Many of the central themes and concepts of existentialism – freedom, choice, responsibility, bad faith, anxiety, despair, and absurdity – originated in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55), in such ground-breaking works as Either-Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), The Concept of Anxiety (1844) and The Sickness Unto Death (1849). Existentialism is undoubtedly as much rooted in Kierkegaard’s militant, idiosyncratic Christianity as it is in the ‘God is dead’ proto-existentialism of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. But his radical views on faith, religious commitment and the individual, and his rejection of a conformist, passive, rationalist, dispassionate, inauthentic approach towards the religious life and the infinite, make him a true existentialist. Here we’re going to briefly look at his concept of anxiety.
This story is from the August/September 2021 edition of Philosophy Now.
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This story is from the August/September 2021 edition of Philosophy Now.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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