•  5
    Brokenness and Hope
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 29 (2): 180-193. 2015.
    ABSTRACT In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard makes a powerful phenomenological distinction between fear and anxiety; one fears this or that thing, but one is anxious of “nothing.” Kierkegaard understands this terror before the nothing as a revelation of freedom. This is correct but incomplete. Anxiety does, indeed, transcend fear of this or that possibility to encounter possibility itself. But it also transcends guilt about this or that sin, to encounter sinfulness itself, or the general brok…Read more
  •  12
    Ligatio ex Nihilo: Original Sin and the Hope for Redemption
    International Philosophical Quarterly 55 (1): 85-100. 2015.
    In pointing out the strange phenomenological structure of anxiety, Kierkegaard re-opens the door to reflection on “nothingness.” This tradition has been fruitful, but it has remained wedded to interpreting this nothingness in light of the distinction between anxiety and fear. Thus, anxiety is understood exclusively as the transcendence of this or that possibility towards an encounter with the freedom of possibility itself. Kierkegaard’s original formulation, however, states that anxiety is “alto…Read more