Author(s)

Yifan Zhou ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Philosophy and Sociology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China

Corresponding Author

ABSTRACT

In Kierkegaard's analysis of human freedom and the genesis of sin, anxiety is understood as the "dizziness" experienced by the individual when confronted with possibility. Through the conceptual model of Adam's fall, Kierkegaard illustrates how anxiety functions as the precondition for the transition from a state of innocence to one of sin. Anxiety is not sin itself; rather, it is an intermediate state that emerges prior to the actualization of freedom, thereby highlighting the individual's responsibility and the inner tension inherent in freedom. By contrast, in Being and Time, Heidegger defines anxiety as a mood without a determinate object and endows it with explicit ontological significance. In moments when everyday immersion is disrupted, anxiety detaches Dasein from its involvement with particular entities and brings it face to face with its thrownness, finitude, and being-toward-death. In doing so, it discloses the structure of existence as a field of possibilities. A comparison of these two conceptions of anxiety shows that Kierkegaard's analysis is oriented toward the problem of the emergence of freedom within an ethical–religious dimension, whereas Heidegger's analysis serves the phenomenological disclosure of the structure of Being. Although there is a conceptual affinity between them, their theoretical aims and methodological orientations diverge significantly. This paper aims, through a comparative analysis of the concept of anxiety, to clarify these two distinct paths of understanding existence and their philosophical significance.

KEYWORDS

CITE THIS PAPER

Yifan Zhou. The Comparison of Heidegger's and Kierkegaard's Thoughts on Anxiety. Philosophy Journal (2026). Vol. 5, No.1, 22-27. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/phij.2026.050104.

REFERENCES

[1] Søren Kierkegaard (1980).The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by Albert B. Anderson. Princeton University Press, Princeton,54.
[2] Søren Kierkegaard (1980).The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by Albert B. Anderson. Princeton University Press, Princeton,41.
[3] Gregory R.Beabout(1980).Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair.Marquette University Press,Milwaukee,47.
[4] Martin Heidegger (2019). Being and Time. Commercial Press, Beijing,187,188.
[5] Martin Heidegger (2001). Pathmarks. Translated by Sun Zhouxing. Commercial Press, Beijing,129.
[6] Erich Fromm (2015). Escape from Freedom. Translated by Liu Linhai. Shanghai Translation Publishing House, Shanghai,41.
[7] Jean-Paul Sartre (2007). Being and Nothingness. Translated by Chen Xuanliang et al. SDX Joint Publishing Company, Beijing,63.

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