Tuesday 12 May 2020

On Lights


Hi guys,

As most of my current writings focused on book reviews, I'm thinking to upload posts of the better ones here. Algazel's "the Niche of Light" still sent shivers in me every time I think about the book. It is a single book which beauty could only be matched by the likes of Spinoza's Ethics. Nevertheless, this is a special post requested by my lover to elucidate more on the concept of Platonian ideas. We had a deep discussion regarding divine will and predestination (qadha and qadar) yesterday night and we stuck in a rut regarding my statement in "ON REALITY". So, here's hoping a more orthodox elucidation by Algazel can help us more in our discussion. 

p.s. To my lover (you're basically the only one who visits this blog), I appreciate our late-night discussion on things. With you, I love both the sweet, and the heavy stuffs too. 



To tell you the truth, all the time I was reading or even contemplating upon the subject of the book, my heart flutters. The heart flutters to and fro, between the sad realisation of ignorance and the excitement for discovering something new. Algazel's Misykat al-Anwar is one of his best writings, set to expound a verse in the Quran that so dense, it perplexed everybody who read it.

Now, aside from the pretty shite printing quality (but I have to opt for the cheapest edition, so the fault's on me) and the (high-browed) Orientalistic introduction, I have no qualms whatsoever with this book. The book set to expound a verse from the Quran, from the Chapter of the Light;

"Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, (and) the glass is as it were a brightly shining star, lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither eastern nor western, the oil whereof almost gives light though fire touch it not – light upon light – Allah guides to His light whom He pleases, and Allah sets forth parables for men, and Allah is Cognizant of all things."

Now as you can see the verse is so dense with symbolism and what not, it almost impossible to make sense of it in the first read. And here's where Algazel came into the spotlight.

He started of by expounding what is really meant by Light. He gave us three cases; 1) the things which aren't visible to themselves, nor they make other visible, these are the dark bodies, 2) the things that are visible to others, but they do not make other visible, these are the luminaries such as stars and 3) the things that are both visible to others and make other visible themselves, and this is what is meant by Light, in the truest sense.

Now even this definition of Light is held by the Many. Even among the Many, they still confused. When they saw a meadow full of green, they said "That is nothing but the color green". But think for a moment. Does green visible by itself? Surely not. It was made visible by the Light, which we already agreed are those that it itself is visible and make others visible too. And this understanding that there can't be anything visible without the one who sees, is what Light means among the Few.

But think again. Algazel gave us 7 defects of the light as understood by physical sign, which is not present in the Intelligence. Intelligence, by Algazel term, is also a type of Light, as we shall see why. The eye perceives the exterior part of a thing, but the intelligence breaks through its mold and frame; it discovers the thing's secrets, elicit their causes and laws, their origin, their formation, their characteristics, so on and so forth. Think of how a cube nevertheless seem to be made by one surface, while the Intelligence can know that it is not thus; it is a three dimensional item with 4 sides (which the physical sense alone can never grasp). These are what the Light means, as understood by the Few of the Few.

Now, we are ready to understand on where causality ends. To offer an example by Schopenhauer, scientific knowledge could offer us description, but never the origin. It somehow resembled the comic scene where an uninvited group of guests came visiting for a party. When asked who are they, they replied that they are this-and-that family, living in this village, this is my wife, and this is my children, so on and so forth. Alright, that is all fine and dandy, but who really they are? Science or knowledge of causality as we know in the realms of physics are equivalent to this comic lot of visitors. They offer us processes and descriptions, but never their origin. So did Algazel wants us to contemplate that the physical causality of everything existents are not as simple as we perceived them to be, nor they are as opaque as we believed them to be.

He offered a metaphor where, even the knowledge of causality produced by the Intelligence is just a mere step from the higher order. The floor which is illuminated in the night, was reflected by the mirror on the wall, which in turn was shined by the light of the moon form the window, and even this light of the moon owed its source from the Sun. Now, most people would not even think the Sun as the source of the Light; most would halt the order up to the moon. But everything has its ultimate source, and to Algazel, the source of the Light, is the Light of Light, which is Allah.

We have seen being, which its existent can be known, and by contrast we know of the non-being, which its existent cannot be known at all. And without Light, can anything be known? If none, is there anything aside from the Light? Everything contingent cannot be perceived aside from its state of perishing; they owe its existent-state as existing only from the Light that give its knowability in the first place. Even then, it cannot be said to exist by themselves; its existing state merely retained by the flowing of Existence from the Prime Reality. And it is thus what it seemed from the eyes of the Gnostics, that there is no existent aside from Allah. And in their passion and intoxication, they said certain incomprehensible words, heretical even. But upon their Descent, they knew what they felt is not of Identity, but of something resembling to identity. Aren't we in the throes of passion, we spoke our self and our lovers as one, while it is all impossible in and out? So did these Gnostics, who a poem line described them best, "The glass is thin, the wine is clear! The twain are alike...For 'tis as though there were wine and no wineglass there...".

And so, after reached this pinnacle of ecstacy, Algazel pulled us with firm hands back to the topic. It is of dangerous paths to go beyond without proper rites and understanding.

We have seen all along what is truly meant by the Light, and the graded order of Light. And now, to arrive for a clear exegesis of the Verse of the Light, Algazel proceeded to grade the faculty of the human soul.

There are generally 5 graded order of the human soul. The first is the sensory, the second is the imaginative/mnemonic spirit which able to retain the form of the sensory (the Pavlovian dog), the third: intelligential spirit, which can arrives to eternal truths and axioms. The fourth is the discursive spirit, ever possessing the capability to expand such axioms ad infinitum, perhaps akin to Kantian's synthesis. And the fifth, is the transcendental prophetic spirit, which its character is obvious to be described.

Returning back to the symbols in the verse; there are 5 of them. The Niche, the Glass, the Lamp, the Olive tree, the Oil. Now, perhaps it clear enough to hazard the guess. The Niche is the sensory spirit, the Glass is the imaginative spirit, the Lamp is the intelligential spirit, the Olive tree is the discursive spirit (it able to deduce eternal truthful axioms, free from any infection by space and time; thus the "neither eastern nor western". Last but not lest, the olive oil, which obviously can only came from the blessed olive tree, is the transcendental prophetic spirit. It gives light though fire touch it not. Yes, my brothers and sisters, we have reached the end of a journey.

I write this in a flurry of haze and daze, recalling every tiny bit I can remember and understand. It is a mere, based and meagre effect to reflect the jewels contained in this short work, I implore everybody, Muslim or not, to have a go at this treatise. It would not hurt you, it would give you wonders, as it did to me.

Wednesday 6 May 2020

On Life

Young Parents- Francois Antoine de Bruycker


It has been a while I juggled my mind to produce such heavy system. This peace must be conceived as according to the Qayserium thoughts framework, and consistent with my other thoughts. It is largely still in an unstately and unfurnished state, but for the sake of moving forward, I have to write and prepare something.


This essay focuses on the "Yes" to life, follows Schopenhauer, that is to leave another generation. Read away...


I wish to demonstrate a few things in this essay: first, that man possesses real impulse or force towards life and death. Secondly, that life is a question that must be answered by us taking responsibility to shape life according to the impulse above mentioned. Thirdly, just like the ultimate answer to life in the negative means suicide, that is extinguishing yourself without leaving any remains (except dark remains), the ultimate answer to life in the positive way is to persevere in this world and despite all of its perennial shortcomings and curses, we leave marks in this world. There are many marks that can be left, but the greatest of all of them is children.

Next, a disclaimer. This is not a mere statement of Lilliputian optimism, nor you can found here a Nietzschean sighes for life poorly spent. man is essentially a paradoxical human being; he is thrown into the world he has to decide himself for everything without his own decision etc...and so, it is only logical that even in the saintliest of the saints, or even in us the fated backdrop characters of all that is shining far brighter than us would have ambivalent feelings in life all the time, or most of the time. Each of us can recall where the contradiction (or the lay people would call, hypocrisy) of the world slapped us hard in the face, throwing us into the familiar humid marshes of despair. And so, here's the disclaimer: we are not to prescribe an antidote for all the faults of the world, we would not judge you for your weakness. In fact, we would like you to embrace the beautiful scars all along the way and learn from the random scratches the meaning of life. Aren't the essence of chaos theory is that random system seems chaotic because of insufficient data to analyze it? So do our life. It is a system created by us, lived by us and it is up to us to carve meaning into it. Humans are feelers: thoughts are sweats from apprehending those feelings...the feeling of despair, suicidality and its opposite: creativity and resounding "Yes" to life is just opposite sides of the coin. When you get the bad ones doesn't mean everything has ended; you just have to flip it one time more. I observed suicide is caused by refusing to flip the coin once again rather than the system itself has defeated us. The system itself is a cheat, it provided too much leeway that a man can create himself over and over again from the virtue that his essence, his "I" and his soul is yet to be formed, an essentially undiscoverable entity. 

Moving on to that life is a state that's stretched infinitely to two ways. One can argue life is a state that's stretched infinitely to three ways, i.e. beyond time but let us keep in mind the rare anger of Buddha once for a while in this matter. Sartre might argue, as he had already in his Transcendence of Ego, that the feeling of hatred or disgust is an impure reflection, because it stretched infinitely while it has not the right to compute so. But i wanted to add, how if a person rather than reflecting infinitely, he commits into the world, invaginates into it infinitely? Would it be as absurd as infinite reflection? I say no. Because there are actions that leave it marks forever, and was done with the very intention so. In the negative sense, when one commits suicide, while his disappearance is a one time event, him disappearing is an infinite one. Not because it infinitely impacts the people around him. (I remember how when a batchmate of ours jumped and shattered her head, two weeks down, even the witnesses can laugh it off and made jokes about it. (we are not as significant as we like to think)). What i mean  by the disappearance of the suicide is committed infinitely is that his disappearing is eternal and infinite, stretched beyond the certain present window of time. Phenomenologists tried very hard to disapprove whatever that is convinced to happen beyond the immediate state of reflection, but as typical of starry-eyed philosophers, they failed to see the glaring examples right before their eyes! The disappearing of a suicide person is one example that an action can be committed infinitely. one might recall Nietzsche's dictum about eternal recurrence. Why it is recurrence rather than reincarnation? Reincarnation implies an absolute leaving of a state to another and then return to it back, but in recurrence no such leaving occurs! One simply recur his action eternally. 

And so we have proved that infinite states beyond what senses can give actually exists, now we want to prove that the infinite stretched two ways i.e. it stretched holistically. Time moves unidirectionally they said, yes of course because time is a single moment of action in life. I define life or the world as the complete field of every actions possible. And what i mean by actions is both physical and mental actions. Physical actions is what limited by what the body appendages can do, while mental actions are ruminations of the products of bodily movements. Just like how a mere bodily movement can branch off to transmitting force to other objects (hitting a ball) or start off an automatic system (building and then turning on the engine), so does the mental ruminations exists in many form. If it concerns directly to bodily movements is called memory and retrospective in nature. What concerns to potential of bodily movements is sublimation, prospective in nature. We cannot escape from these definitions nor there are anymore other than them, except in few selected cases and exceptions are not profitable in the discussion regarding the masses. 

So time of course moves in its preordained way, forward because it merely a single moment or event in the world. It would contradicts the law of the world if time could move backwards, because that is memory. And memory is a purely mental action. Time traveling if it should exist should only happen in a teleportation in an alternate world with the same backdrops yet with attention to different things, so two overlapping memories (one that has been went through, and the other which is going through) would then united to become a merely single, unified memory.

Thus, us throwing the ball forward is one event of the world, but looked holistically it is an event that can be depicted as throwing the ball holistically (in all directions). So does the world, or the tradeoff between potential and actual. what we faced with realizing it is the plane that is realized in actual, but what that more and more repressed (invested in more potentiality rather than actuality) is also exists. Man can then, or must, exist in two infinitely stretched plane; plane in actuality and plane in potentiality. We must not confuse life and death and equate for an instance, life as the potential plane, because we have seen so many people which his eventual path to suicide is the plane that is being actualized rather than the life direction. the planes are neutral, but its specific manifestation is not. A man is free to act in favor of life or death to be its plane of direction. The many examples of a life going through the path of death or live is numerous and aptly depicted in so many instances, so i would exclude from including it here.

But what I would like to emphasis is while the plane is infinite but there is finite distance the world or life can be stretched before it snapped and rebounded onto itself. Thus the very moment of suicide is when the self snapped and rebounded onto itself, life flashed in his mind and only after that out-of-the-world experience one really decided to kill himself or not. Moments prior to that is merely ruminations of memory and sublimation. And so, if the actualizing plane of direction is in the path of life what would a person find? He would not find himself in successful times or in other grand instances, but in the moment of intercourse aimed to produce another life. Because in that act of sensual, there is a background angst happening where one really rummaged his mental repository to seek an answer to a question: is this life truly worth it that i must leave another person to live through it? This angst is a question that even great philosophers shy away from it, it explains why most of the time, the moment of conception occurs out from this reflective frame, because man would shook in terror. He would be frozen in terror even though in his high moments of euphoria, knocking on the doors of that heavenly cornucopia, where something completely new is formed somewhat ex nihilo (a person producing another person). I would then answer in unison with Schopenhauer, that the greatest answer, a resounding "Yes" to life is to produce (or wanted to, if we can't) another life. An eternal recurrence. 

Thursday 30 January 2020

On Anxiety


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.

By really explaining how our religious existence comes into relation with, and expresses itself, with the outward existence. Kierkegaard suggests that first we have to turn within and by doing that he discovers guilt (for guilt is the cessation of ignorance). But in the same moment when he turned within he discovers freedom, and within freedom he can find possibility. Kierkegaard believes that the moment when one is the greatest would be when he “…sinks down before himself in the depth of sin-consciousness…”

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.