Anguish is freedom’s self-apprehension, opposed to the serious man’s faith in external values
Evidence
Anguish then is the reflective apprehension of freedom by itself. … Anguish is opposed to the mind of the serious man who apprehends values in terms of the world and who resides in the reassuring, materialistic substantiation of values. In the serious mood I define myself in terms of the object by pushing aside a priori as impossible all enterprises in which I am not engaged at the moment; the meaning which my freedom has given to the world, I apprehend as coming from the world and constituting my obligations. In anguish I apprehend myself at once as totally free and as not being able to derive the meaning of the world except as coming from myself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 253
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines anguish as reflective self-apprehension of freedom and contrasts it with ‘the serious man’ — the key term Beauvoir later takes up.
- XREF: The ‘serious man’ reappears centrally in Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity as submissive to ready-made values. — connects to: Anguish is rare despite freedom being a permanent human structure.; The supposed intuition of freedom is a constructed evasion of anguish; Bad faith arises because humans as negativity face anguish before their freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 31 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- The supposed intuition of freedom is a constructed evasion of anguish
#contradicts(0.85) - Existentialist anxiety is the vertigo of realizing one’s own freedom
#exemplifies(0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 61 - Bad faith arises because humans as negativity face anguish before their freedom
#expands(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 31 - Bad faith flees anguish by relocating freedom into a fixed essence of the self
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 257 - Realizing one’s radical freedom produces anxiety, not liberation
#corroborates(0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 501 - Anguish is consciousness of being one’s own future in the mode of not-being
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 239 - Anxiety about freedom drives subjects to alienate themselves in things
#expands(0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128 - The spirit of seriousness treats values as absolute rather than made by human freedom
#corroborates(0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1520 - Bad faith requires a self-decentering power that nihilates anguish while being it
#expands(0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 260 - Fear of freedom masks itself as defense of the status quo
#expands(0.72) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 78