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

by Soren Kierkegaard

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

, 1980

Overview

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. This edition replaces the earlier translation by Walter Lowrie that appeared under the title The Concept of Dread.

Contents

Top Highlights

“A psychology that does not account for the determining and transforming activity of spirit in the self-conscious subject will not accurately reflect what grounds and generates the quality of man’s becoming.” (Page xv)

“Yet this is precisely Kierkegaard’s point, namely, that the ‘qualitative leap’ is a category outside the scope of scientific procedures and that its confirmation is therefore not reducible to the principles of verification assumed by the sciences.” (Page xv)

“Psychotherapy cannot remove ontological anxiety, because it cannot change the structure of finitude. But it can remove compulsory forms of anxiety and can reduce the frequency and intensity of fears. It can put anxiety ‘in its proper place.” (Pages xvi–xvii)

“Anxiety cannot be conquered, for no finite being can conquer its finitude. Anxiety is always present, although it may be latent. Because it is ontological, anxiety expresses finitude from the inside.” (Page xvi)

“But to preach is really the most difficult of all arts and is essentially the art that Socrates praised, the art of being able to converse.” (Page 16)

Product Details

• Title: The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin
• Author: Soren Kierkegaard
• Series: Kierkegaard’s Writings
• Volume: VIII
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Print Publication Date: 1980
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Sin, Original; Psychology, Religious; Anxiety
• ISBNs: 9781400846979, 0691020116, 9780691020112, 9780691072449, 0691072442, 1400846978
• Resource ID: LLS:KKGWRTGS08
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-04T23:07:22Z

About Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel; he was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity in his lifetime, primarily that of The Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist.