Anxiety as Phenomenon and as Manifested by Authentic Dasein
Patrick Mooney
December 11, 2000
Philosophy 185
Heidegger makes his concept of anxiety as state-of-mind1 basic to his analysis of Dasein's existence. He does this for several reasons. First, the concept of anxiety is methodologically useful in this analysis; this is because anxiety is a fundamental and basic experience of Dasein. Anxiety brings Dasein to the realization that authenticity and inauthenticity are possible modes of existence for it. Finally, authentic existence requires that an authentic Dasein have a different relationship to anxiety than an inauthentic Dasein.
It is important to realize that, for Heidegger, anxiety is a phenomenon that is fundamental to Dasein, not a mere psychological symptom that may or may not occur in an individual at any time. The fact that anxiety is fundamental can be seen most easily by proceeding to anxiety from falling, which is what Heidegger does. (227) Falling is a basic structural characteristic of Dasein -- Heidegger says that "Dasein itself as factical Being-in-the-world [...]2 is something from which it has already fallen away," that "[f]alling is a definite existential characteristic of Dasein itself," and that "[f]alling reveals an essential ontological structure of Dasein itself." (220, 224) Falling is that in which Dasein turns away from a threatening entity which is not intraworldly, and one which "has the same kind of Being as the one that shrinks back: it is Dasein itself." (230) This structural turning-away-from-itself of Dasein manifests itself inauthentically as fleeing, which is grounded in fear. Fleeing, as a way of turning away from oneself, turns toward intraworldly entities, "entities alongside which our concern, lost in the 'they,' can dwell in tranquillized familiarity." (233-4) Heidegger points out that "the turning-away of falling is grounded [...] in anxiety." (230; original in italics) Because falling as a way of turning away is a fundamental characteristic of Dasein, and because this turning-away is grounded in anxiety, anxiety is fundamental as well.
Because anxiety is fundamental, it is methodologically useful in the analysis of Dasein's existence. Heidegger outlines the methodological utility of anxiety by pointing out, on page 226, three ways in which the phenomenon of anxiety has utility as a disclosing phenomenon helpful in the existential analytic, and then works out the details in the following pages. Anxiety as state-of-mind, he says, is one of the most revealing possibilities of disclosure, and one that lies within Dasein itself; it is a manner of disclosure in which Dasein can see itself in a simplified manner; and its illuminates "the structural totality of the Being we seek" in an "elemental way." (Heidegger 226) Each of these methodological claims deserves examination in some depth.
Anxiety is a revealing manner of disclosure in general. Heidegger says that anxiety is one of the "most far-reaching and most primordial possibilities of disclosure -- one that lies in Dasein itself." (226) Anxiety makes all entities within-the-world seem irrelevant by depriving them of their significance, their normal functions and places in the referential totality. The totality of involvements, Heidegger says, "collapses into itself" and, when Dasein has anxiety, the world "has the character of completely lacking significance." (231) Because anxiety disrupts our most primordial manner of relating to things as ready-to-hand and useful for tasks, it allows us to examine these things in order to attempt to grasp them as they are in themselves; because the totality of involvements collapses, one can attempt to examine things in a detached manner. In anxiety, "the world has been disclosed as world, and Being-in has been disclosed as a potentiality-for-Being which is individualized, pure, and thrown." (233; original in italics).
Anxiety is a simplifying manner of disclosure of Dasein. Anxiety, Heidegger says, is a way of disclosure "in which Dasein brings itself before itself" in such a way that "Dasein becomes accessible as simplified in a certain manner." (226) It does this by confronting Dasein with the world as world -- as a set of significant references "'wherein' a factical Dasein as such can be said to 'live'" rather than as a mere Cartesian space -- and therefore brings Dasein "face to face with itself as Being-in-the-world." (93, 233)
Anxiety has two structural components: It is anxious in the face of something, and it is anxious about something. Anxiety is able to bring Dasein face-to-face with itself as Being-in-the-world because both of these structural components refer to Being-in-the-world -- that is, anxiety is anxious about and in the face of Being-in-the-world, although in slightly different ways. (233) More specifically, a Dasein has anxiety about its involvements within the world (Heidegger says that anxiety is anxious about "its authentic potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world") and in the face of thrown Being-in-the-world. (232; 235)
Anxiety also simplifies the disclosure of Dasein's moods. The feeling of uncanniness (or "not-being-at-home"), which is the way an anxious Dasein feels, is a "more primordial phenomenon" than the feeling of being-at-home. (233-4) Uncanniness, Heidegger says, is a basic phenomenon that accompanies being-in-the-world, and the feeling of being-at-home, or "the kind of Being-in -the-world which is tranquillized and familiar" -- the opposite of uncanniness -- is actually a mode of uncanniness. (234)
Finally, anxiety, as disclosing, also reveals to Dasein the possibility of existing in an authentic manner. This will be examined more closely later in this discussion.
Anxiety illuminates the structural totality of Dasein's being. Heidegger says that that which is disclosed by anxiety requires "the structural totality of the Being we seek" to "come to light in an elemental way." (226) Being-anxious is that which discloses "primordially and directly" the world as world to Dasein, a being which finds itself thrown into the world.(232) The state-of-mind of being-anxious allows entities to show themselves as they are in themselves, without the absorption into coping with them that normally prevents a theoretical manner of engaging these entities. Again, this is because anxiety strips intraworldly entities of significance and, in fact, makes "the possibility of the ready-to-hand in general" oppressive. (231) Anxiety provides a simplifying manner of disclosing (as we have already seen) that allows aspects of Dasein's being to be seen more clearly; in fact, Heidegger goes so far as to say that anxiety and Dasein, as disclosed by anxiety, provide "the phenomenal basis for explicitly grasping Dasein's primordial totality of Being." (227)
Heidegger says that the phenomenon of anxiety "shows Dasein as factically existing Being-in-the-world" and reveals its "fundamental ontological characteristics" of "existentiality, facticity, and Being-fallen." These three structural characteristics of Dasein, which are illuminated by anxiety, are "woven together" into a "primordial context which makes up the totality of the structural whole which we are seeking." (235-6)
This way of revealing the structural whole of Dasein's being is what reveals to Dasein the possibility of existing as authentic or inauthentic. Heidegger says that "these basic possibilities of Dasein [...] show themselves in anxiety as they are in themselves -- undisguised by entities within-the-world, to which, proximally and for the most part, Dasein clings." (235) This stripping away of a disguise is possible because anxiety collapses the structure of significance, and the entities that have previously disguised the possibilities of authenticity and inauthenticity no longer matter.
This revelation of authenticity as a possible mode of being is made possible by the feeling of uncanniness that accompanies anxiety. Heidegger says that the feeling of being-at-home, "with all its obviousness," is brought "into the average everydayness of Dasein" by "the everyday publicness of the 'they.'" The feeling of uncanniness, then, is a feeling that arises when one is not immersed in the "they." This demonstrates that "anxiety brings [Dasein] back from its absorption in the 'world.'" (233) Anxiety has the effect of individualizing Dasein "for its ownmost Being-in-the-world" -- in such a way that anxiety "brings Dasein face to face with its world, and thus bring it face to face with itself as Being-in-the-world." (232, 233) This facing-up-to-oneself as being-in-the-world is a necessary condition of authenticity, as is facing up to one's "ownmost Being-in-the-world," as opposed to immersion in the public "they"-self.
In explaining that anxiety reveals to Dasein authenticity and inauthenticity as possible ways of existing, Heidegger has made it possible to explain with more depth his repeated insistence that "Dasein is an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is an issue" and the assertion that Dasein's being is revealed as care, both of which he has made throughout Being and Time. He explains the first of these statements by pointing out that "the phrase 'is an issue' has been made plain in the state-of-Being of understanding [...] as self-projective Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being." Because each factical Dasein is free for its ownmost potentiality-for-being, it is also free for "the possibility of authenticity and inauthenticity." This freedom revealed, "with a primordial, elemental concreteness," by anxiety. (236)
Heidegger terms this "self-projective Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being" "Being-ahead-of-itself." (236) He says that being-ahead-of-itself is being thrown into the world "as Being-alongside (entities encountered within the world)." This is what he means by "care," which is the being of Dasein. The assertion that Dasein's being is revealed by care means that Dasein is thrown into a world among entities, to which it primarily relates as ready-to-hand or as the Dasein-with of others. Care manifests itself as concern (which is the Being-alongside the ready-to-hand") and as solicitude ("Being with the Dasein-with of Others as we encounter it within-the-world"). (237) These modes of care are disclosed authentically by resoluteness, which is "authentically nothing else than Being-in-the-world" and which has the effect of bringing the individualized self "right into its concernful Being-alongside what is ready-to-hand" and of pushing it "into solicitous Being with Others." (344)
Resoluteness is a necessary condition of authenticity: Authentic Dasein must be resolute, and must be resolute in an anticipatory manner. By "resolute," Heidegger means that a Dasein has chosen "to choose a kind of Being-one's-Self." (314) By "anticipatory resoluteness," Heidegger means a resoluteness which "anticipates" and "is constantly certain of death." (356)Heidegger says that the existential analytic "makes anticipatory resoluteness basic as a potentiality-for-Being which [...] is authentic." (360) That is, only a Dasein that is resolute in an anticipatory manner can be authentic.
Resoluteness also seems to be the aspect of authenticity most closely connected with anxiety. For instance, Heidegger has said that resoluteness is a "way of exacting anxiety of oneself." (353) Resoluteness, as a necessary condition of authenticity, also requires that the resolute Dasein have a "self-projection in which one is [...] ready for anxiety." (348)
Heidegger has pointed out that Dasein is essentially anxious. For instance, he has said that "Dasein is anxious in the very depths of its Being." (234) For this reason, the conclusion that authentic Dasein is anxious can be established in a simple and syllogistic manner ("Anxiety is a fundamental characteristic of Dasein; authentic Dasein is still Dasein; therefore, authentic Dasein has anxiety"), but this is less than illuminating. Authentic Dasein relates to its anxiety in a different manner than does inauthentic Dasein: Authentic Dasein, as resolute and anticipatory, is always "face to face" of the certainty of death, which is "a possibility which is constantly certain but which at any moment remains indefinite as to when that possibility will become an impossibility." (356) This "indefiniteness of death" is manifested by anxiety for the authentic, anticipatory, resolute Dasein. (348)
This anticipatory certainty of death is different from the inauthentic and everyday understanding of death, which is simply "a mishap which is constantly occurring -- as a 'case of death'" -- as something which merely happens at some point in a factical Dasein's life. (296) In contrast, authentic Dasein understands death as a possibility which that Dasein is always being-towards, as a possibility which will certainly be actualized at some point, and as something to be anticipated. (306) It is anticipation that is "the possibility of understanding one's ownmost and uttermost potentiality-for-Being -- that is to say, the possibility of authentic existence." (307)
Anxiety is, then, many things for Heidegger. Most simply, it is a useful phenomenon which allows the existential analytic to "retain clarity in principle." (226) It is also a fundamental characteristic of Dasein as being-in-the-world. And, finally, anxiety is a fundamental precondition of authenticity which makes possible several others -- resoluteness and anticipation -- and so is the phenomenon which, in the way that Dasein relates to it, provides the experience which fundamentally allows Dasein to exist in authentic and inauthentic modes.
References
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1962.3
Footnotes
[1] For the sake of consistency with the Macquarrie and Robinson translation of Being and Time, I stick with "state-of mind" as a translation of Befindlichkeit, "the 'they'" for Das Man, "mood" for Stimmung, and so forth, although no one seems to be particularly happy with many of these translations. On the other hand, except in direct quotations, I do not preserve the capitalization that the translators use to differentiate one German word from another when both correspond to the same word in English. Although these differences can be significant, I do not find them to be particularly helpful in this discussion.
[2] An ellipsis in brackets indicates that I have excised portions of the text.
[3] All page references refer to the Macquarrie and Robinson translation, not to a German edition.
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