The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin

by Søren Kierkegaard, Reidar Thomte (Translator)

This edition replaces the earlier translation by Walter Lowrie that appeared under the title The Concept of Dread. Along with The Sickness unto Death, the work reflects from a psychological point of view Søren Kierkegaard's longstanding concern with the Socratic maxim, "Know yourself." His ontological view of the self as a synthesis of body, soul, and spirit has influenced philosophers such as Heidegger and Sartre, theologians such as Jaspers and Tillich, and psychologists such as Rollo May.

In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard describes the nature and forms of anxiety, placing the domain of anxiety within the mental-emotional states of human existence that precede the qualitative leap of faith to the spiritual state of Christianity. It is through anxiety that the self becomes aware of its dialectical relation between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction, Religion, Theology, Classics, Christianity

297 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 17, 1844

About the author

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. His early work was written under various pseudonyms who present their own distinctive viewpoints in a complex dialogue.

Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.

Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

We weren’t kicked outa Eden. That’s just biblical politeness.

No, our innocent side was kicked out by our Woke side. The Woke side won.

And even we societal rejects inherited the Land God gave to Cain, our erstwhile superhero ego’s Bizarro World, where nothing works unless you let it work - with meds or with grace.

Camus incorrectly infers from this that Kierkegaard was trying - as the Bard said - to "memorize another Golgotha." I say no, he was just living like the original persecuted Christians lived, after Christ died.

For comfortable Denmark was as good as Woke!

We are now all woke, though. And have been ever since Abraham kicked out Lot. By stealth of our conditioning. By crude subterfuge.

Under a continuous barrage of pop-up ads, misinformation, and political pressuring, or our meds - a thin overlay coating our hearts - an overlay of heartless Teflon sealant, has grown to a thick coating of not giving a crap.

You got it: more and more objective self knowledge followed. And less and less - get this - inner subjective self knowledge of our guilt before God. So we abandoned Him in the search for faster, better, inner self knowledge.

We cried out to His new Absence! And blamed it all on Him.

Now woke, we innocent lie about it: just so, Abraham went nuts with anxiety, until he BELIEVED.

No, our innocence is just a half-remembered lie for the woke doctors, a holdover relic from Eden.

But ARE we quite lost now?

No. We just split in two - into Left or Right Halves: or emotionally, feeling blissfully high and feeling gloomily glum by quick turns - from which - as we remembered from our teachers, God’s love alone can save us, should we choose to accept it.

But we didn’t.

***

The preceding message may have been a devious trick on the unwary by an awakened Christian. You alone can shut it off, should you so choose…

***

But - guess what? - we really ARE now all “left-handed, lost” as Auden put it. There is no ranting or pill-popping to escape it! We are stuck with our angst.

We, healthy, robust, death-defying us, are hopelessly split. Because we have LIED to ourselves. Half of our selves believes in a loveless world, while our other half of us tries to remember hope, and so reads about it.

And learns nothing.

And the woke side (the loveless side) of us started it. Or did it?

Grace only comes from the cross of blood - sweat - and tears. The way back is ridiculously hard. But what choice do we have now?

Without love we are royally snookered.

Whether Left (Lot) or Right (Abraham)!

Without Love we are just void Nothings.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize how interesting this book could be at this reading. You fall asleep while reading it if you are not awake. It feels like Kierkegaard is continually repeating himself. However, after reflecting on the facts, I found some benefits. Here is what I got from it.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam is most satisfied. He breathes the joy of living until God commands him: "Do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" Adam is no longer accessible since there is now one thing he cannot do. To prove that he is free, he must violate this prohibition and this law - despite the consequences. The anguish comes from knowing what we must do to prove our freedom, even when it must destroy us. Hence, the idea that "anguish is the vertigo of freedom." The release is not a right but a privilege for those who can prove themselves worthy of it.
Finally, it is a book that I do not regret having read!

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety



Sometimes, I am overtaken by a desire to read philosophy. I'm usually overcome with this impulse because of some random reason. DFW leads me to Wittgenstein. Trump leads me to Nietzsche. I chose this book because I am going to Copenhagen with my family in a couple months and wanted to pin down a couple Danish authors/writers before I left.

I figured it was either a book about anxiety or a book about mermaids. Oh, the possibilities. The possibilities of choice made me anxious. But I pressed forward. I picked up this small book that seemed heaver than I first thought. Actually, every page I turned seemed to push the scale on this book. It grew heavier and heavier. What the hell am I doing? Do I really need to explore Kierkegaard's thoughts about original sin, the individual, progression, the flow of time, dogma, dread eroticism, sensuality, modesty, self-knowledge, demons, faith, repentance, anxiety?

I once read, and I think this was attributed to Brian Eno, that the Velvet Underground's first album only sold a few thousand copies, but everyone who bought one formed a band." The Concept of Anxiety sold only 250 copies in the first 11 years after publication, but everyone who bought it seriously __________ . <--- Insert philosophy joke about Anxiety here. I would have written the joke myself, but the fact that the joke only exists in abstract, in possibility, MUST make the joke more funny. Once the joke gains form, becomes actual, the joke loses the possibility of humor. The joke dies. God dies. Alone.

Look, I'm a fairly smart guy. But sometimes these BIG philosophy books throw me for a loop. They make me feel like I need to study and not just read the book. This is a book where I would probably get more out of it through some sort of 400-level classroom dialectic. I need somebody with more experience with Hegel, Jewish thought, Socrates, and Christian ethics and existentialism than I possess to brief. To hold my hand through this book. To smack my hand as I wander off into unexplored tributaries. Alas, being an adult reading this alone on my bed, I have none of those things. I have my friends on GR. I have a dictionary. I have a fairly large library. I have time (crap, if I write time here now, will I have to explore past, future, eternity, etc?).

Anyway, it was worth it. It wasn't too much to bear. I read it. I'm glad I did. Now I can go visit Søren Kierkegaard and Niels Bohr in Assistens Cemetery and feel like I at least did my best to visit that holy ground with proper dedication and consecration.

[Paul Gleason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Kierkegaard's most difficult texts - and also one of his first. But it's a necessary read (and one I've been putting off for much too long) simply because it sets up many of the concepts that constitute his chief works.

In Anxiety, Kierkegaard explores the relationship between sin as a dogmatic and psychological concept. He holds that sin entered the world in historical time, when Adam made his choice in Eden. But, there's a catch. Because sin didn't exist before Adam, he couldn't have known what he was doing. God gave him a choice, but it wasn't really a choice, confined as it was between only two possibilities. So there wasn't much freedom - as the word is used in modernity - in what Adam did. His choice positioned humanity in an eternal relationship with God - and rooted anxiety in this relationship.

Anxiety is the "dizziness" or, as Sartre would say, the "nausea" that we feel when we realize that life is a continuous stream of possible choices. But sin grounds this anxiety in one's relationship with God. The only way out of anxiety is the famous "leap of faith," which Kierkegaard discusses in later texts. That is, faith in the paradox - not the irrational - but the paradox of Christ, as the vessel (this probably the wrong word) that God (the eternal) uses to enter time. It's essential to note that Christ is a paradox and NOT a contradiction. And, for Kierkegaard, belief in a paradox (or in the absurd) isn't an abandonment of reason, when it's the only choice that can be used to make life, existence, and the individual meaningful.

That's why he holds that any systemic attempt to explain existence rationally (through philosophy and especially Hegel) and/or through a religious system (see the Catholic Church, for one example) is just aesthetic mumbo jumbo. The Christ cannot be explained rationally - and God is most interested in the individual. God created individuals - not systems or, in Nietzsche's word, "herds." That's why the individual transcends any system. And any science that attempts to prove or disprove the existence of God is on the wrong track. This stuff isn't the domain of the scientific.

Our experience of anxiety really signifies our lack of faith. This lack is the relationship between anxiety and sin. We, according to Kierkegaard, have to have faith in the absurd in order not to experience anxiety. But it's almost impossible to sustain this belief, when the culture, capitalism, and even organized religion aethesthetize everything and make the extraordinary (Christianity) into the mundane and the traditional.

But anxiety seems our lot. Because humanity exists in a state of becoming, it always has a tendency to slip back into questioning Christ from a rational or aesthetic perspective. This makes no sense because God is completely Other than us. And yet we do it...and anxiety prevails...and is hereditary.

I'll be honest - I need to think more about hereditary sin. Kierkegaard seems to be arguing that lust didn't exist before Adam made the leap to sin. And now we are all conceived in lust, which is a sin against God. This means that we come into the world as a result of sin. But, again, this sin is grounded in God's will, which orients us toward him, through spirit and Christ. So sin is never final - and it's not predestined that certain people are "sinners" who will never know God. God is unknowable or, as Beckett, would say, unnamable.

Sin grounds us in a relationship with God. And the anxiety that we feel about sin - about "doing the right thing" - makes possible the choice of finding a relationship with God through faith in the paradox and absurdity of Christ.

[Miguel Cisneros Saucedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Concept of Anxiety" is a book written by Søren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. The work is considered one of the most important in Kierkegaard's philosophy, especially in relation to psychology and theology.

The work focuses on a deep exploration of the concept of anxiety in human life. Kierkegaard argues that anguish is a fundamental part of human existence, and that it must be addressed and understood in order to live an authentic and fulfilling life.

First, Kierkegaard differentiates anxiety from fear. While fear is a response to a specific threat or danger, anguish is a generalized sense of anxiety felt at the possibility of freedom and responsibility. For Kierkegaard, anxiety is the feeling of uncertainty and hesitation that one feels when faced with the choice of one's life, the choice of a purpose, the choice of one's existence.

Anxiety, in Kierkegaard's work, is not in itself a negative emotion. On the contrary, Kierkegaard argues that anxiety can be a sign that a person is open to the possibility of freedom and personal growth. Distress, then, can be seen as indicative of a desire to search, discover, and explore meaning and purpose in life.

On the other hand, Kierkegaard also argues that anxiety can be misinterpreted and mishandled by people. People can fall into despair and sadness if they are not able to understand and face their anguish. Despair is the absence of hope in life and belief in oneself, and it arises when anguish is avoided, feared, or given the wrong meaning.

From a psychological perspective, Kierkegaard's work can be seen as an exploration of human emotions and their relationship with the perception of freedom. The concept of anxiety raises a fundamental question about human nature: are we free or are we tied to external factors that determine us?

The answer to this question is intrinsically tied to the way people deal with distress. If distress is seen as a threat or a problem, people are likely to fall into despair or inaction. However, if heartbreak is seen as an opportunity for reflection, exploration, and freedom, then it can be a catalyst for growing maturity and self-actualization.

In summary, "The Concept of Anxiety" by Søren Kierkegaard is an important book not only in philosophy, but also in psychology. The work raises fundamental questions about human nature, freedom, and the purpose of life. Anguish is seen as a key concept in the exploration and understanding of human existence. Kierkegaard's work emphasizes the importance of accepting and facing anguish as part of the process of self-actualization and maturity.

[Cosimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Che c'è fra me e te?

“In una favola dei Grimm si racconta di un ragazzo che andò in cerca di avventure per imparare a sentire l'angoscia. Lasciamo andare quell'avventuriero senza domandare in quale modo egli per la strada potesse imbattersi nel terribile. Vorrei dire, però, che questo – cioè l'imparare a sentire l'angoscia – è un'avventura attraverso la quale deve passare ogni uomo, affinché non vada in perdizione, o per non essere mai stato in angoscia o per essersi immerso in essa; chi invece impara a sentire l'angoscia nel modo giusto ha imparato la cosa più alta”.

In questo testo del 1844, Kierkegaard scrive che il contrario del peccato è la fede, che vince l'angoscia. La fede infatti è la certezza interiore che anticipa l'infinito. L'angoscia, invece, forma l'essere umano all'assoluto, percepisce l'infinità, distrugge le finitezze e scopre le illusioni: è la possibilità della libertà, e in essa l'uomo sperimenta l'immediato, l'incertezza, la sofferenza, consapevole che l'annientamento abita accanto a lui e a ognuno come lui, a tutti coloro che, nel dubbio e nella tentazione, non sanno conoscere quale sia il loro rapporto con ciò che è superiore. Più profonda è l'angoscia, più grande è l'uomo. Kierkegaard pone l'angoscia come presupposto del peccato originale, discrimen rerum tra coscienza e eternità; innocente, egli è costretto a scavare dentro sé stesso e a rivelarsi di essere spirito, con la inconciliabile possibilità di potere. Se è detto in Genesi con le parole: “Soltanto dall'albero della conoscenza del bene e del male tu non devi mangiare” (Gen, 2,17), risulta chiaro che l'uomo è posto in contraddizione, come può comprendere la differenza, se solo con la soddisfazione del frutto può conseguire la distinzione tra bene e male? È qui a generarsi il vuoto, l'allucinazione interiore, quello che è detto Anfechtung, ossia la tentazione, l'evasione, l'annullamento: l'angosciante ignoranza di fronte a un nulla che diventa parola oscura, nascosta, difficile; parola che va costituendosi come atto di volontà, ma impotente di fronte al bene, tramite il quale la libertà va a fondo e porta al pentimento, lasciando aperta la sola porta della redenzione. Già, infatti, qui l'essere umano vive il desiderio di ciò di cui si ha paura, è nel momento iniziale dell'angoscia, entra nel turbinoso itinerario che porta alla realtà del male e del peccato: una forza estranea seduce l'individuo, che ha paura, ma nondimeno desidera ciò di cui ha paura. In Kierkegaard, il concetto di angoscia è quindi strettamente interrelato con la dottrina del peccato originale: disobbedienza e colpa, che sono sostanza dell'uomo, ma fuori della storia, al di là del pensiero, in quanto non logicamente ma fantasticamente interpretabile. L'individuo, quindi, è insieme se stesso e la propria specie: con il peccato entrò nel mondo con una sorta di salto qualitativo, la perdita dell'innocenza mediante la colpa an-sich, di per sé. L'uomo innocente vede continuamente fuori di sé una realtà che è il nulla, e ciò vi genera angoscia: questo è il profondo mistero dello spirito, vuoto o pieno che sia considerato. Il peccato, in Kierkegaard, sembra risultare come la manifestazione estrema dell'innocenza, e, attraverso di essa, della coscienza dell'angoscia che si pone nel singolo come trascendenza. Perciò, come per mezzo di un solo uomo il peccato è entrato nel mondo e per mezzo del peccato la morte, così la morte si è estesa a tutti gli uomini, perché tutti hanno peccato. (Rom, 5,12). Kierkegaard aggiunge che l'angoscia si può paragonare alla vertigine: perché l'uomo deve guardare in un abisso, e la causa non è meno nel suo occhio che nell'abisso. È il momento della libertà, il movimento del finito verso l'infinito, il salto che afferma se stesso in una dolce scelta, che apre al fine più istintivo e esistenziale: l'amore erotico e la sessualità. Attraverso questa differenza, questa uscita dall'ambiguità, l'essere umano incontra la colpa, angosciato non di diventare colpevole, ma di essere considerato colpevole. Ogni uomo che considera se stesso sa ciò che non sa nessuna scienza, perché egli conosce se stesso. Kierkegaard ha composto dunque un testo complesso, stratificato e ricco, che riflette con ostinazione e dolore sulla molteplicità minacciosa di necessità e possibilità interiori umane, nella convinzione che la libertà (possibilità nella possibilità!), per non essere scambiata per forza, debba percorrere il cammino religioso che porta alla redenzione e alla bellezza, in una spiritualità concreta che è segno felice di pace interiore.

“From this instant/there's nothing serious in mortality,/All is but toys; renouwn and grace is dead; the wine of life is drawn”.

“Da questo istante, non v'è più nulla di serio in questa vita mortale: non v'è altro che balocchi; gloria e grazia sono morte. Il vino della vita è stato ormai spillato”.

(Macbeth, atto II, scena 3)

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

These things always create conflicting feelings in me. I liked the book, it is a major philosophical work. Kierkegaard's influence on contemporary thinking is unquestionable, thanks to little details such as being the first existentialist, having an incredibly creative mind that made him a relevant figure in literature, psychology, theology... However, it is not something I can relate to, or agree with (I am not quite comfortable saying this, but well, it is the truth).
Reflections about anxiety, which, according to Kierkegaard, existed even before the original sin. He states that it can make you sin, but it also may lead you to salvation. He is not talking about just one form of anxiety, he explores a lot of them. This book may give you a new perspective on life, if you can relate to its content. If not, it's still a truly interesting reading. I would like to come back to it, someday.

July 12, 13
* Also on my blog.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kierkegaard is a gifted writer. He writes what he wants because he knows he's saying something worthwhile and lets his reading public be darned if they can't figure it out. He reminds me of Melville. He'd rather sell almost no books and say something of value than sell many books but say nothing of value.

This book gets at why I read books. Nothing to me is more important than understanding who we are as human beings and Kierkegaard gives an understanding for that within this book. He presumes the reader comprehends Hegel's "Science of Logic" and he writes in the style of Hegel's "Phenomenology", a style that involves thinking about the abstract by considering it within an abstract and then going towards a concrete. A way of thinking about thought that I love.

The book has multiple takeaways but to get there various concepts get thrown at the reader through the paradoxes that Kierkegaard always has lurking about in his books. The particular is not the universal and the universal needs the particular, or Adam is not the race but each man is a member of the race. He takes this theme and plays with it and gets at the paradoxes that gives us our understanding. Every man is different but yet we think of them as part of a race or as humanity. Each individual is only like the others but is not the others. Adam, the first man, or what we call a man, is part of the race. He'll say that 'the sensuous is not the sin but its the sinfulness that gives us the sin". The truths we believe are falsifications since the particular is not the universal nor the general the singular. (There is a whole lot of Nietzschean thought floating around in this book).

He does talk about anxiety and he'll say that "anxiety is about nothing". That's a real theme he has within this book. It's the nature of being or existence or how do we deal with nothing and what does it mean. He mentioned that one of the last acts of Christ was when a demon came up to him and said "what do you have to do with me" showing how the "anxiety for the good is demonic" since the demon believes Christ (goodness) should have nothing to do with him. If this book was all I knew about Kierkegaard, I would think he was not religious because the way he frames his arguments and how he used the bible only to make his points.

He's got a chapter on 'now' and what does it mean. I found it way more illuminating than the modern book "Now: The Physics of Time" which I read just the week before. Kierkegaard really gets the concept in non-physics speak and understands what our instants mean. He doesn't put that chapter in for no reason. He knows the convolution between our understanding about our existence and the nature of being immortal and the understanding of immortality and the more we know our now the further we will be from the ultimate good (the infinite). He understands the pieces and knows how to put them together.

The fun part for me was later in the book: "Irony is jealous of earnestness". He's getting at our understanding of our authenticity, but he uses the word 'earnestness' or 'inwardness'. In Heidegger's division II of "Being and Time" the "Time" part he clearly is indebted to Kierkegaard and this book for how Heidegger develops his dasein (a thing that takes a stand on its own understanding or as Kierkegaard is doing in this book getting at our own understanding of human being). There are differences between the writers but the overlap includes that our understanding needs the anxiety about the nothingness for our authenticity to be actualized within our finite time because being is time and time is finite.

There's a part of me that said he is mocking Hegel, religion, and the psychology of his times and doesn't really mean what he is writing, but even if that were true, he is telling a story about the human experience such that you know at times he just wants to 'howl!' and have the world wake up to why we must experience (and feel!) life to its fullest in ways that only Kierkegaard knows how to get at.

No doubt, this is a complex book beautifully written.

[Théo d'Or]

" Dizziness of freedom ". How does that sounds to you ?
Anxiety is an inherent part of the human condition. Okay, I could live with that. Anxiety arises from our awareness of the infinite possibilities before us and the responsibility that comes with making choices. Agree again.
I guess everybody watched " Sophie's Choice ", an excellent film, enhanced by Merryl Streep's masterful performance. Her choice in the concentration camp is an extreme manifestation of this existential anxiety. She is forced to make an impossible decision, one that no person should ever have to face. In that few moments, she experiences the ultimate freedom - the freedom to choose, to choose between her own children. That's how we get to " the dizziness of freedom ". Kierkegaard doesn't watched this film, and he argue that this freedom, though terrifying, is what defines us as human beings, that it is through our choices and the anxiety they bring that we truly understand the weight of our existence, and introduces the concept of " the leap of faith ". Sophie's decision, though forced upon her, can be seen as a tragic " leap of faith ", she makes a choice, knowing that either option will bring immense suffering, yet she must act. This act of choosing, despite the anxiety it brings, is a testament to her humanity. Kierkegaard believe that despair it also offers the possibility of redemption. But what kind of redemption and " spiritual growth " - in Sophie's case ?
Yes, we are privileged to be able to choose, but sometimes, this power to choose is not worth even a drop in the ocean.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with this as I think it required greater familiarity with that with which he was arguing...plus as a non-believer, there is always a little bit of difficulty following him where he wants me to go. Nonetheless I still find him immensely stimulating, often very funny too.

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Concept of Anxiety (original title Begrebet Angest) was first published in June 1844. Kierkegaard had just turned thirty-one. The modest edition of 250 copies, half the number of the other pseudonymous works, was finally sold out eleven years later, whereupon a second edition of 500 copies was ordered and published in August 1855, just three months before Kierkegaard died at the age of forty-two." - General background from the translator's introduction.


There will never not be a time in my life when I will not need Kierkegaard. I've already read The Sickness unto Death, which was a sequel of-sorts to this book. That book deals with despair--this book deals with anxiety. The questions that this book is trying to answer is: What is anxiety? Where did it come from? How do we deal with it?
If you are familiar with Kierkegaard then you know he gives no easy explanations to these and his answers may not be satisfactory to those of the atheistic faith. Even those who are religiously inclined may not like what this doctor's diagnosis is. I am not gonna try to explain it because while I can understand it, I can't do it the justice that Kierkegaard does (and also I have a headache right-now which precludes me from in-depth analysis with Kierkegaard's prose). I could give a layman's explanation of this book like a lot of the other Goodreads review, but I feel that I would for the most part just be summarizing one chapter and Kierkegaard deserves more than that. But to show I am not totally difficult, I will post the paragraph that this work is mostly known here on Goodreads for:

"Anxiety can be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason? It is just as much his own eye as the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. It is in this way that anxiety is the dizziness of freedom that emerges when spirit wants to posit the synthesis, and freedom now looks down into its own possibility and then grabs hold of finiteness to support itself. In this dizziness freedom subsides."

It is interesting to see how psychology is understood pre-Freud/psychoanalysis. While I definitely classify this book as philosophy, I will note that there is a sort of scientific-like examination that--while nothing like modern psychology--is not philosophical. Since I can't claim any familiarity with 19th or 20th century psychology, I can't pass any judgement on it.

In the end, I definitely enjoyed this book and the message it gives to me. Even though he is mainly concerned with anxiety, he tackles so many other things in this book to get here. Kierkegaard's favorite philosopher was Socrates and it shows. Well, Kierkegaard is my favorite philosopher and I hope that I can somehow try to keep showing that through my own life.

"...someone who is already formed remains with anxiety; he does not allow himself to be deceived by its countless falsifications; he accurately remembers the past. The attacks of anxiety, even though terrifying, will then not be such that he flees from them. Anxiety becomes for him a ministering spirit that leads him, against its will, where he will. Then, when it announces itself, when it disingenuously makes it look as though it has invented an altogether new instrument of torture, far more terrible than anything before, he does not draw back, and still less does he try to ward it off with noise and confusion, but bids it welcome, greets it solemnly, and like Socrates who raised the poisoned cup, he takes it in with him and says, as a patient would say to the surgeon, when the painful operation is about to begin: Now I am ready. Then anxiety enters into his soul and searches out everything, and frightens the finite and petty out of him, and it then leads him where he will."

[Gastjäle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A recondite yet insightful read that both makes one gnash one's teeth and flinch with sudden violence when the home truths emerge from their ambuscades.

Before I get to the nitty-gritty behind the work, I'll say a few words about the writing and presentation itself, since I feel that here the form is of great moment. Now, Vigilius Haufniensis (hereafter "Kierkegaard" - for clarity's questionable sake) makes a point of writing as obfuscatingly and as turgidly as he possibly can. The question is: what on Earth for? Is he taking the Hegelian piss? Is this simply aimed at the learned 19th-century audience, only to be understood by them (if by anyone)? Or is Kierkegaard trying to drive home a valuable point through stylistic means?

Any or all of the above might be the case here. The way of writing is unquestionably Hegelian, with its propensity for categories, middle terms and negations - and hazy arguments shrouded either in diaphanous semantic niceties or the impenetrable winding sheet of ludicrous terms. Kierkegaard was indubitably influenced by Hegel, there's no way around it, yet he pokes fun at the great systematist and his acolytes - the speculators - time and again, which calls the reader's attention to the whole set-up: is Kierkegaard simply being a hypocritical humbug or is he simply winking at us with is accustomed diablerie? Here's my theory:

Kierkegaard is writing wittingly heavy stuff, yet not to the extent that I found myself struggling with the read. The text makes use of Kierkegaard's core terms like infinity, eternity, moment, demonic etc., and Kierkegaard has always been a thinker who rests his ideas on key terms - and rarely bothers to define them properly, yet here the dialectical trickery is more marked. Part of the reason for the heaviness is that he wanted to point out the shortcomings of Hegelian philosophy in relation to Christianity, and Kierkegaard wanted to beat the speculators in their own game. Another part for this congested gobbledygook is that he wanted to show how futile such careful definitions and argumentative gymnastics are in comparison with things that cannot be so defined (in Kierkegaard's opinion). Indeed, he clearly states that things like eagerness (on which a great deal of Kierkegaard's philosophy rests) cannot be put into words - they're existential categories. Lastly, Kierkegaard does sometimes let go of the academic jargon when he wants to deliver certain key points, which in my opinion bears out that he wasn't using the complex terminology just because it was the best medium for his study. Summa summarum, through the delivery of The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard once showed what an irritating little... mastermind he is.

(Or I could be horribly wrong about it all, and I'm simply too daft to follow through his arguments. However, I'm not making this up simply in order to make myself feel better for not understanding everything herein - luckily, I've read Kierkegaard before to already know what kind of a trickster he can be.)

When it comes to the fruit of the deliberations professed herein, I must say I'm a bit puzzled. Because I don't necessarily share the same premisses as Kierkegaard does, it was rather difficult for me to see whence the necessity for delineating the psychological, the dogmatic and the ethical so carefully and so... arbitrarily. The same applies for his idea about the spirit as opposed to the mind - I simply don't get it. And this is a great shame, because if I don't agree to the teachings of Christianity and to religiousness on the whole, Kierkegaard is simply talking about familiar psychical concepts here disguised as religious categories. But as was typical for his time, there was really no need to explain the core concepts, because they were so obvious to many - and perhaps Kierkegaard even thought that there's no point in defining something like spirit (as per what I said above).

But I tried. The first part of the study concerning the relation of Adam and sin to that of later generations was more or less pointless for someone like me, since it only had to do with some theological minutiae. Kierkegaard effectively avers that there is no proper metric for sin, since it enters into world through qualitative leaps - in other words, it enter every sinner separately, and before that takes place, sensuousness or any of those seemingly "base" things are not sinful (very non-Catholic of K!). However, this treatment does pave way for the topic of anxiety, which was a lot more relevant and interesting to my pagan self.

Kierkegaard speaks of anxiety as a degree of existential discomfort felt at the sheer plurality of possibilities before any act takes place. In this way, anxiety has "nothing" as its object - and Kierkegaard did a pretty rotten job at explaining this, since he definitely did suggest that you can be anxious about things. (Even when you're anxious about the "freedom of possibilities", that "freedom of possibilities" is your object, in my opinion. Otherwise no cogitation or no sense can have any object whatsoever.) If I understood him correctly, the anxiety that is anxious about nothing is still not guilty, whereas anxiety that has an object (which is still nothing?) is guilty a priori. Thus anxiety is rather confusing, yet Kierkegaard sees in it the absolute qualification for an individual becoming truly individual, since in anxiety they are drawn to their very own selves; they choose themselves and feel that those endless possibilities are for them only, and thus - by extension - for the whole human race. Through individualism one acquires the true understanding of human nature, and this is done especially through anxiety: one gets the idea that all these things one is anxious about can befall oneself, and the more one realises that all kinds of things can befall oneself, the more profound individual he becomes in Kierkegaard's books.

However, one can also be anxious about good things, which turn the individual demonic. Demonicity is something that is latent in all human beings, and at best it is merely absent - just like sinfulness. When we break off a yarn when we realise we can't blurt out a rude word in the presence of others, when we keep silent when we should probably grass on our friends, when we simply walk by when someone is in need, we're being demonic: in the first case, we're anxious about speaking what we truly think, in the second case about adhering to the truth and in the final case about charity. These examples might be a bit incompetent, provided on how one sees when a demonic person acts, but the aforementioned cases should still be somewhat correct in principle. Now, a true individual, in the throes of his existential Angst, will also keep in mind the possibility that he might become demonic at any point.

Now, all this has clearly been a tremendous influence on Heidegger. He too saw the existential significance of anxiety and conscience, yet unlike him, Kierkegaard continues to play leapfrog and insists that the only safeguard against suicidal anxiety is faith. In other words, instead of developing the topic further (and he definitely had the potential for it, being such a perspicacious chap), he backed off and jumped over the issue by resorting to faith. Through the eagerness of faith and through the eagerness of anxiety, Man finds himself in moments of repetition and thus connects himself with eternity - the only thing one should in sooth be anxious about. And (now I'm extrapolating a bit) through this meaningful repetition of constant confirmation of faith, one repeats meaningfully the ideal existence.

That's about it for the main thesis.

As usually happens when I read Kierkegaard, I start out pretty fascinated, my interest wanes soon whenever he starts digressing, and suddenly he offers me a fabulously incisive anecdote, which makes me regain my wandering attention. This time round, he made rather wonderful points in the midst of his main deliberations. First of all, he suggested that certain topics ought to be approached from a certain point of mood - not everything should be approached "rationally" or "scientifically", but rather (this is what I thought him to mean) if one talks about love, one should seek to express the concomitant emotions instead of simply providing an inventory of marital bliss. Secondly, his point about how eagerness/passion should not be defined but rather felt is a very strong one, coming from such a penetrating and pedantic thinker. Through eagerness, life acquires its meaning, and one would be rather unfair to oneself if one simply let oneself slip into melancholy/frivolity and pretend that everything is ridiculous, absurd or pointless. And as always, Kierkegaard plants nice little reminders about not "rushing headlong into life" - something that anyone can tell you, but not something that everyone can convince you of.

Once again, a Kierkegaardian read has proven to be both amusing and bemusing, and has shown itself belonging in the category of profundament (all puns intended). I still do not know how to wrap my head around his words, since posits very different things from what I do and he belongs to a whole different ideological climate than I do, but every single time the bell of wisdom rings far away, however faintly, and calls me back to exert myself in trying to understand what the Danish shapeshifter has uncovered once again. Though my patience wears thin with him at times, he nonetheless remains one of the most fascinating individual writers I've ever encountered.

[hayatem · Rating 4 out of 5]

الفزع ، ويسمى أيضًا القلق أو Angst، وهي فئة أساسية من الوجودية. وفقًا لفيلسوف القرن التاسع عشر سورن كيرككَورد، فإن الخوف أو القلق هو رغبة في ما يخشاه المرء وهو أمر أساسي لمفهومه عن الخطيئة الأصلية. بالنسبة للفيلسوف الألماني مارتن هايدجر في القرن العشرين، فإن القلق هو أحد الطرق المميزة التي يتم من خلالها الكشف عن الدازاين*”Dasein" (الشخص التاريخي) ككائن عرضي، وبالتالي فإن القلق هو ذلك الذي يصبح من خلاله الخوف ممكنًا أولاً.

*called, in Martin Heidegger's phrase, Dasein (“there being”) because they are defined by the fact that they exist, or are in the world and inhabit it. In existentialism: Emergence as a movement. …that constitute human existence (Dasein).

قرأ كيرككَورد في مناحي عدة من فلسفة أفلاطون، شيللنغ، هيغل، ديكارت، أرسطو؛ (صياغاتهم الفلسفية والإشكالات اللاهوتية)، كما قرأ مشاهدات أدبية من مسرحيات شكسبير، إضافة إلى روايات من الكتاب المقدس والأساطير. والتي من خلالها صاغ منظوره الفلسفي لمفهوم الفزع.
كما تطرق لمفهوميّ اليقين والجوانية، وأثرهما في فزع الإنسان من وجهة نظر فلسفية جوانية.

المادة دراسة مستفيضة لسلوك وأفعال الناس حين يواجهون الفزع، و، أو حين يقعون فريسة الخطيئة، أو عند ارتكابهم لفعل شرير؛ (الجدلية الأخلاقية والدينية.)، وعن تداخلات الأخلاق والإيمان، كما تعمق في الباطن والوعي، بسبب توجهاته الوجودية، مع الانغماس في التجربة الحسية في تماس مع العدمية، وكيف أن الفزع أشد وأكثر تعقيداً في النفس من الخوف، ( الفزع؛ هو حقيقة الحرية كإمكانية للإمكانية؛ على حد تعبيره.)، فاستخدم المفارقة، التناقض، وتقنيات تفكيكية من أجل تقديم مفهومه، واتكأ بشكل كبير في دراسته على علم النفس وعلم العقائد وربط بينهم في شرح مادة الكتاب. ينطلق في تفسيراته من ذاتيته الصلبة التي تعد مرجعاً أساسياً في صياغة فكر وروح الكتاب، كما هي حال أغلب أعماله؛( عبر الذاتية الموضوعية، والتفكير النقدي الذاتي) . - "كتب يوهانس كيلماكوس (الاسم المستعار ل كيرككَورد) عن سقراط قائلا: “كانت حياته بأكملها انشغالا شخصيا بنفسه، ثم يأتي الحُكم ويضيف أهمية تاريخية لذلك”. رأى كيرككَورد نفسه على نحو مماثل كـ “عالمي فردي”، أي أن انشغاله بنفسه يمجده الحكم الإلهي إلى أهمية عالمية." وكعادته فيما يذكر عن جميع أعماله تميّز ببلاغته، ووجهة النظر السردية للفلسفة المنهجية النقدية.

الترجمة جميلة.

[Magdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"لو كان إنسان حيوانًا أو ملاكًا، لما أمكن أن يكون في فزع. ولأنه معادلة، يمكن أن يكون في فزع؛ وكلما يكون في فزع أعمق، كلما صار أعظم - لكن ليس بالمعنى الذي يعتبره البشر عادة، حيث يكون الفزع عن شيء خارجي، حول شيء خارج الإنسان، بل بالمعنى، الذي ينتج هو الفزع نفسه."

في كتابه: مفهوم الفزع ( تمرين سايكولوجي أولي في ضوء الدوغمائية حول الخطيئة) يعالج "سورين كيركيغارد" مفهوم الفزع -أو القلق (حسب ترجمة أخرى)- في ضوء الخطيئة الأولى -خطيئة أدم وحواء؛ باعتبارهما حالة البراءة الأولى؛ ذلك الحال الذي يشبه وضع الإنسان بشكل عام. فبراءة آدم وحواء قبل الخطيئة كبراءة الإنسان في الطفولة وعليه يستخدم "كيركيغارد أو فيجيليوس (كما سمى نفسه): آدم وتطوره كنموذجًا أصليًا، ومثالًا عن التطور الداخلي الذي يمر به كل البشر. فمثلما يكون الفزع حاضرًا في تلك اللحظة قبل الخطيئة، فإنه يكون موجودًا لدى الطفل كذلك، ويتضح هذا الفزع له، كلما تقدم به العمر في الحياة، بتطور وعيه.

الفزع حسب "كيركيغارد" هو : تعريف للروح الحالمة، وي��تمي على هذا النحو إلى علم النفس اليقظة هي الفرق بين نفسي وأنا أخرى مفترضة؛ فعندما تكون نائمة معطلة وحالمة فهي عدم موعز به. يظهر واقع الروح نفسه باستمرار كشكل يغوي إمكانيته، لكن يختفي حالما يسعى إلى الإمساك به، وهو عدمٌ، الذي يستطيع أن يجلب الفزع فقط. وليس بوسعه أن يفعل أكثر، طالما أنه يظهر نفسه فحسب." ويفرق "كيركيغارد" بين مفهومي الفرع والخوف، موضحًا أنه يختلف كليًا عن الخوف والمفاهيم المشابهة التي تحيل إلى شيء محدد، فالخوف يكون نتاجًا لمسبب خارجي من شيء محدد في العالم، لكن الفزع هو ملتبس وغامض ويكون نتاجًا للوعي، فالخوف يعاش كشيء سلبي، منفرًا، بينما الفزع هو العدم (اللاشيء)، أي شيء غير معروف وغير محدد. وهذا اللامحدود وغير المحدد هو بحد ذاته تذكير بأن الإنسان هو مخلوق (روحي)؛ "الفزع هو واقع الحرية كإمكانية الإمكانية لهذا السبب لا يوجد الفزع في الحيوان، لأن الحيوان بالذات لا يوصف بطبيعته كروح". فبينما يعيش الحيوان في تجانس مع طبيعته دون أن يفكر بفعل الخير أو الشر، فإن الإنسان بالمقابل، لا يعيش في تجانس طبيعي مع حاجته، حيث يقوم منذ الطفولة بتطوير القدرة على التمييز بين الخير والشر، ومعها القدرة على حرية الاختيار.

إذن الفزع حسب "كيركيغارد" هو شرط أساسي للوجود الإنساني، وهو يظهر في الإنسان منذ بداية وعيه بالعالم، وما يحيط به من أمور وأحداث، لكنه يظل كامنًا ومستمرًا في أعماق النفس الإنسانية، ويظهر الفزع كلما توجب على الإنسان أن يختار إحدى الإمكانيات المتنوعة. فالفزع "هو إمكانية للإمكانية". والخطيئه الأولى حسب "كيركيغارد" هي تعبير عن نزوع الإنسان إلى الحرية باعتبارها "إمكانية للإمكانية" عليه أن يختارها، مما يولد لديه الفزع من قرار الاختيار، فالفزع يحيط كل اختيار وفعل وجودي، ومن خلال الفزع أصبح الإنسان مسؤولًا. "إن الإنسان البريء غير المفزوع هو إنسان حالم يعيش في سلام وراحة، لكن تصوّر الحرية هو الذي يجعلني أصاب بدوار، وكذلك يوقظ الفزع. الفزع يمكن مقارنته بصورة حية مع الدوار".

إن هذا الدوار هو ما يسميه "كيركيغارد" بدوخة الحرية،
حيث إن تصور الحرية هو الذي يوقظ فينا الفزع، ويجعلنا نصاب بالدوار، ويشبه ذلك مثالاً بالشخص الواقف على أعلى بناية شاهقة عندما تنظر عيناه إلى أسفل، ويرعبه السقوط إلى أسفل فيسبب له هذا الرعب دوارًا يكون ناتجًا من الخيارات والاحتمالات التي من الممكن أن تؤدي إلى سقوطه، ومن ضمنها خيار الفرد نفسه بأن يلقي بنفسه من الأعلى. "وهكذا فالفزع هو في دوار الحرية، الذي يظهر عندما تريد الروح في طرح المعادلة، وتحدق الحرية إلى الأسفل في إمكانيتها الخاصة، وتمسك بالمحدود لتعين نفسها. هذا الدوار تستسلم الحرية".

الإنسان حسب "كيركيغارد" هو معادلة من الجسد والنفس، من الزمني والأبدي، وهذه المعادلة تبقى في حالة اضطراب وعدم استقرار، وحالة من الفزع ما لم يسندها عنصر ثالث، وهو الروح، أو (بالوعي). وبناءًا على ذلك؛ فإن سعي الإنسان لاختيار حريته، بما فيها الخروج من الفردوس، يمثل حالة فزع، لأنه يخلق حالة من عدم التوازن في المعادلة الذاتية، حيث يختار هنا الزمني النهائي، ولأنه ماض نحو شيء مجهول، أو اللاشيء، بعد أن كان يعيش في البراءة والجهل والاستقرار والأمان. فيجد الإنسان نفسه وحيدًا عليه أن يختار، أن يتحمل مسؤولية اختياراته كمخلوق حر توفرت أمامه إمكانية وهي إمكانية الاختيار، والحرية.، وليس نتاجًا لوضع خارجي."إن إمكانية الحرية تكشف عن نفسها في الفزع".

ومن خلال معايشة الفزع والإمكانية، كعلامة على الحرية، يبعد الإنسان نفسه عن الأصل، عن الوحدة مع طبيعته الأصلية، حيث عاش في الجهل والبراءة، ويتحرك نحو المعرفة والخطيئة. وهذه المعرفة التي يتوجه إليها الفرد، تخلق لديه حالة أخرى من الفزع ، ولهذا عليه أن يسعى لإعادة التوازن إلى ذاته. الفزع عند الإنسان يأتي من تعدد الخيارات على المقبل المجهول، أي فيما يود أن يكونه الإنسان، دون أن يملك أدنى تصورات عن وجوده المقبل، ومع ذلك يشعر بحاجته إلى أن يتخذ موقفا أو يقوم بفعل ما. وهذا يجعل الوضع الإنساني ذاته مضطربًا مفزوعًا وغير مستقر. وإن عدم الاستقرار هذا يجد تعبيره بأشكال أخرى گ؛ حزن كآبة مبالغة، اضطراب وغيرها.

الإنسان هو في حالة انشطار بين الطبيعة والروح، وهكذا فإنه يشكل ثنائية من الزمني والأبدي أو هو في آن واحد هو جزء من الواقع، الوجود القائم، وجزء من الأبدي، بمعنى، أنه مخلوق على صورة الله. ولهذا نجده في حالة اختيار دائم بين الزمني والأبدي، بين الإمكانية والضرورة. لكن هذا المسعى هو الذي يولد المعضلات والفزع للإنسان إذ من الصعب المحافظة على هذا التوازن. فأحيانًا يميل إلى الأبدي أو اللانهائي، وأحيانًا يخضع إلى معادلة الزمني والمحدود. وفي مرات أخرى يعيش اختلال التوازن في معادلة الذات بين النفسي والجسدي. والسؤال الذي يطرح هو كيف يمكن إعادة التوازن لهذه المعادلة، لكي يعيش الإنسان مع نفسه في سلام؟

"الفزع هو إمكانية الحرية، ومثل هذا الفزع فقط يكون خلال الإيمان مربيًا بصورة مطلقة، لأنه يستهلك كل النهايات المحدودة، ويكتشف كل خداعها. وليس لدى أي محقق كبير مثل هذا التعذيب المرعب جاهزًا كما لدى الفزع، ولا يعرف أي مخبر سري كيف يهاجم بمهارة أكبر المشتبه به في أضعف لحظاته، أو يعدّ الكمين بهذه الطريقة ليقبض عليه، كما يعرف الفزع؛ ولا أي حاكم يفهم أن يستجوب بهذه الطريقة المتهم كما الفزع، الذي لا يسمح له الهروب أبدًا، لا من خلال التسلية ولا عن طريق الصخب، لا في العمل، لا في النهار ولا في الليل."

يرى "كيركيغارد" أن التربية والمران على الفزع من خلال الإيمان، سيؤدي إلى استئصال الفزع بصورة نهائية عندما يرمي الفرد نفسه في أحضان الإيمان كمنقذ أخير، يساعد الفزع أو التربية على الفزع من خلال الأيمان على تقبل الواقع والحياة بأقسى مآسيها وآلامها، فالواقع المفزع في أعماق الفرد يساعده على الراحة والسكينة ويكسبه القوة واللامحدودية في مواجهة أقوى الكوارث وأكثرها وحشية، وهذا لا يأتي إلا من أولئك الذين عاشوا الدمار واليأس والحزن إلى أقصاه. لكن من أجل تربية الفرد على هذا النحو بشكل مطلق ولا محدود من خلال الإمكانية، عليه أن يكون صادقًا تجاه الإمكانية ولديه إيمان. وما يعنيه هنا "كيركيغارد" بالإيمان "ما يطلق عليه هيغل بطريقته في مكان ما بصورة صحيحة، اليقين الداخلي الذي تتوقع بلا حدود عندما تنظم اكتشافات الإمكانية بصدق، ستكتشف الإمكانية كل المتناهيات، بيد أنها ستضفي صفة مثالية عليهن بالشكل اللامتناهي، وتغمر الفرد في الفزع حتى ينتصر مرة أخرى عليهن في تَشَوّف الإيمان".

كتاب مفهوم الفزع: دراسة مستفيضة تعالج بعمق مفهوم الفزع من وجهة نظر فلسفية، باعتباره ظاهرة وجودية تنفتح على فهم سايكولوجي للإنسان. يربط كيركيغارد مجالي علم الدوغما (العقائد) وعلم النفس مع بعضهما لإضاءة جوانب مختلفة تدور حول الخطيئة الأصلية، والإنسان، ومن ثم اختياره لحريته، والفزع الذي يرافق الاثنين أو يسبقهما، وكيف يعرف الإنسان نفسه؟ وماذا يعني أن تكون إنساناً؟ وكيف يمكن للإنسان أن يتخلص من الخطيئة عبر الإيمان ومحبة الله؟ كتاب دسم جدا، لم تكن قراءته بالهينة أبدًا، ولا أظن أنني فهمته فهمًا كاملًا، نظرًا لأسلوب كيركيغارد العميق جدًا، المتلوي والمتشابك والساخر في بعض الأحيان. كتاب هام جدًا، وجدير بالقراءة لعدة مرات. #تمت😍

[Mathilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

never read something i understood as little but still so rewarding

[Nemo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woody Allen once joked, "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia." I listened (and re-listened in part) to a 6-hour audiobook of The Concept Of Anxiety. It's about Original Sin.

(Read full review at Nemo's Library)

[Sera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a historic crush on Kierkegaard, a great mind.

[John Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The man, the myth, the legend. I rate just about every Kierkegaard book as a 5 because, even if I disagree with the man, he has such a creative mind: I have never finished reading an SK book without being challenged by an entirely new perspective and style of thought. The Concept of Anxiety is no different. Kierkegaard tackles sin and original sin, better termed hereditary sin, in a way that I'm not sure I've ever encountered before. Numerous times he simply sidesteps the question of why there is sin, and perhaps how there is sin, and purposely never addresses the question of defining sin as this or that action. Some may be dissatisfied with this approach, but if you read the first quarter or so of the book and you'll find that he has the best of reasons for not answering the questions that most of us usually ask.

Instead, the book focuses on the attitudes and state of sin, and attitudes and state before sin, and attitudes and state within sin, and attitudes and state within before sin, and so on. Basically the question is, what wells up inside of an individual to cause sin, and what emotions and states of spirituality does sin cause? Since we must live in this world as individuals, sin is essentially assumed, and all the focus is on the individual who sins and who does not sin. Personally, after reading this book, I am simultaneously disheartened by how far I fall short (which usually happens after reading Kierkegaard) and inspired to the greatness of love and relationship and personhood/personality that God makes available to me (which also usually happens after reading Kierkegaard).

If you have trouble with the word, 'sin,' as more and more people do nowadays, you're in luck. Again, SK assumes sin in this world and in all of us, but sin is not actually the focus. You might think it is based on my review, but take another look at the title of the work and you'll see that sin is only a secondary aspect of anxiety.

Don't go into this book expecting to learn more about anxiety disorders or something like that. SK does take a psychological look at anxiety, but a) he wrote this in the middle of the 19th century, and b) though SK was far ahead of his time in many respects, I doubt psychology as we understand would ever be one of his concerns. Anxiety as SK defines it is a much larger concept than we define it. But in that way SK does dig into all forms of anxiety, anything that can be defined as anxiety, more deeply than most psychologists/psychiatrists today ever do. Trust me on that one: I go to a psychiatrist weekly because of anxiety issues.

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

This has to be one of the worst books every written. Soren Kierkegaard apparently wrote The Concept of Dread in his younger years as a writer. Reading this short and indigestible tract is equivalent to breaking off the ends of asparagus stalks, not the tips which you can gently cook and easily eat in a wide variety of ways, but the bottom parts that are hard as wood, fibrous, and nearly impossible to chew. Lacking in any clear purpose, direction, or relevance, this is one work of literature that can be spat out into the garbage so you can move on to something more nurturing and digestible.

It is not easy to tell why Kierkegaard wrote this. He never explicitly states his reasoning behind the matter. He apparently wanted to write something about psychology, or at least he keeps mentioning psychology and saying that it has severe limitations, something he claims to demonstrate. But the definition or purpose of psychology is never examined. He says its is inferior to religious dogma but he doesn’t get around to saying why dogma is more useful. In fact philosophy, in the truest sense of the word, is meant to do away with dogma, a system of beliefs that does not require proof or systematic thinking. After reading The Concept of Dread, you can possibly deduce that Kierkegaard preferred dogma to evidence based reasoning because he had no talent for logic or methodical thought. He never argues a point. What he says is true because he says it is true and you are stupid if you don’t agree with him. End of argument.

You could invoke Wittgenstein’s claim that philosophy is meant to be descriptive of reality rather than argumentative, an assertion that has merit when used in its proper context. But if that is what Kierkegaard was up to here, he fails miserably to convince through description. The descriptiveness starts with Adam, alone in the Garden of Eden. Kierkeagaard objects to the story of Adam and Eve being interpreted as an allegory or a myth; we have to take it as historical fact. Why? We can’t know because he never gives a reason for this. But let’s be nice readers and take him at his word for the sake of following his discussion. Adam, the first man, was paradoxically outside the human race while being the human race at the same time. Why is this important? Who knows? Did Adam have language? He didn’t need it because he had no one to speak to until Eve came along. Only God spoke to them but God is omnipotent so would he even need to use language to communicate with them? Couldn’t he just implant information in their heads without the medium of speech? Kierkegaard raises this question but never attempts to answer it. And that pesky serpent didn’t actually speak because snakes, by nature, don’t talk.

So when Adam is confronted with the possibility of committing Original Sin he hesitates because he feels...GASP!...a moment of dread. Yes those butterflies in his stomach were a paralyzing anxiety that made him see a future full of infinite possibilities that could result from his desire, decision, and consequent action. But Adam has faith and takes a leap, crossing over the abyss of anxiety and commits Original Sin. And we, the descendants of this mythological first man, have been doing the same thing ever since. This is a profound insight by Lierkegaard’s standards. But this is the same dread felt by every teenage boy the first time he tries to kiss a girl. It is the dread you feel before going to a job interview. It is the dread you feel the first time you score a bag of weed or use a fake ID to buy beer at a convenience story. No doubt, it is the dread that Evel Knievel felt every time he revved up his motorcycle engine before jumping his bike over a line of parked cars. Yes, people get nervous before they do something risky. It is a mundane insight by most people’s standards. 150 years after Kierkegaard wrote The Concept of Dread we have self-help books with titles like Feel the Fear and Do It Anyways. Thanks Soren, you really did the world a favor by writing this book. It’s not easy to comprehend what the field of psychology was like in the mid-19th century but certainly they were farther along than this. He doesn’t advance his thought much beyond this simple assertion and his claim that psychology is inferior to dogma is undercut by the obvious fact that he didn’t seem to know much about psychology to begin with.

How does he claim to know what Adam was feeling at that time? Did he travel back in time and ask Adam about the matter? He couldn’t have been relying on someone else’s testimony because no one was there but Eve and the snake. By Kierkegaard’s admission, the snake couldn’t speak and it hasn’t been established that Adam could either. Is any of this important anyways? Nope. Kierkegaard doesn’t grasp the idea that philosophizing and quibbling are two different things.

There is also a wonderful mess of insights we get from the rest of the book too. Original Sin entered the world through Adam but it is possible that Original Sin was first a part of God; after all, if it entered the world, it must have entered from someplace, it had to exist first in order to enter. Every human is a sinner but each one has to start the chain of sin themselves; humans are born as an eternal chain of recurrence and sin starts anew with each one. “Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy”, says Edward Norton’s nameless charcter in Fight Club. Great idea, Kierk, old buddy...where did you get it from? Socrates, right?

We also get a long digression into the description of time and eternity, though it’s not explained what purpose this serves in developing the thesis, though it’s not quite clear what the thesis is. Time is the measurement of eternity’s flow through the present into the past. A moment is a segment of eternity but it is a segment that lasts forever. Eternity only extends into the future because once the present becomes the past it no loner exists. But doesn’t that mean that eternity has a boundary and a limit, making it, therefore by definition, not eternal? “Shut your mouth”, shouts Kierkegaard from his grave, “logic is nonsense when being confronted by the truths of belief and dogma.”

Towards the end he claims that people who have faith are able to overcome dread but people who oppose faith because they fear it become locked up inside themselves because without faith, they are unable to make the leap of faith that overcomes dread. What logic! Did Kierkegaard personally know of anyone who fit this description? How can he claim this to be a universal truth when he spent so little of his life around the other human beings that he despised so much? The guy didn’t have many friends and apparently he didn’t want any either. He probably never even traveled outside of Denmark. These concepts of faith, dread, and fear of faith are vaguely expressed and some concrete examples of what they mean would have gone a long way in clarifying matters and proving they have any validity. Kierkegaard lacked an epsitemology and his wrtigins suffer terribly because of that omission. Of course, he believed faith mattered more than facts so why bother with proof?

Don’t forget that spirit is what binds the soul to the body and Hegelian philosophy, science, paganism, and anything that isn’t Christian is twaddle, an oddly annoying word that gets used often whenever Kierkegaard makes an ad hominem attack on anyone he disagrees with. To be fair, this overuse of “twaddle” is probably the fault of the translator. But even so, at an intellectual level intellectual level it’s like calling someone a poopy-face or saying, “Yo mama’s so hairy you got rug burn when you was born.”

The book actually gets easier to follow towards the end. The theme of “dread” that is supposed to be the thread tying the whole book together but it is not strong enough to do this. The comprehensible parts of the book are random and don’t complement one another. The Concept of Dread is formless, sloppy, lacking in structure, without clear purpose, and never presents any ideas that are relevant to anything in the real world. If you are not a Christian, then it is based entirely on a false premise. You may want to be a good sport, keep an open mind, and try to see this from the point of view of someone you disagree with but that does not add up to much when the author does such a poor job of stating what his purpose even is. Even if you are a Christian there is a definite possibility that you won’t understand or accept what Kierkegaard is yammering on about because he does such an insufficient job of writing clear and meaningful ideas.

Some people say reading Kierkegaard will help you understand the Nazi Martin Heidegger but if you can understand Heidegger at all, reading Kierkegaard doesn’t offer much assistance. Heidegger, the fascist sympathizer who studied under the Jewish Husserl and had and had an affair with the Jewish Hannah Arendt, was possibly nothing more than a master of obfuscation anyways. Bertrand Russel accused him of using complex language to hide the fact that he had nothing to say (I only partially agree with this) and even the Nazis snubbed him, calling his philosophy gibberish, when he petitioned them to be the prime philosopher of National Socialism while applying for the position of rector of an elite Nazi university. (If you are a Kierkegaard defender, don’t whine at me about this digression since Kierkegaard also goes on long, irrelevant sidetracks in several of his books.) Reading Kierkegaard in light of Heidegger is like reading one of those footnotes that doesn’t do anything to enhance the main text.

Over the last 30 years, I have read a lot of philosophy. I have read other books by Kierkegaard too. Abstract thinking is not foreign to me. Other reviewers say they like this book but can’t explain it. Some reviers explain it but their explanations make no more sense than the original text does. I’m calling bullshit on The Concept of Dread. It reads like something Kierkegaard wrote in haste without putting much thought into what he wanted to say. He probably never bothered to proofread it, revise it, or edit it. If he were alive today, he might even be surprised it is still in print. Skip over this pile of detritus and go straight for Fear and Trembling. I don’t agree with that book but at least it is comprehensible and can be understood, analyzed, and debated in a meaningful way.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the worst self-help panic attack workbook money can buy. There wasn’t even a recommended dietary-avoidance index. And he didn’t play “St. Ides Heaven.” Shit: now I’m just depressed.

Does that mean…I’m…I’m…

cured?

(Mitzvah! XO) ((is better than Either/Or)) (((the album; but the other wordy thing too)))

[Alexandru Croitor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Posibilitatea libertății se vestește în anxietate.

"Conceptul de anxietate" este o carte exasperant de dificilă. O singură citire nu "îi face dreptate". Totuși, în mare (notă: mă fac vinovat de un reducționism de mare clasă) - folosindu-se de psihologie pentru a înțelege păcatul (nu a oferi un raspuns "de ce"-ului pe care problema păcatului o ridică; operează sub presupoziția dogmatică a păcatului) și negând poziția augustinian-luterană in privința păcatului (omul se naște păcătos și "moștenește" vina ereditar, din cauza lui Adam), Vigilius Haufniensis (un pseudonim literar - un alt aspect care face opera kierkegaardiană interesantă, dar și mult mai greu de interpretat) propune o categorie interimară care să "explice" relația dintre păcatul lui Adam și "saltul calitativ" (saltul pe care individul îl face în păcat, făcându-se astfel vinovat), acest concept fiind "anxietatea".

"Anxietatea este realitatea libertatii ca posibilitate a posibilitatii."


"Anxietatea este o antipatie simpatica si o simpatie antipatica." ( o atracție pe care o urăști, dar o ură care te atrage - fraza asta ilustrează natura dialectică a păcatului)

"Anxietatea poate fi asemănată cu amețeala. Cel al cărui ochi ajunge să privească-n jos în hăul căscat amețește. Care să fie pricina? Atât ochiul, cât și prăpastia; caci dacă nu s-ar fi uitat în jos... Tot aşa este și anxietatea, ameteala libertății, care survine când spiritul vrea să instituie sinteza, la care libertatea scrutează-n jos în propria-i posibilitate, agățându-se de finit și ținându-se de el. În această amețeală se prăbușeşte libertatea. Psihologia nu poate, și nici nu vrea să meargă mai departe. În aceeaşi clipă totul este schimbat; iar când libertatea se ridică din nou în picioare, îşi dă seama că este vinovată. Între aceste două clipe se află și saltul, pe care nici o știință nu l-a explicat și nici nu-l va putea explica. Cel ce se face vinovat în anxietate, se face vinovat pe cât de ambiguu posibil."



Tind sa cred că ambiguitate pe care întregul concept (și întreaga argumentare) o are se datorează faptului că - modus operandi are la bază următoarea idee:
“Să asculți atent ce zice enigma, înainte de a o ghici”. Citind cartea, ideea asta m-a însoțit peste tot: el audiază misterul și încearcă să transcrie "tensiunea".

("Lucru care poate preocupa psihologia - si lucru de care ea se poat preocupa - este cum se naste pacatul, nu faptul ca el se naste.")

“A vrea sa explici intrarea pacatului in lume logic este o tampenie, care nu le poate trece prin cap decât unor caraghioși impacientați să găsească o explicație” - textul e plin de tot felul de ironii și afirmații polemice ('aruncate', mai ales, filosofiei hegeliene).

[Marian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know if it's the material or the translation or some combination of both, but The Concept of Anxiety is not nearly as accessible as Works of Love or Fear and Trembling. The other two are easy by comparison. Though the vocabulary itself is (mostly) simple, I probably understood less than 20% of this book, in part because Kierkegaard is here responding to the work of other philosophers, with some expectation that his reader is familiar with the larger dialogue. Those having a background in Hegel and others will likely be better off, and once I do, I'll have to reread this one.

[Catriona Corbett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in this book and I don't like it.

[Samuel Pineda · Rating 5 out of 5]

“ésa es una aventura que todos los hombres tienen que correr, es decir, que todos han de aprender a angustiarse”.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Anh]

Don't let the phrase "A simple deliberation" in the subtitle of the book fool you. Or rather let the subtitle "A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditary Sin" says it all. This is probably the most difficult book of Kierkegaard's.

Just read one paragraph in the section entitled "The Concept of Anxiety" where Kierkegaard defines anxiety as "freedom's actuality as the possibility of possibility" and then "a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy". Still a little bit unclear? Don't worry, the author is here to help. He further wrote: "anxiety is a foreign power, that laid hold of him, a power that he did not love but about which he was anxious, a power about which he nevertheless loved even as he feared it." See? A very simple deliberation. Thanks so much for the clarification, Søren .

The biggest hint may come from a later paragraph in the same section; Anxiety is the anxious possibility of being able . Humanity love/attracted by the infinite possibility of being able to choose who we are and can become, but fear/repelled by the responsibilities that this possibility/freedom requires.

Despite being (so) difficult to read, this book is probably the most important book of Kierkegaard's, earning him the title "the father of existentialism". Its' core concepts were later picked up and further developed by Sartre in Nausea (existential angst, freedom of choice), Martin Heidegger in Being and Time (possibility of freedom, authenticity), and Sigmund Freud (Thanatos (death) drive: a desire for what we fear and a fear of what we desire).

If, on the other hand, the speaker maintains that the great thing about him is that he
has never been in anxiety, I will gladly provide him with my explanation: that it is because he is very spiritless....The more profound the anxiety, the more profound the culture.

[Sophia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure this book has hidden depths to it and some commentators say it is really about psychology and not about original sin. But reading through so much biblical language, alegorical or not, is simply unbearable to me. I couldn't finish it.

It could probably be a more interesting read for a christian with a background on Hegel.

[Andee Nero · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't love it but I didn't hate it... I liked that it made me feel less bad about my anxieties but it was hard for me to take it seriously. I did enjoy the dissection of hereditary sin. I'll take away a few gems and that's about it.

[V.G. Castle. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to grasp the meaning of this book but I constantly got lost.
At one point he is talking about Adam and Even and then at the next point there is a kind of system.

I think this book is not just for me.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this much more than Either/Or, probably because I understood what he was trying to say better. I'll have to reread that one after I go through maybe Sickness Unto Death and Fear and Trembling.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il possibile corrisponde perfettamente al futuro. Il possibile è, per la libertà, il futuro, e il futuro, per il tempo, è il possibile. Ad ambedue corrisponde, nella vita individuale, l'angoscia. (Capitolo Terzo - L'angoscia come conseguenza del peccato che è la mancanza della coscienza del peccato, p.90)

Una citazione piuttosto delicata, questa tratta da Il concetto dell'angoscia, un'opera sì ancora acerba negli sviluppi del pensiero di Kierkegaard, ma non per questo ininfluente, anzi, in questo scritto vengono poste le basi per La malattia mortale, uno dei testi più maturi e sintetici del suo pensiero.

Al passo riportato sono piuttosto legato, dal momento che l'avevo posto sotto un'altra traduzione come spunto di apertura per una brevissima trattazione sull'angoscia novecentesca, la cui tematizzazione da parte di autori come Heidegger, Jaspers e Sartre è incredibilmente influenzata da questo piccolo gioiellino che ai tempi della stesura non avevo ancora letto poiché mi ero concentrato di più su ciò che genera angoscia nel singolo, e quindi sull'analisi della figura di Abramo esposta in Timore e tremore, piuttosto che sull'origine di tale stato d'animo.

Ad un certo punto ho sentito la necessità di affrontarlo, dal momento che lo avevo comprato a suo tempo (e, attualmente, di rileggerlo insieme a La malattia mortale poiché, come dice Cornelio Fabro nel suo breve saggio, sono due testi incredibilmente legati l'uno dall'altro, pur essendo espressione di due fasi differenti del pensiero di Kierkegaard): è una lettura incredibilmente densa e piena di sfaccettature, e pertanto necessita di costante partecipazione e attenzione; celandosi dietro lo pseudonimo di Vigiulius Haufniensis, Kierkegaard porta avanti quella sorta di teatro delle maschere che dovrebbe rappresentare le diverse possibilità dell'uomo anche nei punti di vista e nello stile, quindi è essenziale saper cogliere quali sono i motivi del pensiero kierkegaardiano e quali, invece, appartengono allo pseudonimo adottato: un gioco, insomma, che spinge il lettore a mettere mano ad altre opere del filosofo danese, il segno di una filosofia che matura di volta in volta nell'attimo fuggente dell'eternità. A questo, bisogna aggiungere la poliedricità delle tematiche trattate, che eleva la complessità dell'opera in questione: da una parte le critiche a Hegel, alla sua logica e alla sua dialettica, dall'altra la psicologia che ogni tanto sfiora nella dogmatica e nella teologia, e, ancora, la metafisica e la fenomenologia.

Che il primo peccato sia qualcos'altro (cioè un peccato come tanti altri), qualcos'altro di un peccato (il peccato numero 1 rispetto al numero 2), si comprende facilmente. Il primo peccato è una determinazione di qualità; il primo peccato è il peccato. [...] La nuova qualità nasce col primo momento, col salto, con la subitaneità dell'enigmatico. (Capitolo primo - L'angoscia intesa come presupposto del peccato originale e come il peccato originale la cui spiegazione si ha risalendo alla sua origine, 2. Il concetto del primo peccato, p.33)

Il punto di partenza dell'analisi kierkegaardiana è basato su un'originale rilettura del peccato di Adamo, e viene condotta con una costante polemica nei confronti della logica hegeliana: il primo peccato si differenzia dagli altri non per la quantità ([...] è una superstizione quando nella logica si crede che, con l'aumentare delle determinazioni quantitative, venga fuori una qualità nuova; [...]), bensì per un salto qualitativo. A questo salto qualitativo, Kierkegaard fa corrispondere la perdita di innocenza, cioè dell'ignoranza:

L'innocenza è ignoranza. Nell'ignoranza l'uomo non è determinato come spirito, ma è determinato psichicamente nell'unione immediata con la sua naturalità. Lo spirito dell'uomo è come sognante. [...]
L'angoscia è una determinazione dello spirito sognante, e come tale appartiene alla psicologia. Nella veglia la differenza tra l'io e l'altro da me è posta; nel sonno è sospesa; nel sogno è un nulla accennato. La realtà dello spirito si mostra continuamente come una figura che tenta la sua possibilità, ma appena cerca di afferrarla, essa si dilegua; essa è un nulla che può soltanto angosciare. (Capitolo primo, 5. Il concetto dell'angoscia, pp. 43-44)

Ogni scienza, sostiene nel successivo paragrafo Kierkegaard, consiste o un'immanenza logica, o in un'immanenza entro una trascendenza, che essa non può spiegare: in questi termini la psicologia ha il compito di spiegare l'angoscia che l'uomo prova nel momento in cui il peccato viene posto, tuttavia non può spiegare come il peccato abbia origine o come sia posto, tale è la "trascendenza" sopracitata: indubbiamente, si entrerebbe nel merito della dogmatica e in questioni teologiche che, nonostante il dichiarato intento da parte dello pseudonimo di Kierkegaard di fare solamente un'indagine psicologica, vengono accennate e abbozzate lungo tutto il testo, il che non è casuale per la conclusione a cui egli approderà nel capitolo conclusivo: il problema dell'angoscia, infatti, si risolve nello stadio religioso.

Con la peccaminosità fu posta la sessualità. Nello stesso momento comincia la storia del genere umano. Come la peccaminosità si muove per determinazione quantitative, così fa l'angoscia. La conseguenza del peccato originale o la sua presenza nel singolo è l'angoscia, che si distingue da quella di Adamo solo quantitativamente. (Capitolo secondo - L'angoscia come sviluppo del peccato originale, p.53)

Kierkegaard distingue, poi, due forme di angoscia: una oggettiva, insita nella natura, e una, invece, soggettiva, propria dell'uomo e quantitativamente differente (nel più) rispetto a quella di Adamo, il quale pone sia il peccato nella sua prima qualità, sia la generazione che erediterà e svilupperà tale peccato. L'angoscia in sé nasce dal niente, ma è quella soggettiva a rassomigliare alla vertigine: si manifesta nell'uomo il sentimento delle infinite, seppur irreversibili, possibilità che ha di agire. A riguardo, è emblematico il seguente passaggio:

L'angoscia si può paragonare alla vertigine. Chi volge gli occhi al fondo di un abisso è preso dalla vertigine. Ma la causa non è meno nel suo occhio che nell'abisso: perché deve guardarvi. Così l'angoscia è la vertigine della libertà, che sorge mentre lo spirito sta per porre la sintesi e la libertà, guardando giù nella propria possibilità, afferra il finito per fermarsi in esso. In questa vertigine la libertà cade. (Capitolo secondo, 2. L'angoscia soggettiva, p.61)

Il nostro percorso come singoli esistenti è fatto di scelte, anche quando sembra che siano gli altri ad imporsi su di noi, giacché è il singolo che sceglie di lasciarsi condizionare e di intraprendere una determinata strada: una tale sensazione è tanto più acuta quanto risulta più profonda la situazione in cui siamo coinvolti. In particolare, Kierkegaard la ritrova nell'erotico, dove l'angoscia non si fa come motivo di turbamento, quanto, invece, come momento della situazione: in questo caso, si rivela come la possibilità dell'intimità, la scelta di lasciarsi andare alla persona amata.

All'uomo, però, non corrisponde solo una sintesi di anima e corpo, ma anche, in un'altra espressione, di tempo e di eternità: l'angoscia, infatti, può essere anche vista come momento della vita individuale, passaggio da uno stato all'altro in termini qualitativi. Al concetto di tempo Kierkegaard dedica alcune pagine piuttosto dense a cui bisognerebbe affiancare quelle che Hegel riserva all'argomento nella sua Enciclopedia, però in esse si ritrova un concetto chiave della nostra esistenza: lo spazio permette di suddividere il tempo in passato, presente e futuro, tuttavia far confluire ogni nostra scelta in questi istanti sarebbe alquanto riduttivo, giacché ogni possibilità dovrebbe essere presa per quella che vale nel suo momento: se così non fosse, allora sarebbe giustificata ogni forma di procrastinazione, che porta l'individuo a rimandare il più possibile una scelta, svalutando così ciò che proprio lo contraddistingue. L'angoscia serve a ricordarci soprattutto questo.

Quelle che ho citato sono solo alcune tra le perle contenute in questo libro, a cui poi attingerà l'Esistenzialismo nei concetti di "Essere-in-situazione" e di "Essere-gettato-nel-mondo": nonostante le frequenti sfumature teologiche, molteplici concetti possono essere svuotati di quell'aura di religiosità, diventando così principi ispiratori dell'esistenza di ciascuno di noi.