Here is an entire sub-essay written based from Kierkegaard's "The Concept of Anxiety". This piece deals with most of the section of the books, with a significant alteration by me. Kierkegaard never classify the types of anxiety as proto-, para- and post-synthetic, the distinctions were entirely mine. Not sure how accurate the classifications is, but it helped me to navigate through this difficult piece of writing. Warning: it is heavy. Kierkegaard heavily employs Hegelian way of expounding things, which can be very convoluted sometimes (80% of the time).
*Excuse the grammatical errors and what not. The sub-essay was written in a flurry under lightning and thunder. Once I have lifted the pen and the floodgates are lifted, I cannot stop even for revising and checking on what I have written so far.
**As I consider every of my thoughts as an aesthetical picture (what else can it be? Surely not vain enough to think the rumination of my mind as the Truth), I made a rule to never ponder so long after it. What has been written and expressed, that was the whole of it and that's the end of story. Nobody bothered to ask whether's the art of Dali and Picasso represents the Truth or not; they are just it. Many things are born into the world just for the sake of itself, not as a demonstration of truth or a religious projection. It just it.
On Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety. I find it, as
always of Kierkegaard’s work, impenetrable and dry. But it is totally
understandable as he is trying to express what is inexpressible in the form of
words, and it is only with Hegelian’s convoluted vocabulary he can try to do
so. The preface is extremely dense but what I can gather is that sin lies in
the freedom not in necessity. As he puts it, the abiding state where sin can
posits itself lies not in the necessity, for a becoming bound by a necessity is
merely describing a state of being. He gave us the example of the natural
history of plant. What I can gather from that is, sin could not be found in the
necessity i.e. instinctual or stimuli-charged world. Sin could only be found in
freedom.
The rest of the preface
dealing with the difference between ethics, dogmatic and psychology totally
escaped my understanding. What I can gather was that ethics is a discipline to
realize ideality into actuality i.e. put into practical consideration of what
the field consider to be the ideal. As the starting point of ethics was that of
ideality, the very conception of sin is impossible. It is perhaps easier to
imagine that an ideal law that presupposes the very thing that could break the
law is not that great in the very first place, it is an implicit contradiction.
So, the concept of sin does not lie in the field of ethics but of dogmatic,
where its study lies in the beginning of things (you say something is dogmatic
when, crudely speaking, it is to be accepted in its very first beginning
without further ado), instead of the operation of things (where ethics proper
has its place). In Kierkegaard’s word, while psychology fathoms the possibility
of sin, dogmatics explains hereditary sin, that is, the ideal possibility of
sin. This is to serve as a bridge to resolve the contradiction between ethics,
which can never accept the existence of sin, and the concept that remains alive
anyway no matter how much ethics wanted to get dispose of it. Sin remains as
real as the existence of Adam as the first human is analogous to our existence
as human; so the word hereditary sin is a parable to explain both the dogmatic
nature of sin that is ideal (cannot be dispelled in any form). Psychology
provides the space of contemplation on the possibility of sin, as Kierkegaard
puts it, it loves sin, it observes the contour of possibility…Psychology
provides a space ethics refuse to open itself into. And it is the dogmatic that
affirm the path psychology tread onto. In short, the preface served to throw
some light on the nature of sin: it is essentially hereditary in the sense of
how our ears no matter the form is inherited from the previous generation, and
how our existence confirms the existence of previous generation (which could be
dramatically put as our existence guarantees the existence of Adam) and how
with the fall of Adam due to his sin guarantees the possibility of sin as his
offspring. And so, our previous analogy would do more to confuse than enlighten.
It is actually hereditary in terms of Adam’s fall guarantees the freedom branch
of the existential dilemma, and so we as his offspring “inherited” this ideal
(as the existence of the possibility is realized prior to actuality)
possibility of sin.
It is quite sad that
Kierkegaard, the most sensitive man the Earth ever seen in his long history,
could not express himself in words and action like the other Romantics of his
times. Nay, it is because of his sensitivity that sent him running contra the
brutish sensitivity his contemporary displayed. And as he is of the most
sensitive, the only way he can compensate is to realize his aesthetic in the
most abstract way; here the most sensitive person became the most abstract
person in the world. His sublimation is in a way aesthetic (aesthetic acts
because it must, ethical acts because of the sack of the act, spiritual acts
because it believed). Look at him speaking: he must lose Regina in order to get
back her in this very lifetime. How can a man become more abstract than this?
Just because he finally can untangle his repressed sensitivity in the Hegelian
puzzle drawn from a biblical picture, he thought his story must end likewise (it is in this must lie the aesthetic). The
spiritual is spiritual because it is pure freedom; it is in actuality stands in
the complete opposite pole from Kierkegaard’s formula. But then how should we
paint the picture of faith without Kierkegaard’s formula? Faith takes another
step further, it is not merely by the virtue of the absurd Regina must return to him, but it is by the
virtue of the absurd Regina will return
to him. For how would a faithful Kierkegaard reacts when Regina doesn’t return
back to him, in contrast with the default aesthetic Kierkegaard? The faithful Kierkegaard
would not fall into despair for the medal of faith is exactly rewarded in the
completion of the act itself, rather than the result of the act.
Kierkegaard said that the sin
came through the world as a sin; if it’s not the case then we have to explain
sin as an accident. This I believe points to the ethical nature of sin, that is
a sin is a sin because it is done for the sake of the sin itself. It is not the
result of compulsion (for then the act was not done for the sake of the sin
itself), or from ignorance (for the very same reason). Sin came into the world
when Adam exercised his agency of freedom i.e. to acquire the fruit of
knowledge of good and evil for the sake of acquiring that. It is because Adam
commits the act for the sake of acquiring that, not from compulsion or
ignorance, that the act is determined as a sin.
And, Kierkegaard pointed out
that human race does not begin anew with every individual: the individual born
inherited some degree of facticity. This facticity, interpreted in this
context, would be the inheritance of agency of freedom (which the very sole
reason the sin was determined as a sin) or the world to exercise the agency of
freedom (as with knowledge, Adam committed a sin; existential costs of knowledge).
People might reject this by appealing to absurdity of descent: it is absurd
that the uniqueness of each individual allows for such inheritance. But,
Kierkegaard pointed out that descent merely a qualitative expansion of the
number: it increases the number, but never yield the individual. The individual
is born with a history prior to it, it forever chained to the burden of
history. A person is born as an individual not as an animal, precisely because
of this reason.
Kierkegaard then proceeded to
elaborate on the concept of innocence. It is of Hegelian notion that what is
done by immediacy must be annulled i.e. it is innocence. But as immediacy and
innocence lies in different spheres of science, (immediacy in logic and
innocence in ethic) it is totally wrong to assume such connection. Again,
Kierkegaard is setting a stage for him to present his idea that living is sinful. The way he prepares
for this is to provide a clever statement: innocence is lost when the person
felt guilty. Innocence thus is ignorance, for in ignorance one can never felt
guilty, again he is displaying the existential costs of knowledge.
Innocence is ignorance. In the
repose of ignorance, the spirit as an agent of freedom posited itself outside
of itself. In other words, ignorance is ignorance toward something. This
something is something outside from itself (and that’s why it is ignorance).
And this contemplation about something outside from itself is what begets
anxiety. Anxiety, according to Kierkegaard is freedom’s actuality from the
possibility of possible. The spirit dreamed of something actual from mere
possibility, the object is not here and now, and so the spirit is tumbling
around in his sleep for the object. The way, in which children are very fidgety
about something lurking beyond their grasp, their spirit already threw its arm
into the unknown while their body still at the fence of innocence. It is only
when the children cross the marches and stepped into the unknown that they have
their innocence as they really realizing freedom’s actuality of possibility of
possibility as an actuality.
This solves the jettison
between the doctrine of concupiscence and the first sin. How can the first man
who shaped according to God’s mind has the innate faculty of sinfulness, it is
absurd. And so, it is not concupiscence (innate tendency to commit sin) that
tempts Adam, but it is the anxiety of the spirit (spirit dreaming of something
it doesn’t have), which propels Adam to eat the fruit, and with that he has
loss his innocence when he lost his ignorance by leaping/actualizing the spirit
anxiety.
Kierkegaard repeatedly
represents anxiety as the function of spirit/freedom: “…the less spirit, the
less anxiety…” (p. 51)
He also mentioned on the
emptiness of the possibility spirit posited by the virtue of anxiety:
“…anxiety’s relation to its object, to something, which is nothing…” (p.52),
“…whole actuality of knowledge projects itself in anxiety as the enormous
nothing[ness] of ignorance…” (p. 53), “…the prohibition makes him anxious,
because it awakens in him freedom’s possibility…” (p. 54)
As Kierkegaard is the acolyte
of Hegel, it is totally understandable he presented the existential dilemma
following Hegelian triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, which yielded us to an
existential drama involving friction between the physical, psychical and
spirit. As I am a student of Kant, I believe the Kierkegaardian’s triad could
be compared as follows: the physical as the sensibility, psychical as the
transcendental unity of apperception (few passage below, Kierkegaard equates
psychical and soul, and I believe soul it the convergence/pole of the sensuous,
refer to my essay On Soul) and the
spirit as the Kantian Reason. The Kantian Reason could be described as pure
possibility/freedom inherent in man, which never satisfied with the entire
Kantian doctrine that set an adamantine lock over the heavens. The existential
dilemma aptly described by him as, “…To do away with itself, that spirit can
never do; seize itself, so long as it has itself outside itself, it cannot do
that either. Nor can the human being sink down into the vegetative (physical),
for he is characterized as spirit…” (p. 53). Here the drama only involved
between the spirit and the physical, the psychical does not contribute any active
role in them as it functioned only as a pole the ego refer to in the background
and in reflection. Lastly, Kierkegaard sealed the deal by saying that man can
never escape from anxiety: “…flee from anxiety he cannot, for he loves it;
really love it he cannot, for he flees from it…”
Reaffirming that sinfulness of
man is hereditary as in the race does not begin anew with the birth of every
individual, Kierkegaard pointed out that it was Eve that was first being
deceived, thus sinful. Yet, it must not be properly said that Eve has sinned
yet, but as Eve is derived from Adam (thus generational quantifying), she
presents the presentiment of the sinfulness posited by propagation i.e.
predisposition of sinful via propagation.
Here is the genius of Kierkegaard:
he elaborated on the Fall as the final positing of spirit in the synthesis
between soul and the body. Man essentially is the synthesis between the soul
and the body and sustained by the spirit. Adam in his innocence was yet to
posit spirit in the relation definitely. Only after the Fall, the spirit
pervades definitely into the synthesis allowing both extreme pole of
sensuousness and self-consciousness. It is only after the Fall, then, that
human has achieved self-consciousness (shown by Adam and Eve shocked from their
nakedness) and sexuality (God’s condemnation on how they must toil and felt the
birth pangs).
Here lies an extremely
important point in my philosophy: before the fall, the man is not an animal,
but he is yet an actual man. But the very moment he become a man (self-conscious
and free), he becomes so by being animal as well. It is clear here that by
virtue of absurdity, this is the only way of leaping through into faith. Just
as before the Fall, Adam yet to be called a pious man in the very reason he is
yet to know good and evil (“Do the people think that they will be left to say,
“We believe” and they will not be tried?” [29:2]), so do we cannot call
ourselves before performing this leap-perhaps absurdly but the closest to
accurate- backwards. Just as Adam
leaped into the World thus gained the knowledge of good and evil and thus
faith, so do we have to leap following our grandfather. Lest I would be
misunderstood (and I will be misunderstood), it would be good if I explain
further. What I meant as to embrace the animality is to commit to brutish and
lustful acts; this is an active and conscious use (misuse) of the animal side
of the existential dilemma. What has been described by Kierkegaard is that when
freedom is posited properly, both poles of sensuality and consciousness are
lighted at the same time and equally. An analogy would be when the Reason would
like to posit Love as actuality, it enters the world both by the sensual
caresses of the lover and the spiritual bond with it. So does with faith. When
faith is to be actualized not just a mere possibility, it reaffirms both the
animal nature and the spirit side of mankind. That is why Kierkegaard described
the knight of faith as mundane as possible –one could mistake him as a
Philistine-, because the knight of faith did one thing everyone should do in
the very first place: living life. A
life is not properly lived when it is skewed either to the animal or the spirit
side singularly; that is the pathological and myopic way of living life. Living
life is facing the life square in the jaw: to accept both the infirm nature of
man and its fruits.
The ultimate layout of
anxiety: It turned out that Kierkegaard conceived anxiety as different states
occurring in different moments of the synthesis. The moments of the synthesis
where different kind of anxiety (while retaining its basic definition) are
manifested would be: proto-synthetic, para-synthetic and post-synthetic.
1.
Proto-synthetic: what is meant, as
proto-synthetic is the natural conception of anxiety; its pathogenesis before
the conception of the individual. The basic formula would be: the race does not
begin anew with the conception of every new individual. It has the similarity
on how the clogged and lifeless flow of the Delta does not establish itself sui
generis, but a culmination of dirt upstream. The two forms of anxiety that is
conceived in this way would be:
o
Objective anxiety: We have mentioned how
sin/anxiety could be propagated by both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Anxiety conceived by a quantitative propagation is what Kierkegaard called as
objective sin; its picture would be the Fall of Adam brings forth the notion of
sinfulness into the world. As we repeatedly recall, the history does not begin
anew with the birth of a new individual. With Adam’s Fall into the World i.e.
the World is born, there awaken the very probability of falling into sin. This
is because, not from concupiscence as we mentioned before, but from the longing
of perfection. The longing of perfection includes the classical pathogenesis of
anxiety: the freedom wanted to exercise its possibility into actuality. “…for
it is in anxiety that the state out of which he longs to be proclaims itself,
and proclaim itself because the longing alone is not enough to save him…” (p.
71).
o
Subjective anxiety: On the other hand,
subjective sin is the qualitatively leap of the individual into the state of
sinfulness. It is subjective in terms that it is the individual perception of
its acts that actively brought the state of guilt (abolishment of innocence),
compared to objective terms where it is mere existence of the world that
brought into the abolishment of innocence (cessation of ignorance).
2.
Para-synthetic: Para-synthetic forms of
anxiety could be understood as the anxiety arises with the synthesis of spirit.
The synthesis, in a way, is incomplete and abortive, which yields the anxiety.
It is here that anxiety would be properly defined as “…“…the dizziness of
freedom that emerges when spirit wants to posit the synthesis, and freedom now
looks down into its own possibility and then grabs hold of finiteness to
support itself…” (p.75). What makes the freedom dizzy was that when it tries to
posit the synthesis, it posits into the eternal. The eternal is the present,
for when the positing for the present, the infinite succession of events (that
is the abstract concept of time; the ever vanishing) comes to a complete halt.
The present then is an abstract concept spatialized
by our representation as the “…going on that never moves from the spot, since
for our powers of representation, the eternal is the infinitely contentful…”
(p. 195). It is only in the positing of present, where time intersects with
temporality, the concept of past time, present time and future time is made
intelligible. As the freedom is a tool of possibility, after the positing of
the spirit, it directly interjects into the eternal present, as here is the
only space it can make itself intelligible. Then, it projects itself into the
future time, as there is the only space it can make itself knowable (by
realizing its possibility), and it is exactly here the yawning abyss of future
time made the freedom dizzy; it is a realm of pure nothingness where its
existence is only guaranteed by the eternal present. In short, para-synthetic
anxiety is anxiety conceived at the moment of the synthesis, when the synthesis
is trying to actualize its possibility. The two forms of anxiety manifested in
this moment would be:
o
Anxiety as related to fate: The first one is symbolized
by the Greek genius, which anxiety is towards that nothing, which he projected
as fate. Fate is the relation to spirit as external to it; something other than
spirit. The direction of this kind of anxiety is exactly nothing, because as soon
as spirit is posited i.e. exercising actuality onto possibility, the anxiety
cancelled out. The genius is predominantly subjectivity i.e. it is a purely
spiritual capability, in terms that the genius operates on pure possibilities.
While it has unlimited capability of possibilities, yet it encounters outside
from itself something else that is not spirit and external from it. And here,
he discovers fate. Fate is essentially, what stopped the free rein of freedom.
And because here the Greek genius could not find reassurance as it is something
external from it, it is the Greek genius’ tragedy to commit itself into oracles
(even modern day geniuses display a bizarre tendency towards superstition). And
later, Kierkegaard would point this extremely important formula: “only in sin
is providence posited”. Fate as the direction of anxiety would end in the face
of realization or acceptance of freedom.
o
Anxiety as related to guilt: On the other hand, the Jewish
represented a type of anxiety which object is, paradoxically, a something that
is guilt. The Jew, with its many tragic historical happened in that poor chosen
race, has really acquired an object for its anxiety. This something, though,
was kept by the Jews a subtle communication with it. The Jews cannot look away
from it, he cannot get take himself away from it. By looking away from it i.e.
by posit the spirit the Jews then would realize that “only in sin is atonement
posited”. Yet, this very anxiety of fearing this object that kept the Jews at
bay, as time goes, the religion evolves into some kind of a weeping religion.
As the Greek found solace with oracles, the Jews found solace in sacrifice, for
in it, they can symbolizes or really spatializes their feelings outward,
making their object of anxiety into the form of a sacrifice and have it away
when it is sacrifices. But that would not help exactly because what really help
would be “…the cancelling of the relation go anxiety to guilt and the positing
of a relation that is actual…”. In other words, expiation via symbol would not
be enough.
3.
Post-synthetic:
Here is where the consciousness brushes closely with the ethical, for to
post-synthetic forms of anxiety to arise, it requires the knowledge of good and
evil. And the knowledge of good and evil, as symbolized by Adam and the Fall,
is only to be conceived post-act/post-synthesis. So the individual has already
leaped qualitatively into sinfulness, and if we are to follow initial trains of
thought, the anxiety should be vanquished after the positing of spirit (albeit,
into sinfulness) “…posited sin is annulled possibility…” but how anxiety still
present even post-synthetically? According to Kierkegaard, there are two types
of anxiety post-synthetically; anxiety related to evilness and even, anxieties
related to good (demoniac).
A.
Anxiety related to evilness
o
Anxiety towards an unwarranted
actuality: Even though posited sin is annulled
possibility, anxiety still lurked in this sphere because the resulting
actuality born from the act of sin are really, unwarranted actuality. A very
crude example would be one who made rich by cheating people. His wealth is sin
in actuality, yet it is an unwanted and unblessed state, thus the spirit would
negate it, as the spirit did not gain even an inch of actuality that let its
act of freedom entrenched deeply via that stealing.
o
Anxiety towards the vicious
cycle of sinfulness:
If the breath of freedom is agile and nimble and could be likened to the bird
roaming free in the sky, sin, as an act of annulled possibility would be the
ultimate opposite. So one who has committed an act of sin would be anxious of
the fact that “…no matter how deep the individual has sunk, it can still sunk
deeper…” (p. 135).
o
Anxiety towards the chains of
repentance:
In the very same moment sin posited as an actuality, it becomes an actuality
par excellence. “The damage has been done”, as people these days would call it.
By positing sin into actuality, it reduces repentance to possibility.
Repentance cannot cancel the sin; it only won the rights to grieve over it. “…Judgments
has been pronounced, its condemnation certain, and the extra sentence for
aggravated injury is that the individual be dragged through life to the place
of execution…” When one has posited sin into actuality, one has pushed it into
the realm of concrete, where the ethical rules. There are exactly three
reasons, on the grounds of the ethical, repentance costs everything yet sells
nothing. 1) Ethical has to accept repentance while it is a glaring
contradiction, for repentance cannot cancel the sin and the relation of it and
the sin is at best contiguous, perhaps repentance have no meaning other than
the sinner just wanted to expiate themselves symbolically, 2) repentance delays action and 3) to reflect on
repentance, it must first become an object itself. In this moment of reflection
of repentance, it occupies a moment, and that moment is a moment deficit of
action. The ethical begrudge on the existence of repentance, for it cannot
understand the real ethical value behind repentance aside from annoying
weeping.
B.
Anxiety related to the good. While anxiety related to the
evil is readily understandable, one must be confused why there is also anxiety
related to the good. The individual is in sin, and as we mention above, his
anxiety is related to the evil. But this anxiety towards the evil itself is
itself an act of good. But this act of good is the unfree relation with the
evil; a chimera, a demoniacal.
A.
Demoniac anxiety on the
spiritual level, aesthetic-metaphysical sympathy: When one completely bypass the entire trains
of thoughts regarding the anxiety related to evil, one tends to sublimate
himself to a conglomerate of concepts and words. One could say that one is in a
dazed stated after sinning; he denied it and as the sin is actualized in the
realm of actuality, the spirit ran headlong into the spiritual. What is called,
as aesthetic sympathy is really the name of the demonic anxiety at this level,
when one cloaked himself in denial with such concepts and empty promises.
B.
Demoniac anxiety on the
ethical level, proactive sympathy: What this means is that the demonic acts in a way that it
employs itself in an ethical condemnatory terms. The sin has been identified
and so did the sinner. The demoniac, in the light of this discovery, could only
act in a way that is the most severe and cruel to be employed against him. This
is confusion on the expiation of guilt par excellence.
C.
Demoniac anxiety on the
aesthetic level, curative sympathy: This Kierkegaard directed especially
towards the doctors and workers in the asylums who believed the patient must be
isolated to prevent others from get frightened, the entire phenomenon is
interpreted wholly on the somatic level. One perhaps could have a walk into two
different departments in the hospital that display aesthetic and curative
sympathy. When one walked into the adult oncology department, there lies the
aesthetic-metaphysical sympathy. When one walked into the child oncology
department, look at the frills and decoration and let you body shrill: here is
the curative sympathy.
At the end of the day,
Kierkegaard recommends faith as the cure for anxiety. Anxiety is freedom’s
possibility, and people thought that possibility is as light as the feather.
Nay, say, Kierkegaard for in anxiety “…all things are equally possible and
anyone truly brought up by possibility has grasped the terrifying as well the
smiling…” Faith following Hegel is “…inner certainty that anticipates
infinity…” In anxiety, it overwhelms the individual via the discoveries of finiteness.
But with the power of faith, it pulls the individual up not by rejecting the
finiteness but to idealize them in the shape of finiteness. Anxiety is actually
a jumping stand towards faith: in the case of fate, the anxiety in its
anxiousness has ransacked and discarded from the self everything finite
(because it is playing with the card of infinity), thus it has already taken
away everything fate can snatch away. It is only up to the individual to rise
up to God’s bounty not from the pain of his loss and sinfulness, but from
solely of his choice.
