Blackwell Reference Online

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M odern european philosophy [German, Angst , also translated as dread or uneasiness] A type of existential experience similar to Sartre 's “anguish.” The topic was introduced into philosophy by Kierkegaard in his The Concept of Dread (1844). Heidegger distinguished anxiety from fear. Fear arises from a specific threat, and there is some external entity about which to be afraid. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a state of mind arising not from any particular and determinate affliction, but from one's own indefinite existence. Anxiety comes to us from nowhere and in the face of nothing. For Heidegger, it is simply concerned with our “thrownness in the world,” that is, with Being-in-the-world itself. Anxiety reveals to us how we are in the world and brings us to face the alienated, not-home-like world. The framework in which we make sense of our own existence and of the world is not given once and for all. For each of us, anxiety makes our individuality, our determinate self and our own possibility. In particular, it reveals to us that no individual can escape death with the aid of the public. For Heidegger, anxiety is closely related to Dasein (the Being of human beings, which is Being-in-the-world). Thus through individuating Dasein , anxiety is a distinctive way in which Dasein is disclosed. Anxiety discloses Dasein as Being-possible, and in the meantime, as a state ... log in or subscribe to read full text