The Mind of Narrative and the Narrative of Mind: Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Ontology

Abstract

This dissertation examines the dialectical relationship between the ontology of the mind and the structure of modern narrative through the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Fyodor Dostoevsky. It argues that Kierkegaard’s conception of the mind as relational, paradoxical, and marked by anxiety and sin parallels Dostoevsky’s method of indirect communication, in which narrative discloses the infinite worth of self and other. Against the ancient Greek logic of contradiction, both thinkers employ biblical principles—especially the golden rule—to distinguish myth from narrative and to ground human existence in the infinite rather than the finite. Through close readings of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings and Dostoevsky’s polyphonic novels, the study shows that indirect communication is indispensable for grasping the paradox of existence and safeguarding the irreducibility of the individual. It concludes that the crises of modern philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature derive from false narratives that deny the infinite, whereas the mind itself is best understood as a narrative phenomenon oriented by biblical principles.