Possibilities of Being in Fearing (BT142) (2024) Schilderij door Noël Van Hoof

Heidegger – Being and Time – BT142

There can be variations in the constitutive items of the full phenomenon of fear. Accordingly, different possibilities of being emerge in fearing. Bringing-close close by, belongs to the structure of the threatening as encounterable. If something threatening breaks in suddenly upon concernful Being-in-the-world (something threatening in its 'not right away, but any moment') fear becomes alarm [Erschrecken]. So, in what is threatening we must distinguish between the closest way in which it brings itself close, and the manner in which this bringing-close gets encountered – its suddenness. That in the face of which we are alarmed is proximally something well known and familiar. But if, on the other hand, that which threatens has the character of something altogether unfamiliar, the fear becomes dread [Grauen]. And where that which threatens is laden with dread, and is at the same time encountered with the suddenness of the alarming, then fear becomes terror [Entsetzen]. There are further variations of fear, which we know as timidity, shyness, misgiving, becoming startled. All modifications of fear, as possibilities of having a state-of-mind, point to the fact that Dasein as Being-in-the-world is 'fearful' [“furchtsam”]. This 'fearfulness' is not to be understood in an ontical sense as some factical 'individualized' disposition, but as an existential possibility of the essential state-of-mind of Dasein in general, though of course it is not the only one.

Translation by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson)

Verwante thema's

Martin HeideggerFear