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Andre van den Bor asks about the reflection of anxiety about
death in Kierkgaard's writings.
Kierkegaard's statements on this matter are all, I think,
premised on the Christian dogma that human death came into the
world through Adam's sin, and that mankind was freed from the
burden of that sin by Christ's death on the cross, and that all
they who "believe in him" shall have "everlasting life."
Kierkegaard, if I understand correctly, construes all anxiety
(Angest) as being the intimation of original sin and of the death
which it brought on all mankind. Construed in this manner,
Kierkegaard's essay about anxiety (Begrebet Angest) may be read
as his commentary on anxiety concerning death.
Anxiety about death is also addressed, albeit indirectly by
Kierkegaard's concern with its antithesis, with the evig
bewistheit, the everlasting conscieousness regarding which the
Philosophical Fragments inquire, whether it might be founded on
an historical event.
When one considers anxiety about death in the context of the
distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, ones may ask:
Is death a subjective phenomenon? Can death be a subjective
phenomenon? On the one hand, the common horror of death iss
always the feared anticipation of ones own demise; on the other
hand, death, by definition, must be an objective event, and will
be always outside of the individual. One cannot know, one
cannot and will not experience ones own death. Thus no one knows
subjectively what death is. and no one has experienced death;
and for that reason, as Socrates pointed out, the fear of death
cannot be based on subjective, but always only on objective
experience. Objectively, we all dies. But subjectively our
consciousness if unending, because we cannot experience its end.
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