Subject: Anxious to 
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 09:41:47 -0800


Gee Willikers, Athony, your quote really has nothing to do
with your paraphrase. Anxiety is about something
'indefinite' - which means that once the source of anxiety
becomes apparent and operative, that anxiety (say in the
final face of death) is about the indefinate. Anxiety arises
from a sense of finality, ones' own finality, and death.

Thus the anxiety of the ecologist which is anxiety for the
undefined, non-being, and finitude, death and collapse of an
ecosystem. Your presumption is that anxiety cannot arise
from an involvement in the world at all. Anxiety does arise
from an involvement in the world; the anxiety of a
frightened parent in Baghdad after the B52's have bombed;
the anxiety of a hunter lost in the forest; the anxiety of a
child who has lost his parents, et cetera.

All these involvements with others and entities in the world
are sources for anxiety. Anxiety has the character of a
'worry' about some outcome; Heidegger is correct about
anxiety when he writes

"...threatening does not have the character of a definite
detrimentality which reaches what is threatened...."

Anxiety has the same character whether it arises from the
worry a parent has or whether it is a worry which arises
from the anticipation of an ecologist.


Here is what the young Heidegger states about Anxiety:

"Dasein speaks of itself, it sees itself as such and such,
and yet it is only a mask that it holds before itself, in
order not to be frightened by itself. Defense against 'the'
anxiety."

Here the reference is to the indefinate which is what
happens in 'death' and 'non-identity'. One is a death of the
body, the later the death of the self.

In 1921-22

"(I)n it's relational sense taken in the widest sense, life
is: caring for, being anxious for [sorgen um] one's 'daily
bread'."

"If factical life is wholly anxious concern [Besorgnis],
then such a thing as that which plaques (plaguing [Qualen]),
a gnawing, or boring can be factically encountered."

Existential anxiety also has the form of the 'uncanny' or
the 'awesome' in that there is 'no involvement' with other
entities; however there is an 'uncertainty', and a 'dread'
involving some danger or misfortune.

>From different levels of interpretation 'anxiety' has both a
depth dimension and a dimension of breath; at the relational
sense, anxiety is a 'caring' and 'concern' for something; in
a meaning sense anxiety is a state of mind involving
'uncertainty'.

For instance: "anxiety for her father's safety."

For instance: "anxious about a friend's safety."

This is an interesting quote:

"The bravest men are...the most anxious to avoid quarrels."
[Mathews, "Getting On in the World"]


john


Geez John NO IT IS NOT! Did you even READ the text from SuZ
that I gave you
in my last reply? Here it is again, and READ it this time
before (once
again) just posting without have addressed the texts I give
you!






"That is the face of which one has anxiety is not an entity
within-the-world. Thus it is essentially INCAPABLE OF HAVING
AN INVOLVEMENT.
This threatening does NOT HAVE THE CHARACTER OF A DEFINITE
DETRIMENTALITY
which reaches what is threatened, and which reaches it with
definite regard
to a special factical potentiality-for-Being. THAT IN THE
FACE OF WHICH ONE
IS ANXIOUS IS COMPLETELY INDEFINITE. Not only does this
indefiniteness leave
factically undecided which entity within-the-world is
threatening us, but it
also tells us that entities within-the-world are not
relevant at all.
NOTHING WHICH IS READY-TO-HAND OR PRESENT-AT-HAND WITHIN THE
WORLD FUNCTIONS
AS THAT IN THE FACE OF WHICH ANXIETY IS ANXIOUS." (SuZ 186)

Anthony Crifasi


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