An idea · Nineteenth Century · first attested 1844
Anxiety (Angst)
The dizziness of freedom.
Kierkegaard distinguishes anxiety (angst) from fear. Fear has an object: I am afraid of that dog. Anxiety has no object: I am simply anxious, in the face of my own freedom and the open future. Heidegger and the existentialists will make angst a central mood in which we come to confront the structure of our own existence.