Fear as a Manifestation of Human Freedom, as interpreted by Søren Kierkegaard

Antoni SZWED

Katedra Metafizyki i Ontologii, Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii, Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie, ul. Podchorążych 2, pokój 242, 30-084 Cracow, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The main objective of the article is to unfold the various phenomena of anxiety described by Søren Kierkegaard in his Concept of Anxiety in relation to the manifold experience of freedom and to the moral good and evil, inherent in that experience. According to Kierkegaard, human freedom is not a simple presupposition or an axiom accepted for the sake of explaining the existence of morality; rather, it is considered as a reality that manifests itself in anxiety of various intensity. This, in turn, shows that the primordial source of freedom is found in the individual alone and remains only secondarily present in interpersonal relations. Kierkegaard terms anxiety as “the possibility offered to possibility.” The actualization of the first possibility results in an existential leap into the experience of guilt or sin. The intensification of anxiety which accompanies such an experience makes one prevail over the second possibility, or the so-called hindered freedom. In his later Concluding Unscientific Postcriptum Kierkegaard would demonstrate that the fullness of human freedom is ultimately connected with the Christian mode of existence.

Keywords:

anxiety, freedom, hindered freedom, sin, guilt