Anguish is fear of oneself while fear targets beings in the world

Evidence

First we must acknowledge that Kierkegaard is right; anguish is distinguished from fear in that fear is fear of beings in the world whereas anguish is anguish before myself. Vertigo is anguish to the extent that I am afraid not of falling over the precipice, but of throwing myself over. A situation provokes fear if there is a possibility of my life being changed from without; my being provokes anguish to the extent that I distrust myself and my own reactions in that situation. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 236

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precise foundational distinction between fear (directed at external transcendent beings) and anguish (reflective self-distrust), grounded in Kierkegaard.
• XREF: Directly sets up Beauvoir’s ethics; also resonates with Heidegger’s uncanniness and Kierkegaard’s own Fear and Trembling account of dread. — connects to: Anguish reveals the double nihilation that suspends the world in nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 213; Anguish is consciousness of being one’s own future in the mode of not-being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 239; Fear and anguish cannot coexist because one is reflective and the other unreflective — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 236 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Anguish is consciousness of being one’s own future in the mode of not-being #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 239
• Anguish arises when consciousness sees itself cut from its essence by nothingness #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 246
• Fear and anguish cannot coexist because one is reflective and the other unreflective #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 236
• Fear apprehends the self as a passive destructible object among external causes #corroborates (0.80)
• The supposed intuition of freedom is a constructed evasion of anguish #expands (0.80)
• Anguish cannot be hidden because flight from it is itself a mode of consciousness #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 259
• Individual threat evokes fear while group threat evokes anger #complicates (0.70) — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 19