Existential Crisis

  • Thread starter Thread starter Counterpoint
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
GEddie said:
I have no use for existentialism, or for philosophy in general, and fail to get why existentialism is so interesting to some.
Click to expand...
Then you should not be participating in a philosophy forum.
 
Whether you attach the word existential or not doesn’t make a difference; a crisis is a crisis either way. You don’t need to be an existentialist to have an opinion on an existential crisis or to experience one. Although, you might come out of the experience as an existentialist.
 
jimmy said:
The only instance in which fear can be considered a state is when the danger is impending, as in the example of the bear attack or if you are trapped under water or something. That may be considered a different state, but it isn’t the only example of fear. Almost everyone is afraid of death to one degree or another. That doesn’t mean they are living in a different state of consciousness.
Click to expand...
Heidegger makes a nice distinction between fear and dread. Fear has a definite object, e.g., a bear. Dread does not have a definite object but relates to the total network of human “involvements”, i.e., to a “world”.

As such, dread is an “ontological” experience which makes our “world” visible to us for the first time.
 
I should add that dread is about the possibility of losing our network of human involvements, and so is connected with death. But, in contrast to fear, it is not provoked by a definite threat. Dread can happen anytime, anywhere, out of the blue, so to speak.

But what specifically is this dread? It is an intense awareness of the radical contingency, the freefloatingness, of our world.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top