Analogy and Negativism

The concept of analogy has repeatedly been a topic of debate in the history of philosophy and theology. Analogy is one of the main means by which human thought has sought to express the unknown and the divine. In this essay I will briefly reconstruct this concept from Aristotle to Kant and Trendelenburg. The aim of this reconstruction is to examine Kierkegaard’s contribution to the concept of analogy, and to what could be called analogical thinking. According to Kierkegaard, the very nature of analogy consists in finding likenesses of relations and revoking them at the same time.Finally, I will discuss whether Arne Grøn’s negativism can be brought into dialogue with analogical thinking.