between the faculties of the mind and the scope of politics Accordingly, this research presents a possibility of thinking the education of mind faculties for a care of the world. This means: an education that welcomes newcomers to the world and takes responsibility for them. Education as an attempt to awaken the desire of such students to relate to and belong to this world. Since this is the place where, in the future, this new arrival by birth will be inserted and in which the triad of the faculties of the mind: think, will and judge; - will be essential if the world is to be maintained and preserved for future generations.