Phenomenology of Anxiety (Phaenomenologica, 235)

This monograph offers a thorough description of anxiety from a phenomenological perspective. It explores new perspectives on the complex relation between anxiety and fear through a critical discussion of different authors including Freud, Blumenberg, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger The author emphasizes the relevance of anxiety in the context of philosophical anthropology. In particular, the difference between anxiety and fear serves in different theoretical frameworks as a criterion for distinguishing human beings and animals. Accordingly, the research on anxiety is crucial for defining the human nature as such. The analysis also looks at essential traits of a phenomenology of anxiety. Here the author shows how a coherent alteration of the elementary dimensions of embodiment, time-consciousness, and phantasy takes place in anxiety. His investigation then goes on to look at specific forms of concrete phenomena of anxiety. When is anxiety justified? When does anxiety cease to function as an effective and reasonable signal preventing imminent threats and when does it become an invasive projection of our own ghosts? This volume offers readers a deeper, philosophical insight into an emotional state that can save us from danger, yet can be a danger in itself.

• | Author: Stefano Micali
• | Publisher: Springer
• | Publication Date: Apr 19, 2022
• | Number of Pages: 231 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 3030890171
• | ISBN-13: 9783030890179