The term fear

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The term fear (original title: Begrebet Angest ) is a writing by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard , which he published under the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis (the guardian of Copenhagen) in 1844. In it, Kierkegaard analyzes the term fear from a psychological point of view. Fear is not limited to a psychological state, but shows a range of different aspects. The text is addressed to the Copenhagen readership, which can be seen in many allusions. Such side notes, which are not immediately understandable for today's reader, and the compressed form of the presentation of his thoughts make access to the text difficult.

content

construction

The chapters can be sketched as follows (keeping the original title):

  • Introduction: Observations on the analysis of the term → decision of a psychological approach; Criticism of the systematic Hegel (who ignores the concrete person)
  • First chapter: Fear as a prerequisite for original sin and as that which explains original sin backwards to its origin: Adam and original sin , Adam as prototype
  • Second chapter: Fear as the original sin in progression: the meaning of original sin for the following generations
  • Third chapter: Fear as a consequence of that sin, which is the lack of awareness of sin: What if there is no awareness of sin or of lack of awareness?
  • Chapter Four: The Fear of Sin or Fear as a Result of Sin in the Individual: Analysis of Fear of Evil (New Sin) and of Good (as a Neurosis)
  • Fifth Chapter: Fear as the redeeming force of faith: Fear as an educator who enables redemption with the help of faith

interpretation

Kierkegaard describes that every science has to move within the framework of its (each own) task in order to achieve sustainable results. No science corresponds to sin, most likely ethics (because the mood corresponding to it is serious). In psychological analysis, therefore, only appearances are analyzed (the real possibility of sin), but it cannot be explained that sin comes into the world (ideal possibility of sin).

Before the fall of man, there is ignorance, this does not necessarily have to be canceled (as in Hegelian thinking). So Adam had an opportunity not to sin. Kierkegaard attaches great importance to describing Adam as part of humanity: If the same applies to Adam as to every other person, then this person is outside of gender. So the same conditions must apply to him as to every other person. But since Adam had no concept of sin, because it was only created with original sin, the fear of possibility existed only as fear of nothing; Adam couldn't know what to choose, it was impossible for him to distinguish between good and bad. He hadn't been able to form a concept of either one or the other, nor did he know anything about mortality. In this respect, there was no attraction for him from what God had promised. Sin came into the world through a (original) sin and with it also the consciousness of the same. Adam thus posits the first sin. The first of many in human history in quantitative terms.

The situation for the following generations is the same as for Adam. For all of them, sin initially only exists according to the possibility. How sin concretely enters into an individual's life is a subjective question. It comes into the world again and again through the individual.

Therefore, for Kierkegaard, the question arises as to the difference between this original sin and the others. He first establishes this by the fact that Adam's sin is not purely quantitative, but essentially qualitatively different. Because for Kierkegaard, the world breaks down into quantity and quality. That which can be counted is the quantitative. But this is not identical with the quality, since this is what is identity-creating. Therefore the 'first' sin for Kierkegaard 'is the' sin and thus the abstract nuisance for "the abstract understanding, which means that once there is never, but often there is something that is completely wrong, since the many times either each mean as much for themselves as the first time or not all together nearly as much. "

As a result, Kierkegaard describes the individual fall as a "qualitative leap". What is meant is that there is a transition from the possibility of sin to its facticity. Through this 'leap', which itself has no causal effect, since it is what connects possibility and necessity; it is precisely this leap that determines the quality of the sin.

So the multitude of sins that followed Adam's original sin are only quantitatively more comprehensive, but not the same in quality as this first one. Hence Adam's original sin is the beginning of the historicity of sin. If this sin were just one of many, i. H. determined purely quantitatively, then Adam would be excluded from the human race. And with it its theological and lifeworld relevance for Christianity. - Original sin is consequently that which in Christianity creates the historical awareness of sin as such. Innocence as a starting point would be a lack of awareness of the possibility of sin. She wouldn't even be aware of herself; it ceases to exist at the same moment as it relates to itself. It would then be a relationship that relates to itself. So an aspect of the human self.

Kierkegaard describes this self as a synthesis; a synthesis of body and soul that is held by the spirit, but also gains reality. In the reflective moment, when the person relates to sin, the spirit joins the soul and body and creates the synthesis. A dynamic relationship is created. The fragility of human existence follows directly from this; because the relationship is disturbed, the person is disturbed. At the same time, however, this also illustrates the Christian task of becoming oneself and creating a unity out of oneself.

Man creates a unity insofar as his relationship to his existence is not disturbed. This human existence is essentially determined by the relationship between man and God. For as a synthesis of temporality and eternity, the Christian human being as a mortal being relates to his possible eternity. Kierkegaard is therefore aimed directly and directly at the Christian population in Copenhagen. His considerations are therefore directly tied to Western culture.

He describes the situation of the Christian with the image of vertigo as an atmosphere in which sin happens: For him it is on the one hand the frightening abyss and on the other hand the way people look at things. He looks into the possibility of his freedom, stumbles and staggeringly grasps the wrong thing. Nolens volens the sin has happened and man looks back and can no longer change it. The possibility of sin turned into factuality and is therefore subject to necessity.

Sensuality is posited with sin. Here some echoes of puberty seem to happen, as soon as the sensuality is there, the story of man begins. With the positing of the spirit he becomes an individual. This happens in the moment, because man is a double synthesis, and secondly also a synthesis of temporality and eternity. This synthesis is also established by the mind, in the moment.

The “religious genius” is ultimately characterized by the fact that it sinks through itself, for itself, into the depths of the consciousness of sin. Whereas paganism with fate and Judaism with guilt make this impossible.

After the individual has sinned, there are two types of fear. The fear of evil, it is the fear of sinning again, and the fear of the good. Fear of the good (the demonic) is a type of disorder / neurosis (because the good denotes salvation / redemption). Kierkegaard describes mental / physical and spiritual forms of fear of the good: over-sensitivity, hysteria etc. The fear of the good is a state, it is an expression of a disturbed synthesis of body, soul and spirit.

At Kierkegaard, fear is not an isolated topic, but rather it reveals what it means to be human.

Fear is not just related to a mental state; Kierkegaard's analysis is more complex. Three key statements about fear are:

  1. Fear makes you unfree.
  2. Fear as a possibility of freedom.
  3. You have to learn to be afraid, then you have learned the ultimate.

Fear can make people unfree because it gains power over them and makes them unable to act. Because man is afraid, he does not act himself. Fear is a possibility of freedom because it can expose the finite as the finite. It leads to a radical awareness of sin because it exposes repentance as insufficient.

In contrast to fear, fear is more vague. It is also ambiguous in Kierkegaard's analysis. On the one hand, it can lead to people perceiving it as a burden and a threat (change), on the other hand, it is a challenge and an opportunity for them to become themselves. Fear therefore arouses sympathetic antipathy and antipathetic sympathy: that is, it is both attractive and repulsive at the same time. Comparable to the bottle of alcohol for an alcoholic.

But if a person learns to be really afraid, that is, to expose the fear, to block the finite as finite and therefore to open the way to the possible, then faith (in the sense of Hegel) must be seen as "inner certainty which anticipates infinity" ( BA 163) so that we are ready for salvation. Kierkegaard here again alludes to the frailty of life by pointing out that a wrong upbringing leads to suicide through fear.

Different readings of the term fear

  • Biographically as a hidden conversation with Regine and in it also with himself
    Up to “Stages on the Path of Life” the writings after 41 can be read as a hidden conversation with Regine: with his sadness and his guilt.

In the term fear one can interpret the vertigo of freedom in this way.

  • Psychological-dogmatically as a reformulation of the Christian doctrine of sin, a
    new approach, consciously pseudonymous as a criticism of the doctrine of sin of the Hegelian Martensen. Kierkegaard is concerned with the perception of sin and its effects. He differentiates his psychological analyzes several times from the attempt to justify sin. He calls fear a psychological approximation, which can be used to explain that an individual sins without negating his or her own responsibility and freedom.
  • Existential-poetic as an analysis of human existence before God
    Understanding as Socrates of Copenhagen, who asks people - and himself - how things are with their souls (spiritlessness?). Kierkegaard wants to grasp his reader existentially (dealing with fear provides information about being a Christian). Fear can positively expose the finiteness of the world. Anyone who can still stand by his guilt and can believe sin in its profoundness is for K. a truly free and responsible person because he can only do so in faith, with which he rests in providence. (Energy of the relationship to God and depth of awareness of sin)

literature

Work editions

  • Søren Kierkegaard: The term fear (original title: Begrebet fear. Translated from Danish and edited by Emanuel Hirsch ). In: Collected Works. 11/12, (= Gütersloher Taschenbücher Siebenstern. Volume 608). 3. Edition. Gütersloher-Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1991, ISBN 3-579-00608-8 .

Secondary literature

  • G. Böhme: Søren Kierkegaard: The term fear. In: G. Gamm, E. Schürmann (Eds.): From Platon to Derrida. 20 major works of philosophy . Darmstadt 2005, pp. 207-219.
  • M. Bongardt: The resistance of freedom. A transcendental dialogical appropriation of Kierkegaard's analysis of fear. Frankfurt am Main 1995.
  • Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Herman Deuser, Jon Stewart (Eds.): Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2001 . Søren Kierkegaard Research Center Copenhagen. Walter de Gruyter, New York / Berlin 2001 (contains numerous essays on The Concept Anxiety. Its context and reception, also overviews of the international research discussion).
  • Arne Grøn: Søren Kierkegaard is afraid. an introduction to his thinking (original title: Begrebet angst hos Søren Kierkegaard ) Translated from the Danish by Ulrich Lincoln. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-608-91936-8 .
  • Romano Guardini : On the sense of sadness. The starting point of Sören Kierkegaard's thought movement. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-7867-1073-2 .
  • A. Hutter: The unthinkable of human freedom . On the interpretation of fear in Schelling and Kierkegaard. In: J. Hennigfeld, J. Stewart (Eds.): Kierkegaard and Schelling. Freedom, fear and reality . Berlin / New York 2003, pp. 117-132.
  • Aage Jørgensen: Søren Kierkegaard literature, 1956-2006 . A bibliography. Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 2009, ISBN 978-87-635-3028-6 .
  • Gordon D. Marino: Anxiety in "The Concept of Anxiety". In: Alastair Hannay, Gordon Daniel Marino (Eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, pp. 308-328.
  • D. Zhang: Fear as a feeling in Kierkegaard. In: H. Feger, T.-W. Kwan (ed.): Idealism and criticism of idealism . Subject, person and time. Wurzburg 2009.
  • P. Pedersen: Solipsistic science as the engine of civilization: a criticism and its consequences for undesirable developments in the scientific community. Fogep Verlag, Hamburg / Greifswald / Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-943726-95-4 .

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ BA 112; see. Luther "totus peccatus"
  2. ↑ Grön 10