The Philosophy Book

194

ANXIETY IS THE

DIZZINESS OF

FREEDOM

SØREN KIERKEGAARD (1813–1855)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Metaphysics

APPROACH

Existentialism

BEFORE

1788 Immanuel Kant stresses

the importance of freedom

in moral philosophy in his

Critique of Practical Reason.

1807–22 Georg Hegel suggests

a historical consciousness,

or Geist, establishing a

relationship between human

consciousness and the world

in which it lives.

AFTER

1927 Martin Heidegger

explores the concepts of Angst

and existential guilt in his

book Being and Time.

1938 Jean-Paul Sartre lays

down the foundations of his

existentialist philosophy.

1946 Ludwig Wittgenstein

acknowledges Kierkegaard’s

work in Culture and Value.

S

øren Kierkegaard’s philosophy

developed in reaction to the

German idealist thinking

that dominated continental Europe

in the mid-19th century, particularly

that of Georg Hegel. Kierkegaard

wanted to refute Hegel’s idea of

a complete philosophical system,

which defined humankind as

part of an inevitable historical

development, by arguing for a more

subjective approach. He wants to

examine what “it means to be a

human being”, not as part of some

great philosophical system, but as

a self-determining individual.

Kierkegaard believes that our

lives are determined by our actions,

which are themselves determined

by our choices, so how we make

A feeling of dread

or anxiety accompanies

the thought.

We realize that we can

choose to donothing,

or anything.

Our minds reel at

the thought of this

absolute freedom.

When making decisions,

we have absolute

freedom of choice.

Anxiety is the

dizziness of freedom.