In this essay, I will talk about Martin Heidegger’s existential accounts of anxiety in his book Being and Time, and how this relates to the more broad examination of the meaning of Being. In the first section, I will summarize Heidegger’s arguments, and in the second section of my paper, I will examine certain disagreements with Heidegger’s arguments.
I will summarize Heidegger’s argument on “anxiety” as a mood in three distinct parts.
**First, let us broadly consider Dasein in relation to the world it lives in. This is important because it is through this mood of anxiety that Dasein comes to a conclusion about its being in the world and its relation to the world. Heidegger describes anxiety as a mood and a “state of mind” (German paragraph 184). Dasein experiences this mood when it comes to the point where it questions its very own existence, as if its mind somehow splits and begins to analyze itself from a distance. In Heidegger’s words: “in anxiety, Dasein gets brought before itself through its own Being” (184). While Dasein is in this particular mood of anxiety, he questions its relation to the external, everything that is not himself.
The world is present to Dasein now, but it is only through moods that this is possible.
**Let us now go into depth about what the mood of anxiety actually is and what it is NOT. Anxiety is so important in the existential account Heidegger makes in Being and Time because the particularity of this mood--unlike other moods like fear and boredom--is that it brings Dasein into the questioning of its own being. But where does this all begin? Heidegger explains: “Since our aim is to proceed towards the being of the totality of the structural whole, we shall take as our point of departure the conc...
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...sein realizes that in fact, nothing has actual meaning: “entities with-in-the world are of so little importance in themselves” (187). This underlines agony and distress of Dasein’s very own existence. Finally, the meaninglessness of everything brings about the individualization of Dasein. Dasein faces its aloneness in the world. This does not mean that Dasein is the one entity that exists in the world. Rather, once we question our own existence and recognize the meaninglessness of everything in the world, it is this insignificance of everything in Dasein’s surroundings that makes it feel isolated.
I will now show how I agree with these three main arguments Heidegger makes on his existentialist account for anxiety, but also how, on another hand, they lack depth.
I disagree with the claim that moods in general distance ourselves from relating to the world.
Heidegger proposed "to demonstrate, by the success of an actual interpretation of [Plato’s gigantomachia] that this sense of Being [as presence] in fact guided the ontological questioning of the Greeks...." I will show Heidegger failed this self-imposed test. Then with Heidegger’s interpretation as a starting point, I will show the basic structure of the text.
Kraus, Peter. "Heidegger on nothingness and the meaning of Being." Death and Philosophy. Ed. Jeff Malpas and Robert C. Solomon. New York: Routledge, 1998.
1) Barnes, Wesley. "Is Existentialism Definable?" The Philosophy and Literature of Existentialism. Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1968
...n involvement in something regarding the involvement to be something of the character of Being relating to the readiness-to-hand phenomenon. Therefore, the character of Being, in regard to readiness-to-hand, is simply an involvement. The main towards-which is a for-the-sake-of where the for-the-sake-of relates to the Being of Dasein, where the Being is an issue. The equipment totality is related to this involvement, which is used in other involvements known as the totality of involvements, which leads to this piece of equipment being used to make something, which makes something else, which creates this new thing, which helps Dasein. It all leads to Dasein. There is an ontological relationship to the world in which Dasein can allow entities to be equipment and be involved in something or be free. Dasein is the underlying framework for the world and for Being.
Ross, Kelly L. "Existentialism." The Proceedings of the Friesian School, Fourth Series. Kelly L. Ross, Ph.D., 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
The Merriam – Webster Dictionary defines existentialism as a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad (Merriam, 2011). In other words, an existentialist believes that our natures are the natures we make for ourselves, the meaning of our existence is that we just exist and there may or may not be a meaning for the existence, and we have to individually decide what is right or wrong and good or bad for ourselves. No one can answer any of those things for us. A good example of existentialism is Woody Allen’s movie, Deconstructing Harry. A man is haunted by his past and his past has followed him into the present. He is a wreck not because of the things that happened to him, but because of the choices he made. He is consumed by regret and insecurity and he tries to find blame in his situation with someone other than himself, however he cannot (Barnes, 2011). Throughout the rest of this paper I will be discussing two of the most prominent existentialists, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
One of the major features of Heidegger's thinking is his criticism of Cartesian subjectivity. According to Heidegger, in regarding the ego cogito as the guarantor of its own continuing existence and as the basis of all things...
I argue that the soul, the spirit, the essence of Dasein must be explained as well as the phenomena of existence in order to clarify the question 'What does it mean to be (Dasein)?'; Through the soul, Dasein may bridge the gaps of loneliness that occur in the solitude of single existence amongst Others. Psychology and morality provide excellent headquarters from which to launch this campaign in search of the soul of Dasein…How can one's soul exhibit both concernful solicitude and care while experiencing existential loneliness in the face of Death? When looking at the temporality of Dasein's existence, psychology corresponds to Heidegger's concept of already-being as does morality to being-ahead-of-itself, in relation to the prospect of having a soul.
Perhaps the most striking part of Tillich’s presentation is his interesting analysis of the ontology of anxiety. Tillich explores an extremely contemporary subject from a beautifully constructed existential viewpoint. This part of the book alone is enough to encourage even the most ardent critic to take caution when plundering the groundwork of existentialism.
It attends to operations and to their centre and source which is the self. It discerns the different levels of consciousness, the consciousness of the dream, of the waking subject, of the intelligently inquiring subject, of the rationally reflecting subject, of the responsibly deliberating subject. It examines the different operations on the different levels and their relations to one another.
Existentialism is defined as "a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining his or her own development through acts of the will”. In other words, existentialism it emphasizes individual freedom. Throughout The Stranger, the amount of existentialism views is abundant. The use of Mersault’s experiences covey the idea that human life has no meaning except for simple existence. The idea of existentialism in Albert Camus' The Stranger reflects through Mersault's life experiences with his relationship with Marie, the death of his mother Maman, the murdering of the Arab, and Mersault's trial and execution, all these events show that Mersault’s life of no meaning.
When you think of emotions you think of the classic, sadness, happiness, and madness. The one people often forget is the emotion of anxiety. Anxiety is one of the only emotions that you can have and actually not show it. Anxiety itself is very strange, depending on who you are, and how your brain works, anything can cause it . Anxiety usually follows you throughout your life but for some people, it changes as you change and grow. You aren 't the same height as you were when you were 6, you grew. There’ s a chance that the anxiety you encounter works the same way. Some classic emotions remain the same throughout your life for the most part, but anxiety as a tendency to morph.
In these two authentic forms of despair, it seems that S.K. is attempting to strike a balance, if not a synthesis, between the self and God, the temporal and the eternal, the finitude and the infinitude. In order to make sense of the human self, S.K. is illustrating that the self has two relations, each of which is fully capable of producing despair. The first is a relation of the self to itself, the second, a relation of the self to something else (God). As with freedom and necessity, in which no freedom may exist without the possibility of need, S.K. reminds us that there can be no despair without the “annihilated possibility of the ability to be in it” (45).
Like anxiety, fear protects man against the threats of a fatal situation, (Tillich 81) but unlike it, fear is “directed toward a definite object” (83). Tillich’s concept of fear can be best explained as “being afraid of something specific which can be faced, analyzed, attacked, endured” (Dreyer 1249). Because anxiety does not have any objects, life establishes fear (Tillich 8) so that the latter preserves man from the agony of non-being (Dreyer 1249).