The Concept of Anxiety

The central argument is that anxiety is a necessary psychological condition that arises when spirit confronts its own possibility, and that it is neither sin nor guilt but the presupposition of both. Vigilius Haufniensis rejects the view that anxiety is a pathology to be eliminated or a mere emotional disturbance. Anxiety is 'the dizziness of freedom'—it occurs when the individual glimpses the infinite possibility of being able to choose, and feels both attraction and repulsion toward it . The book's claim is that this dizziness is the condition of the self's development, and that the leap of faith is the only way to transform it into the freedom of the spirit. Anxiety is thus not the enemy of freedom but its necessary companion.

The 'dizziness of freedom' is Kierkegaard's most famous image for anxiety: it occurs when spirit, in its innocence, glimpses its own possibility and feels vertiginous before the abyss of choice. The image is central because it captures the ambiguity of anxiety: it is both terrifying and attractive, both a threat and a promise. The innocent individual stands at the edge of possibility, and the dizziness is the experience of not knowing whether to leap or to retreat. This is not a state to be overcome by rational decision; it is a structural feature of existence that accompanies every genuine choice. The image also suggests that anxiety is inseparable from embodiment: it is a bodily experience of the abyss, not merely a concept.

Kierkegaard's account of original sin is radically unconventional. Traditional theology treats original sin as a historical event—the Fall of Adam—that is transmitted to all subsequent generations. Kierkegaard, through Haufniensis, argues that the doctrine of hereditary sin has no place in the realm of psychology and philosophy, and that each individual's sin is not a transmission of Adam's transgression but a repetition of it . Adam's Fall is not a unique event but the paradigm of every individual's leap into sin. The book thus insists that sin is not a fact to be explained but a paradox to be believed, and that the individual's relation to it is not one of inherited guilt but of existential choice. This reorientation turns the doctrine of sin from a historical claim into a psychological and existential one.

The Concept of Anxiety has been enormously influential in existential psychology, particularly in the work of Rollo May, who regarded it as a foundational text. But it has also been criticized by later existentialists for its theological framework. The book's insistence that anxiety is resolved only through faith in God has seemed to some readers to import a pre-existing dogmatic content into what purports to be a psychological analysis. Against this, defenders argue that the psychological analysis is autonomous and that the theological resolution is a separate, further claim. The book is also notable for its treatment of the relation between anxiety and sexuality, a theme that Foucault and later critics have found both insightful and problematic. The book's influence on existential psychology and on the philosophy of mind has been substantial despite these disputes.

Vigilius Haufniensis—'the Watchman of Copenhagen'—is the pseudonymous author of The Concept of Anxiety, and his name signals his role as a cautious, observant investigator rather than a prophet or a system-builder. The pseudonym is significant because it allows Kierkegaard to distance himself from the book's theological content while still presenting it as a serious contribution to Christian thought. The book is not a sermon but a 'psychological deliberation,' and Haufniensis is careful to distinguish between the psychological analysis of anxiety and the dogmatic treatment of sin. The pseudonym thus enables a careful separation of spheres: the book is an exercise in the kind of reflective, non-dogmatic thinking that Kierkegaard believed was necessary for a proper understanding of the religious life.

The first English translation was by Walter Lowrie, published by Princeton University Press in 1944. The standard modern translation is by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson, published by Princeton University Press in 1980 as part of Kierkegaard's Writings . This translation is generally preferred by scholars for its accuracy and its extensive notes, and it has largely displaced Lowrie's version. A more recent translation by Alastair Hannay for Cambridge University Press was published in 2010. Readers should be aware that the book's key terms—'anxiety,' 'dizziness,' 'leap'—are technical and their translation shapes the argument's force. The Hongs' edition, with its historical introduction and critical apparatus, is the most comprehensive English version available.