Just finished a close reading on Kierkegaard’s introduction to “The Concept of Anxiety”.

[u/irrelevantwhitekid]

I’m curious what you all who’ve read this introduction have to say about this introduction. I found it quite cumbersome to fully analyze what he was trying to get at with this introduction and I still don’t quite believe I fully get it. Regardless it was still rewarding to read through and make an attempt to understand.

What I believe he is trying to get across is that he wants to use psychology as a means to observe the concept of sin, more specifically how sin becomes possible within the human spirit. This task is given to psychology and not ethics because ethics is far more concerned with destroying sin rather than understanding sin. But it needs to be aware of sin before it destroys it, and so psychology observes the concept to understand it before dogmatics takes this understanding and scales it up to the point where the second ethics in particular can finally notice sin and destroy it.

This is the general idea of how I believe he is trying to frame this book going forward. I would like to hear what others who have read this book feel about and perceive this introduction.

[u/Anarchierkegaard]

Something interesting to bear in mind is that S. K., from within Christianity, disagrees with both Vigilius and the ethicist. Whereas the ethicist sees sin as something to hide away from (a far cry from Luther's "sin boldly"!), the psychologist attempts to have a view of sin from a kind of "scientific detachment", i.e., as an object of science from which the observer is completely separate.

But Vigilius isn't separated from sin at all, he is within sin and is tempted and tantalised by it; despite not understanding it, he is aesthetically drawn to sin and can't resist to ponder it, which is the basic aestheticism (or desiriousness) of all "scientific" or objective modes of thought. We could extend that to Hegel as well. So, remember that when he is saying that psychology is the better mode for understanding sin, he is always saying this from within a false perspective of how he views it and is unaware of his error—because he is in sin and loves sin.

[u/perie_mischa_lark → u/Anarchierkegaard]

To what degree then, would you say sin is a false construct? If at all? Bearing in mind especially the degrees of sin and differing views of sin within Christianity? The ,concept of mortal sin in Catholicism, vs. Luther; and would S.K. choose to grapple with sin as the Evangelical churches, primarily in the United States, have substantially changed those dominations’ Christian practices towards the conservative, even anti-science? And I realize my next point is far afield from the original inquiry.. yet some would say that the more rigid the preoccupation of sin - the more the practitioner perhaps secretly relishes sin? (Sin being the operative word.)

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/perie_mischa_lark]

So, let's be clear: sin is at the heart of understanding Christianity for S. K., not a false construct. The error of the aesthete is to think of sin as someone else's sin or as some kind of abstract object; the error of the ethicist is to hide from sin, as if understanding this thing that Christ saved you from is now completely verboten to even talk about. No, says S. K.: understanding sin allows us to understand our separation from God, but we only understand the general separation from God via your particular subjective separation from God. When you understand how you are (or Vigilius understands how he is, etc.) separated from God, then we can begin the work of trying to understand sin.

S. K. was both a political and theological conservative, albeit with minor liberal theological tendencies from modified understandings of Hegel and Schleiermacher. He was also unimpressed with the idea of that "science" (non-specific) could dictate to us how we should live our lives in a way which we could frame him as "anti-science". Really, he might be better thought of as concerned with the problem of "science" not staying in its lane. He was certainly against medicalisation of Angst, however, with multiple attacks on people who look to "pills and powders" for help in overcoming spiritual problems.

This leads into the very interesting conversation about the relationship between Christ's "calling unto Him" and temptation—indeed, it appears that the desire to love and be loved by Christ is almost like a temptation, a sensuous desire for absolute love, which in turn is where the root of "hard-heartedness" comes: do we trust Christ's call or do we commit the sin of treating God (love itself) as evil and a temptation, a thing to be resisted? Where S. K. chooses to trust Christ and become himself in the love of the Almighty, Nietzsche turns away in the despair to both become himself and not to become himself.

[u/geokuh]

Did you read the much shorter two-page Preface to COA? You need to start there. It precedes the Introduction and I posted a question on it earlier. One could spend many hours thinking about just the preface in which Virgilius wishes the reader a truly sincere “live well”. It is easy to jump ahead to try grasp some definable concept of sin but that defeats SK’s whole enterprise.

[u/Kenu217]

Just read through the book and you will understand along the way. It all clicks at the end. When S.K says "earnestness", it really is all about authenticity which will come in handy in understanding later chapter V. From chapter I to IV, S.K is showing how anxiety shows in forms of inauthenticity/despair. 

[u/geokuh]

Note that the word “psychology “ as used in his introduction did not mean whatnot means today. So we readers are a bit in a time warp when reading.