University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2016 Missed Appropriations: Uncovering Heidegger's Debt to Kierkegaard in Being and Time Kenneth David Geter University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, and the Metaphysics Commons Recommended Citation Geter, Kenneth David, "Missed Appropriations: Uncovering Heidegger's Debt to Kierkegaard in Being and Time" (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1195. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1195 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. MISSED APPROPRIATIONS: UNCOVERING HEIDEGGER’S DEBT TO KIERKEGAARD IN BEING AND TIME A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology Joint PhD Program University of Denver In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Kenneth D. Geter August 2016 Advisor: Jere O’Neill Surber ©Copyright by Kenneth D. Geter 2016 All Rights Reserved Author: Kenneth D. Geter Title: MISSED APPROPRIATIONS: UNCOVERING HEIDEGGER’S DEBT TO KIERKEGAARD IN BEING AND TIME Advisor: Jere O’Neill Surber Degree Date: August 2016 Abstract It is widely held that Martin Heidegger appropriated several existential concepts from Søren Kierkegaard in his 1927 work, Being and Time. Most scholars agree that Heidegger did not sufficiently credit Kierkegaard. What was the extent of the appropriation, and why did Heidegger not duly cite Kierkegaard? This work will focus on the concept of anxiety which appears throughout Being and Time and which was influenced by the concept of the same name presented in Kierkegaard’s 1844 work The Concept of Anxiety. It will also be seen how the structure of Being and Time closely resembles that of Concept of Anxiety given that the first halves of both works focus on aspects of physical existence while the second halves concern temporal existence. Anxiety will serve as a starting point that will also connect Heidegger to Kierkegaard on related concepts such as Heidegger’s concept of “fallenness” to Kierkegaard’s “objective sin,” and the concepts of “repetition” and “the moment” that appear in both works. Historical background concerning Heidegger’s early academic career will also be given in order to gain insight on how Heidegger was influenced by Kierkegaard’s thought and why Heidegger was reluctant to disclose this influence. It will be shown that while the background contexts of Being and Time and Concept of Anxiety differ greatly, the concept of anxiety is functionally similar between the two works. ii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Why Anxiety? . 2 The Approach of the Current Work . 5 Where to Place this Work . 9 I Propaedeutics 13 Heidegger Preliminaries . 13 Heidegger and Jaspers . 15 Quoting Kierkegaard . 17 Theologian or Philosopher? . 18 Theology as a Science . 26 The Commensurability Issue . 29 Kierkegaard Preliminaries . 32 The Difficulty of Concept of Anxiety . 32 A Primer on Anxiety . 37 II Anxiety in Division One 40 Dasein . 42 Being-in-the-world . 43 State-of-Mind . 45 Three Essential Attributes of States-of-Mind . 47 Thrownness . 48 Fear ....................................... 54 Understanding . 56 Discourse . 58 Falling . 62 Anxiety and Fleeing . 63 Distinction Between Anxiety and Fear . 65 Anxiety and Indefiniteness/Nothing . 66 Uncanniness . 72 The First Footnote . 75 Care . 78 III Anxiety in Division Two 83 The Second Footnote . 83 Being-towards-death . 85 Anticipation and Expectation . 88 The Call of Conscience . 92 iii Resoluteness . 99 Anticipatory Resoluteness . 103 The Temporality of Anxiety . 105 The Third Footnote . 113 IV Concept of Anxiety: the First Synthesis 117 Treating Anxiety Psychologically . 120 The Dogma of Hereditary Sin . 122 The Spheres . 124 Hereditary Sin . 125 Dogmatics vs. Ethics . 128 Anxiety and Hereditary Sin . 134 Anxiety as Innocence and Anxiety in Dreaming Spirit . 135 Fear of Nothing / Antipathetic Sympathy . 138 Objective and Subjective Anxiety . 144 Objective Anxiety . 147 Subjective Anxiety . 149 V Concept of Anxiety: the Second Synthesis 156 Anxiety of Lacking Awareness of Sin . 156 The Instant/Temporality . 157 Death . 159 Anxiety & Spiritlessness . 161 Anxiety & Fate . 162 Anxiety & Guilt . 165 Anxiety as the Result of the Individual’s Sin . 167 Anxiety about the Evil . 168 Anxiety about the Good . 170 Anxiety as Saving through Faith . 185 VI Similarities and Differences 192 Division One and the First Synthesis . 193 Division Two and the Second Synthesis . 199 Conclusion . 204 iv Introduction It is generally accepted that Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was influenced by Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) in his magnum opus Being and Time (1927). Scholars and commentators range widely on how much influence took place. Some believe that even though the influence is identifiable, it is slight and Kierkegaard’s ideas only served as seeds for ideas that Heidegger developed in a different context. Others claim that Kierkegaard’s ideas appear practically verbatim in Being and Time without due acknowledgment, and that this amounts to plagiarism. The latter view is supported by the fact that Heidegger only minimally acknowledged Kierkegaard in Being and Time, and never stated explicitly that the latter had any influence on his thought. Why was this the case? It is thought that Heidegger was attempting to distance himself from the thought of Kierkegaard, who happened to be in vogue at the time Heidegger was teaching at Freiburg and Marburg. Another reason might have stemmed from Heidegger’s larger project of separating theology and metaphysics from philosophy. Since Kierkegaard was viewed as a theologian, Heidegger did not want to appear to be influenced by him. Regardless, the problem remains: how much influence did Kierkegaard’s writings have upon Heidegger in Being and Time? Is it valid to assume that Heidegger simply appropriated several of Kierkegaard’s concepts without credit to the latter? I will side with those that 1 believe Heidegger did indeed appropriate several Kierkegaardian themes in Being and Time without enough acknowledgment. I will be focusing on the concept of anxiety and related themes that Kierkegaard laid out in his 1844 pseudonymous work, The Concept of Anxiety. I will show that these themes are present and recognizable and often have a similar function in Being and Time. I will not however, claim that there is an exact identity between how the themes are presented in Concept of Anxiety and Being and Time. The former is a work of psychology (according to the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis), and the latter concerns “the question of the meaning of Being.” The fields that these works propound to belong dictate the roles that the ideas within them play. Sometimes anxiety and related themes function in a similar way between the two works, but there are times when they do not. I will point out these similarities and differences. From the textual evidence I will point out, it will become apparent that Being and Time was significantly influenced by Concept of Anxiety. In addition, from the historical context provided on Heidegger’s early academic career in Chapter 1, it will be clearer why Heidegger appropriated themes from Kierkegaard without due acknowledgement. Why Anxiety? Anxiety is commonly seen as the primary locus of the the Kierkegaard/Heidegger connection. This is due to the oft-cited feature in the Kierkegaard and Heidegger definitions that anxiety is the “fear of nothing.” This shared characteristic of anxiety is played up in commentaries as the central 2 essential attribute of anxiety common between the concepts of the two men. I will show that there are several other attributes of anxiety that are equally if not more important than the “fear of nothing” attribute, and in these areas there is sometimes a considerable difference between the concepts. The differences have to do mainly with how Heidegger emphasizes “Being-in-the-world” in the first half of Being and Time, versus Kierkegaard emphasizing physical embodiment in the first half of Concept of Anxiety; as well as how Heidegger operates within finite temporality in the second half of Being and Time while Kierkegaard is focused on the eternal in the second half of Concept of Anxiety. I will show that this parallel structure of the development of the concept of anxiety is the most prominent “missed appropriation” in the literature concerning the Heidegger/Kierkegaard connection to date. An example of another attribute of anxiety common to both is that it is associated with the Fall of Adam. In Kierkegaard’s Concept of Anxiety, anxiety is directly connected with “hereditary sin.” In Being and Time, Heidegger precedes his discussion of anxiety with a description of his concept of “falling.” He claims that falling has nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian idea of the fall or original sin. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see how this point has also caused some commentators to posit a strong connection between Kierkegaard and Heidegger with regards to anxiety. It will become apparent that even though certain attributes of anxiety are shared, these attributes appear in different contexts and may have different ends. This work will trace the appearances and contexts of anxiety and related themes in Being and Time and compare those to Kierkegaard’s articulation 3 of anxiety as put forth primarily in Concept of Anxiety. Any of Heidegger’s or Kierkegaard’s themes which are essential or prior to an understanding of their concepts of anxiety will be examined as well. In this work I will be following Dan Magurshak’s view1 that the theme of anxiety bears the most fruit in the putative Heidegger/Kierkegaard connection in Being and Time, and that Concept of Anxiety is the best place to look at the shared concept.