This is one of the papers from our 2017 Annual Conference, the Future of Phenomenology. Information and the full conference booklet can be found at www.britishphenomenology.org.uk
AbstractIn this paper, I wish to argue that the difference between Heidegger and Sartre’s interpretation of the concept of anxiety lead to two different concepts of existential freedom. These differences have their basis in their distinct understanding of the nature of existence and the self, leading Sartre into an absolute negative conception freedom and Heidegger into a limited and difficult to obtain positive conception of freedom. For Sartre, in L'Être et le néant, anxiety reveals the nothingness that stands between me and what I can do. Nothing, not even my own being, is an obstacle to freedom. Indeed, every time I adequately perceive my own being, I negate it, and am condemned to be able to overcome it. Anxiety is an experience of our capacity: the fact of negative freedom.
For Heidegger, in Sein und Zeit, anxiety reveals nothingness as the consequence, not manifestation, of freedom. Rather than an absence of an obstacle in front of us, anxiety reveals the wake of lost opportunities behind us, things we could have and should have done. Anxiety therefore reveals the charge from our authentic self: “Guilty!”. For Heidegger, anxiety expresses our existential responsibility, not to overcome our self, but to make "the choice to choose oneself”. For Sartre, anxiety reveals the potency of the will to negate the self. For Heidegger, it calls us back to our self. This disagreement provides a case study in the different phenomenological priorities of two highly
influential thinkers. In explaining why they are able to disagree so fundamentally about the same phenomenon, I wish to lend weight to Heidegger's claim that phenomenology is not a set of theoretical discoveries, but a practice.
Prof. Alia Al-Saji - 'Fanon and an Engaged Phenomenology of Affect: Touching the wounds of colonial duration'
Marieke Borren - ‘The Spatial Phenomenology of White Embodiment’
Ondra Kvapil - ‘Thought-provoking Death’
Sam McAuliffe - ‘The Improvisational Encounter: What is Common to Music and Hermeneutic-Phenomenology’
Adriano Lotito - ‘Tran Duc Thao between Phenomenology and Marxism’
Maria-Nefeli Panetsos - ‘Dancing Phenomenology: A New Source of Non-Verbal Knowledge’
Pablo Fernandez Velasco - ‘Evenki wandering and situationist wandering’
Mary Coaten - ‘Dance Movement Psychotherapy in Acute Adult Psychiatry: Psyche and Dasein’
María Jimena Clavel Vázquez - ‘Perceiving like a girl? Sensorimotor Enactivism in the face of situated embodiment’
Mary Fridley & Gwen Lowenheim presenting for Susan Massad - ‘Creating a New Performance of Dementia’
Giuseppe Torre - ‘Noise, Phenomena and the Digital Psychosis’
Joel Krueger - ‘Taking Watsuji online: aidagara and expression in the techno-social niche’
Juan Toro - ‘The Ecological-Enactive Model of Disability: Why disability does not entail pathological embodiment’
Ellen Moysan - ‘Phenomenological Description of the Notion of Inner Song: Doing Phenomenology to Understand Music Practice’
Bence Peter Marosan - ‘Engaged Eco-phenomenology. An Eco-socialist stance based upon a phenomenological account of narrative identity’
Belinda Marshal - ‘Being-in-the-Virtual-World’
D. R. Koukal - ‘Teaching Phenomenology as a Heuristic Tool in Architectural Design’
Sadaf Soloukey - ‘Phenomenological Embodiment in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury Receiving Neural Implants’
Michael Fitzgerald - ‘Phenomenological interpretations of patient engagement in research’
Lucienne Spencer - ‘The phenomenological impact of hermeneutical injustice’
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall
The No-Frills Teacher Podcast
Heal, Survive & Thrive!
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast