Name: Fear. On one existential passion

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to determine the main modalities of the concept of fear, which can be topically investigated. “Fear” is understood as a name for all “fears”. If fear appears in the unity of experience, without ceasing to differ within it, then fear is not a thing, but a relation between an increasingly refined sensitivity to dangers and the pos­sibility/impossibility of avoiding them. The arguments of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Freud are considered. Four modalities identify the general scheme of Fear: anxiety, “real fear” (Realangst), fear/phobias, the original fear (Ur-Angst). There is an in­teraction between them that allows us to trace the transitions from one modality of fear to another by analogy with a “whirlpool movement” whose dynamics depends on the strength of emotional experiences.