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Ignorance, Frailty, and Defiance: The Anxiety of Freedom
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Lanxin Shi
Published/Copyright:
July 10, 2024
Abstract
Interpretations of Vigilius Haufniensis’ analysis of anxiety in the literature can be mainly classified into two models. One holds that anxiety is a phenomenological companion to freedom, whereas the other explains it through the phenomenon of frailty or volitional weakness. Curiously, however, scholars holding one model rarely mention the other. I suggest that this results in a partial understanding of Haufniensis’ concept of anxiety. Building on these two popular models, I argue for a more holistic reading that anxiety is rooted in the human’s structural freedom that is not absolute but limited, qualified by three conditions of evil—ignorance, the possibility of frailty, and the possibility of defiance.
An earlier version of this article was presented at Proseminar in the History of Philosophy at Cornell University. I wish to express my gratitude to all the participants in that seminar for their invaluable feedback. Special thanks to Prof. Michelle Kosch, who has read multiple drafts and has given me detailed comments and suggestions.
Online erschienen: 2024-07-10
Erschienen im Druck: 2024-07-10
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Titelseiten
- Preface
- Titelseiten
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
- Demonic Pantheism: Either/Or on Boredom as the Modern Crisis of Faith
- Kierkegaard, Spiritual Crisis, and Anxious Faith: Battling for Faith in Fear and Trembling and Strengthening in the Inner Being
- “Existence is the Spatiating”: Typographical Thinking and the Concept of Existence in Kierkegaard’s Postscript
- The Sickness unto Death Penalty: To Condemn the Other to Despair for the Sake of One’s Own Despair
- Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
- Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
- Re-Staging Existence: Revisiting Kierkegaard’s Theory of Life Stages
- Ignorance, Frailty, and Defiance: The Anxiety of Freedom
- Not a Negation, but a Position: Kierkegaard on Evil and Sin
- Original Sin and Transmission of Trauma: A Dialog between Kierkegaard’s Hamartiology and the Phenomenon of Transgenerationality
- “A Satire on What It Is to Be a Human Being”: A Kierkegaardian Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity
- Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
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- Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit Magnús Eiríksson: Werkstattbericht und Übersetzung
- Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Zwischen Glauben und Verzweiflung. Franz Werfel und Søren Kierkegaard
- La pensée existentielle de Kierkegaard et la philosophie de Charles De Koninck: contexte et résonances
- Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
- Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
- Martensen’s Review of Heiberg’s New Poems and the Discussion on Speculative Poetry and the Crisis of the Age
- Hans Lassen Martensen’s “New Poems by J.L. Heiberg”
- Abbreviations
- Abbreviations
