Subject: Re: Anxious to
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 19:06:59 +0000


John Foster wrote:

>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.

John the quote said that ALL involvement (simply) collapses in anxiety, not 
just involvements with some ecosystem. That is an astoundingly superficial 
and ontic reading! Heidegger explicitly says that what we are anxious about 
is that Dasein is PURE POTENTIALITY FOR BEING (i.e., that Dasein is not a 
thing in the world), and this is disclosed in the collapse of ALL 
involvements, since the collapse of beings leaves "just" pure potentiality 
for being. So he is talking about being-in-the-world AS SUCH, not just 
being-in-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.

Yes they do both have the same character - because they are both ONTIC. The 
worry about a parent is the death of their child. That is an ontic worry 
because the child is an ontic facticity. The worry of an ecologist is the 
death of an ecosystem. That is an ontic worry because the ecosystem is an 
ontic facticity. Heidegger is talking about the collapse of all involvement 
SIMPLY, not just some ecosystem! It is a point infinitely deeper than what 
you are talking about. To "glimpse" oneself as pure potentiality for being 
(with the collapse of all involvement and therefore of all beings) is to 
glimpse oneself as no-thing, and THAT is what anxiety is anxious about, and 
it has nothing to do with some ontic "worry"! And it CANNOT be mitigated and 
much less eliminated by some kind of ontic activity such as saving the 
ecosystem, because you would be saving the wrong thing. You would have to 
"save" Dasein from its own authentic pure potentiality for being, which is 
impossible because that is what Dasein is!

>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.

Do you see that you are interpreting death in a completely ONTIC way here? 
What "frightens" Dasein (note - ONTOLOGICAL meaning of "frighten" here, not 
some ontic fear) is that everything Dasein sees itself "as" turns out to be 
just an ontic mask, which means that "underneath" it all, it is NOTHING, but 
pure potentiality for being. THAT is the object of "the" anxiety. It has 
absolutely nothing to do with anxiety about some ontic thing, like an 
ecosystem!

>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.

Not in the existential sense, John. Existential anxiety has NOTHING to do 
with any kind of "real" danger or misfortune, but only with the ultimate 
UN-real danger - that Dasein is pure potentiality for being. That is 
precisely the difference between existential anxiety and everyday ontic 
anxiety.

Anthony Crifasi

>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"]


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