Mission Anxiety?

With the help of philosophers such as Sören Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, philosophy discovered existential angst. A feeling, which like no other, revealed the truth behind man’s existence.

As the modern individual comes to the realisation that he has no particular position in the cosmic order and that he will not be attributed one by God, his belief in the possibility of self-justification is called into question. Man stands before the “abyss” of anxiety. He is confronted in both negative and positive ways by his own “unfathomability” – the nothingness on which his freedom is founded.

Prof Peter König, lecturer in the philosophy faculty of the University of Heidelberg, researches German Idealism, ideological, cultural and practical philosophy.

Language: German