PHIL 35709 Anxiety and Nothingness
Anxiety is discussed in modern philosophy as a mood which by contrast to fear is not directed to an object and thus reveals the "nothing" which dominates our engagement with beings. The class will be devoted to the modern philosophical discourse on "anxiety" and "nothing."
Among the texts that we shall study are: Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety, Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, and Sartre's Being and Nothingness. We shall also compare the philosophical concern with anxiety/nothing with the discussion of anxiety in psychoanalysis, especially in Lacan's Seminar Anxiety, (i.e., Seminar 10).