... From the notion of self as a relation's relating itself to itself, I discuss the concept of the other in relation to the self in each of the Kierkegaardian life stages: the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious. First of all, I describe the notion of self in Kierkegaardian philosophy as it appears in Sickness unto Death, and the problem of the human being as a conscience in the world. After that, I describe the esthetic notion of the other, (...) which is no more than a casual opportunity of the self for enjoying itself in life. In the ethical stage, the other is described as an image of the self, a second-self: no more than an intermediate between the self and the same self. Finally, the religious stage is arrived at, where the other is, for the self, another being with independent reality. There the other is, firstly, God – the true source of all reality and the life of the self – and it is the biblical neighbor with whom the self must establish itself as a singular being. The religious other is then the basis of the Kierkegaardian social philosophy, since it is not a second-I but the first-Thou. (shrink)