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

294 Pages·1980·16.9 MB·English

by  Søren Kierkegaard

THE eONCEPI' OF ANXIETY
KIERKEGAARO'S WRITINGS, VIII

THE CONCEPT OF ANXIETY
A SIMPLE PSYCHOLOGICALLY
ORIENTING DELIBERATION
ON
THE DOGMATIC ISSUE
OF HEREDITARY SIN
by S0ren Kierkegaard
Edited and Translated
with Introduction and Notes by
Reidar Thomte
in collaboration with
Albert B. Anderson
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
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CONTENTS
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION Vll
The Concept of Anxiety
1
PREFACE
7
INTRODUCTION
9
Anxiety as the Presupposition of Hereditary Sin
and as Explaining Hereditary Sin Retrogressively
in Terms of Its Origin
25
1. HISTORICAL INTIMATIONS REGARDING THE
CONCEPT OF HEREDITARY SIN 25
2. THE CONCEPT OF THE FIRST SIN 29
3. THE CONCEPT OF THE INNOCENCE 35
4. THE CONCEPT OF THE FALL 38
5. THE CONCEPT OF ANXIETY 41
6. ANXIETY AS THE PRESUPPOSITION OF HEREDITARY
SIN AND AS EXPLAINING HEREDITARY SIN
46
RETROGRESSIVELY IN TERMS OF ITS ORIGIN
II Anxiety as Explaining Hereditary Sin
Progressively
52
1. OBJECTIVE ANXIETY 56
2. SUBJECTIVE ANXIETY 60
A. The Consequence of the Relationship
of Generation 62
B. The Consequence of the Historical Relationship 73
VI
Contents
III Anxiety as the Consequence of that Sin which
Is Absence of the Consciousness of Sin
81
l. THE ANXIETY OF spmITLESSNESS 93
2. ANXIETY DEFINED DIALECTICALLY AS FATE 96
3. ANXIETY DEFINED DIALECTICALLY AS GUILT 103
IV Anxiety of Sin or Anxiety as the Consequence
of Sin in the Single Individual
111
l. ANXIETY ABOUT EVIL 113
2. ANXIETY ABOUT THE GOOD (THE DEMONIC) 118
136
I. Freedom Lost Somatically-Psychically
II. 137
Freedom Lost Pneumatically
V Anxiety as Saving through Faith
155
SUPPLEMENT 163
Key to References 164
Original Title Page 166
Selected Entries from Kierkegaard's Journals
and Papers Pertaining to
The Concept of Anxiety 169
EDITORIAL ApPENDIX 215
Acknowledgments 217
Collation of in the Danish
The Concept of Anxiety
Editions ofKierkegaard's Collected Works 219
Notes 221
Bibliographical Note 257
INDEX 259
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
Among those attending W.F.J. Schelling's series of lectures
on the philosophy of mythology and revelation
(Philosophie
at the University of Berlin in
der Mythologie und Offenbarung)
the winter of1841-1842 were both Friedrich Engels and S0ren
Kierkegaard.1 After the second lecture Kierkegaard wrote: "I
am so happy to have heard Schelling's second lecture-inde
scribably. I have been pining and thinking mournful thoughts
long enough. The embryonic child of thought leapt for joy
within me, as in Elizabeth, when he mentioned the word 'ac
tuality' in connection with the relation of philosophy to ac
tuality. "2 Although this initial enthusiasm declined rapidly,
Kierkegaard continued to attend the lectures and took copious
notes. What interested him in particular was Schelling's criti
cism of Hegel's rationalistic system, and upon his return to
Copenhagen in 1842 he turned to the study of Leibniz, Des
cartes, and Aristotle, as well as to the anti-Hegelian writings
of Adolph Trendelenburg3 and portions of W. G. Tenne
mann's history of philosophy.4 Each of these studies helped
him to shape his own philosophical position and also fur
nished him with an arsenal for his relentless battle with Hegel
and speculative idealism.
Leibniz's review of arguments pertaining to the problem of
freedom interested Kierkegaard especially. In response to
Leibniz's point in the that the connection between
Theodicy
1 Paul Tillich, "Existential Philosophy," Journal of the History of Ideas, V
(1944),44.
2 See p. 229, note 51.
3 Adolph Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen (Berlin: 1840; ASKB
(Leipzig: 1843;
842); Die logische Frage in Hegel's System. Zwei Streitschriften
846). See Niels Thulstrup, (Copenhagen:
ASKB Kierkegaards Forhold til Hegel
Gyldendal, 1967), pp. 241, 269.
4 W. G. Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, I-XII (Leipzig: 1798-1819;
815-26). See Thulstrup, pp. 241, 243,
ASKB Kierkegaards Forhold. til Hegel,
245-46, 249-50.
viii
Historical Introduction
judgment and will is not as necessary as one might think,
Kierkegaard asked: "In what relationship does the will stand
to the last act of the understanding ... ?"5 He agreed with
Leibniz that a completely indifferent will (~quilibrium) is an
absurdity and a chimera.6 In another journal entry he noted
that Leibniz mentions two difficulties that have disturbed
man: the relation between freedom and necessity, and the
continuity of matter and its separate parts. The first problem
has engaged all men; the second, only the philosophers. 7 Sub
sequently, Kierkegaard dealt with the problem of freedom in
three of his pseudonymous works: de
Philosophical Fragments
fines the ontological ground of freedom and its realm,
whereas and
The Concept of Anxiety The Sickness unto Death
consider the anthropological aspects of freedom.
In response to Descartes's idea of freedom, Kierkegaard
noted in his papers that: "In freedom I can emerge only from
that into which I have entered in freedom .... IfI am going to
emerge from doubt in freedom, I must enter into doubt in
freedom. (Act ofWill.)"8 Therefore, Descartes, according to
Kierkegaard, had inverted the relationship between thought
and will:
Incidentally, it is noteworthy that Descartes, who himself
in one of the meditations explains the possibility of error by
recalling that freedom in man is superior to thought, never
theless has construed thought, not freedom, as the abso
lute. Obviously this is the position of the elder Fichte-not
but I act for this is something
cogito ergo sum, ergo sum, cogito
derived or it is identical with "I act"; either the conscious
ness of freedom is in the action, and then it should not read
or it is the subsequent consciousness. 9
cogito ergo sum,
JP II 1241 IV C 39).
5 (Pap.
II 1241 IV C 39); Leibniz, §§311ff., 319;
6JP (Pap. ... , ed. J. E. ETrhdemodaineny, (Berlin: 1840; God. G62u0il).,
Leibnitii Opera philosophi(4 ASKB
pp. 595-98. See alsoJP 1112361, 3340; IV 4419; V 5581-85 IV A 12,
(Pap.
14-18,22,35).
7 JP III 2360 (Pap. IV All). 8 JP I 777 (Pap. IV B 13:21).
9 JP II 2338 (Pap. IV ell).
IX
Historical Introduction
In a marginal notation Kierkegaard added: "This transition is
manifestly a transition, not dialectical, for dialec
pathos:filled
tically nothing can be derived. To me this is important. A
pathos-filled transition can be achieved by every man if he
wills it, because the transition to the infinite, which consists in
pathos, takes only courage. "10
Kierkegaard criticized the Cartesian principle of methodical
doubt because it mistakenly gives more weight to reflection
(thought) than it does to act (will).
What skeptics should really be caught in is the ethical.
Since Descartes they have all thought that during the period
in which they doubted they dared not to express anything
definite with regard to knowledge, but on the other hand
they dared to act, because in this respect they could be
satisfied with probability. What an enormous contradic
tion! As if it were not far more dreadful to do something
about which one is doubtful (thereby incurring responsibil
ity) than to make a statement. Or was it because the ethical
is in itself certain? But then there was something which
doubt could not reach!l1
Descartes's apparently epistemological problem is for Kier
kegaard an existential one; that is, the solution of doubt lies
not in reflection but in resolution. 12
The remainder of Kierkegaard's studies during the fall of
1842 centered on Trendelenburg and Tennemann, and from
them Kierkegaard gained insights into Aristotle's thought.
References in his papers indicate that he also made use of pri
mary sources. In a discussion of Aristotle's doctrine of mo
tion, Tennemann wrote: "Because possibility and actuality
are distinguishable in all things, change,
insofar as it is change,
is ... The transition from pos
the actualization of the possible .
sibility to actuality is a change, Kivll<nC;. This could be ex
pressed more precisely by saying: motion, is
change, the
10 JP III 2339 (Pap. IV C 12). 11 JP I 774 (Pap. IV A 72).
11 JP I 776 (Pap. IV B 5:13).