Emotion plays an important role in securing social stability. But while emotions like fear, anger, and guilt have received much attention in this context, little work has been done to understand the role that anxiety plays. That’s unfortunate. I argue that a particular form of anxiety—what I call ‘practical anxiety’—plays an important, but as of yet unrecognized, role in norm-based social regulation. More specifically, it provides a valuable form of metacognition, one that contributes to social stability by helping individuals negotiate (...) the challenges that come from having to act in the face of unclear norms. (shrink)

A familiar feature of moral life is the distinctive anxiety that we feel in the face of a moral dilemma or moral conflict. Situations like these require us to take stands on controversial issues. But because we are unsure that we will make the correct decision, anxiety ensues. Despite the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, surprisingly little work has been done either to characterize this “ moral anxiety” or to explain the role that it plays in our moral lives. This paper (...) aims to address this deficiency by developing an empirically informed account of what moral anxiety is and what it does. (shrink)

Moral anxiety is the unease that we experience in the face of a novel or difficult moral decision, an unease that helps us recognize the significance of the issue we face and engages epistemic behaviors aimed at helping us work through it (reflection, information gathering, etc.). But recent discussions in philosophy raise questions about the value of moral anxiety (do we really do better when we’re anxious?); and work in cognitive science challenges its psychological plausibility (is there really such an (...) emotion?). Drawing on Kant and Kantians, I develop a model of moral anxiety (or ‘conscience’ in Kant’s terminology) that highlights both its empirical credentials and its distinctive value. Kant, it turns out, was an early—and sophisticated—dual-process theorist. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of “eco‐anxiety” by integrating results from numerous fields of inquiry. Although climate change may cause direct psychological and existential impacts, vast numbers of people already experience indirect impacts in the form of depression, socio‐ethical paralysis, and loss of well‐being. This is not always evident, because people have developed psychological and social defenses in response, including “socially constructed silence.” I argue that this situation causes the need to frame climate change narratives as emphasizing hope in the (...) midst of tragedy. Framing the situation simply as a threat or a possibility does not work. Religious communities and the use of methods which include spirituality have an important role in enabling people to process their deep emotions and existential questions. I draw also from my experiences from Finland in enabling cooperation between natural scientists and theologians in order to address climate issues. (shrink)

Today, anxiety is usually thought of as a pathology, the most diagnosed and medicated of all psychological disorders. But anxiety isn't always or only a medical condition. Indeed, many philosophers argue that anxiety is a normal, even essential, part of being human, and that coming to terms with this fact is potentially transformative, allowing us to live more meaningful lives by giving us a richer understanding of ourselves. In Anxiety, Samir Chopra explores valuable insights about anxiety offered by ancient and (...) modern philosophies-Buddhism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Blending memoir and philosophy, he also tells how serious anxiety has affected his own life-and how philosophy has helped him cope with it. Chopra shows that many philosophers-including the Buddha, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger-view anxiety as an inevitable human response to existence: to be is to be anxious. Drawing on Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse, Chopra examines how poverty and other material conditions can make anxiety worse, but he emphasizes that not even the rich can escape it. Nor can the medicated. Inseparable from the human condition, anxiety is indispensable for grasping it. Philosophy may not be able to cure anxiety but, by leading us to greater self-knowledge and self-acceptance, it may be able to make us less anxious about being anxious. Personal, poignant, and hopeful, Anxiety is a book for anyone who is curious about rethinking anxiety and learning why it might be a source not only of suffering but of insight. (shrink)

The current study analyzed how trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) mediates the relationship between self-esteem and state anxiety (STAI-S) and trait anxiety (STAI-T). The sample was composed of 153 undergraduate students from the University of Cádiz, Spain (71.9% women and 28.1% men). Students completed measures of self-esteem, STAI-S, STAI-T, and trait EI. Mediation analyses were completed with three trait EI dimensions (emotional attention -EA-, emotional clarity -EC-, and mood repair -MR) as mediating variables, self-esteem as the independent variable, and STAI-S (...) and STAI-T as the dependent ones. Our results confirmed that self-esteem scores explained and predicted both, STAI-S and STAI-T values (13% for STAI-S and 21% for STAI-T). This explanatory capacity is increased by 8% when accounting for all trait EI dimensions. Considering STAI-S, the results of the direct effects showed that a decrease in their levels is predicted through the increases in the levels of both, self-esteem and MR. Regarding STAI-T, the results of the direct effects showed that a decrease in their levels is predicted, in addition to an increment of self-esteem and MR values, by an increase of EC and a decrease of EA. Conversely, indirect effects revealed that higher levels of self-esteem were associated with worse scores in EA and worse MR, which in turn would enhance both STAI-S and STAI-T levels. Moreover, regarding STAI-T higher levels of self-esteem were associated with worse scores in EA and worse EC, therefore increasing STAI-T levels. As shown, the negative association found between self-esteem and EA becomes a key element. The effect of self-esteem on EA and the influence that the latter had on EC and MR exerts an indirect mediated effect with the power to invert the influence that self-esteem wields on both types of anxiety. In this sense, the apparent protective role of self-esteem changed, turning into a risk factor that promotes higher anxiety values. (shrink)

ObjectiveTest anxiety (TA) is a construct that has scarcely been studied based on Lang’s three-dimensional model of anxiety. The objective of this article is to investigate the repercussion of sociodemographic and academic variables on different responses for each component of anxiety and for the type of test in adolescent students.MethodA total of 1181 students from 12 to 18 years old (M= 14.7 and SD = 1.8) participated, of whom 569 were boys (48.2%) and 612 girls (51.8%). A sociodemographic questionnaire and (...) theCuestionario de Ansiedad ante los examenes-Adaptado (CAEX-A)[Test Anxiety Questionnaire-Adapted] an adaptation for Spanish secondary school levels (ESO) and Bachillerato were administered.ResultsGirls scored higher on the cognitive and physiological components of TA than boys, the intensity of the physiological response increasing with age. Bachillerato level students reported more physiological anxiety than those of ESO level. Students with better marks in the previous year presented more anxiety in the cognitive component, while those who obtained the lower mark presented higher anxiety values in the behavioral component. Participants reported that the types of tests that cause them more anxiety were oral tests in front of the class, oral presentation in front of a panel, and mathematics tests.ConclusionAdolescents show a differential response of TA based on the physiological, cognitive and motor components, mediated by the variables of gender, age, grade, academic performance and type of exam. These results serve to design specific intervention programs to manage anxiety in situations of academic assessment. (shrink)

Phenomenology's central insight is that affectivity is not an inconsequential or contingent characteristic of human existence. Emotions, moods, sentiments, and feelings are not accidents of human existence. They do not happen to happen to us. Rather, we exist the way we do because of and through our affective experiences. Phenomenology thus acknowledges the centrality and ubiquity of affectivity by noting the multitude of ways in which our existence is permeated by our various affective experiences. Yet, it also insists that such (...) experiences are both revealing and constitutive of human nature. It is precisely this last point that marks an important distinction between a phenomenological study of affectivity and perhaps all others. For phenomenology, one cannot understand the nature of human existence without coming to terms with the character of affectivity and at the same time, one cannot come to terms with the character of affectivity without understanding the nature of human existence. Practical and social engagements, scientific endeavors, familial and political interactions are all predicted on the fact that we are beings who are capable of being affectively attuned to ourselves, to the world, and to others. In this entry, we discuss Martin Heidegger's and Jean-Paul Sartre's respective accounts of affectivity. In the first section, we present Heidegger's understanding of affective existence. In this context, we discuss the significance of moods and offer an analysis of the affective phenomena of fear, anxiety, and boredom. In the second section, we present an overview of Sartre's account of emotions and advance a Sartrean interpretation of fear and boredom. We conclude by raising some brief concerns with both accounts. (shrink)

The future harbours the potential for myriad threats to the fitness of organisms, and many species prepare accordingly based on indicators of hazards. Here, we distinguish between defensive responses on the basis of sensed cues and those based on autocues generated by mental simulations of the future in humans. Whereas sensed threat cues usually induce specific responses with reference to particular features of the environment or generalized responses to protect against diffuse threats, autocues generated by mental simulations of the future (...) enable strategic preparation for hazards that may not require an immediate response. The overlap of these mechanisms makes defence effective and versatile, yet can manifest as contemporary anxiety disorders in humans. (shrink)

This paper utilizes a humanistic psychology theoretical framework and pays attention to the rampancy of anxiety affecting youth in the United States. This paper intends to explore the phenomena of anxiety and discuss how it could be perceived as an opportunity for growth if approached in a constructive way. Specifically, we argue that youth need to be able to meet their inner self in the phenomena of anxiety in an empowering way, rather than unconsciously fleeting its destructive affects.

In this paper I use a distinction between the "anxiety of strangers" and the "fear of enemies" to show how uncertainty and tension experienced in the face of what is other and different need not lead to a nationalist insularity, but can be the occasion for an existential philosophical education - an education in which the resolute acceptance of strangeness allows us to reflect on our taken-for-granted about the everyday.

Math anxiety (MA) has been suggested to decrease the math performance of students. However, it remains unclear what factors moderate this relationship. The purpose of this study was to analyze the link between MA and math performance. Studies that explored the relationship between MA and math performance, conducted from 2000 to 2019 (84 samples, N = 8680), were identified and statistically integrated with a meta-analysis method. The results indicated a robust negative correlation between MA and math performance. Furthermore, regarding the (...) analysis of moderator variables, this negative link was stronger in the studies that involved Asian students, whereas it was the weakest in the studies that involved European students. Moreover, this negative link was stronger in the studies within a senior high school group, whereas it was the weakest in the studies within an elementary group. Finally, this negative link was strongest among studies that used a custom test and studies that assessed problem-solving skills. Potential explanations and implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Anxiety is sometimes thought of as either a state of mind, lacking a thick spatial depth, or otherwise conceived as something that individuals undergo alone. Such presuppositions are evident both conceptually and clinically. In this paper, I present a contrasting account of anxiety as being a situated affect. I develop this claim by pursuing a phenomenological analysis of agoraphobia. Far from a disembodied, displaced, and solitary state of mind, agoraphobic is revealed as being thickly mediated by bodily, spatial, and intersubjective (...) dimensions. (shrink)

Emotions might contribute to our being rational cognitive agents. Anxiety – and more specifically epistemic anxiety – provides an especially interesting case study into the role of emotion for adaptive cognition. In this paper, I aim at clarifying the epistemic contribution of anxiety, and the role that ill-calibrated anxiety might play in maladaptive epistemic activities which can be observed in psychopathology. In particular, I argue that this emotion contributes to our ability to adapt our cognitive efforts to how we represent (...) the practical factors relevant to the task at hand, by sig- naling the need for increased cognitive processing and evidence gathering in high- stakes situations. I hypothesize that dysfunctional or ill-calibrated epistemic anxiety might play an important role in the motivation driving persons with obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD) to invest high amounts of cognitive resources into the resolution of apparently simple and innocuous questions. As I argue, OCD might be conceived as a case in which epistemic anxiety is inappropriately elicited, represent- ing these as high-stakes questions, and inadequately signaling a need for cognition. In this paper, I thus make use of the concept of (epistemic) anxiety as developed in the philosophy of emotion and in epistemology, to propose an account of the role of anxiety in the pathological doubt that is central to obsessive-compulsive disorder. (shrink)

“Additional needs children” is a term often used in the education system to describe children with school-based problems characterised by learning difficulties arising from academic, social and emotional stressors including, but not limited to, clinically diagnosed Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD). What has seldom been investigated is what biopsychosocial characteristics and other common comorbid behaviours are associated with academic learning difficulties. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between anxiety levels (Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale- Parent Report), autism traits (...) (Autism Spectrum Quotient – Child Version) and sleep quality (Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children) in ‘additional needs children’ with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Language Impairment or Mixed Diagnosis without an intellectual disability. The results demonstrated that the ASD group reported more impairments associated with comorbid anxiety and sleep compared to the other clinically diagnosed groups. Similarly, greater anxiety level was positively associated with a greater number of autism traits and poorer sleep quality regardless of diagnostic group. This suggests that higher anxiety symptoms are a core biomarker of children who often first come to their teacher’s attention with reading and learning difficulties (i.e. “additional needs”), irrespective of the primary cause of school-based problems. (shrink)

Cognitive models of social anxiety disorder suggest that memory biases for negative social information contribute to symptoms of social anxiety. However, it remains unclear whether memory bias...

We frequently hear that we live in an age of anxiety, from 'therapy culture', the Atkins diet and child anti-depressants to gun culture and weapons of mass destruction. While Hollywood regularly cashes in on teenage anxiety through its Scream franchise, pharmaceutical companies churn out new drugs such as Paxil to combat newly diagnosed anxieties. On Anxiety takes a fascinating, psychological plunge behind the scenes of our panic stricken culture and into anxious minds, asking who and what is responsible. Putting anxiety (...) on the couch, Renata Salecl asks some much-needed questions: Is anxiety about the absence of authority or too much of it? Do the media report anxiety or create it? Are drugs a cure for anxiety or its cause? Is anxiety about being yourself or someone else, and is anxiety really the ultimate obstacle to happiness? Drawing on vivid examples from films such as the X Files and Cyrano de Bergerac , drugs used on soldiers to combat anxiety, the anxieties of love and motherhood, and fake Holocaust memoirs, Renata Salecl argues that what really produces anxiety is the attempt to get rid of it. Erudite and compelling, On Anxiety is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, psychology and the cultural phenomenon of anxiety today. (shrink)

The differentiation of trait anxiety and depression in nonclinical and clinical populations is addressed. Following the tripartite model, it is assumed that anxiety and depression share a large portion of negative affectivity, but differ with respect to bodily hyperarousal and anhedonia. In contrast to the tripartite model, NA is subdivided into worry and dysthymia, which leads to a four-variable model of anxiety and depression encompassing emotionality, worry, dysthymia, and anhedonia. Item-level confirmatory factor analyses and latent class cluster analysis based on (...) a large nation-wide representative German sample substantiate the construct validity of the model. Further evidence concerning convergent and discriminant validity with respect to related constructs is obtained in two smaller nonclinical and clinical samples. Factors influencing the association between components of anxiety and depression are discussed. (shrink)

It is well established, following Menzies' work, that nursing practice produces considerable anxiety. Like Menzies, we bring a psychoanalytic perspective to a theorization of anxiety in nursing and do so in order to consider nursing practice in the light of psychoanalytic theory, although from a Lacanian perspective. We also draw on Bataille's notion of ‘surplus’. These concepts provide the theoretical framework for a study investigating how some clinical nurses are able to remain in clinical practice rather than leave the profession (...) or seek work at a distance from the bedside. We conducted focus groups and present here an analysis of two fragments of nurses' speech. We found the nurses responded from one of two positions. In the first position, the nurses focus on doctors, complain about the surplus afforded them, and call for it to be eliminated. In this way, the nursing group is similar to other groups, considered by Bataille, who also attempt to get rid of a surplus. However, in the second position, the nurses stay with the surplus, tolerating it as they nurse the patient. This latter position is one where the nurse practises with a focus on the patient rather than being distracted by their dispute over the doctor's privilege. The importance of this paper is in its illustration of two distinct positions from which the nurse can practise: one that is not optimal because the nurse is distracted and the other that is more focused on practice, and thus the nurse is in a position to provide the best care possible to patients. (shrink)

This paper argues that the problematic of rule following in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and Heidegger's analysis of anxiety in Being and Time have analogous structures. Working through these analogies helps our interpretation of both of these authors. Contrasting sceptical and anti-sceptical readings of Wittgenstein helps us to resolve an interpretive puzzle about what an authentic response to anxiety looks like for Heidegger. And considering the importance of anxiety to Heidegger's conception of authenticity allows us to locate in Wittgenstein's later philosophy (...) a covert appeal to something resembling Heideggerian authenticity. (shrink)

Current psychological theories of performance anxiety focus heavily on relating performers’ physiological and mental states to their abilities to maintain focus and execute learned skills. How task-specific expertise and past experiences moderate the degree to which individuals become anxious in a given performance context are not well accounted for within these theories. This review considers how individual differences arising from learning may shape the psychobiological, emotional, and cognitive processes that modulate anxious states associated with the performance of highly trained skills. (...) Current approaches to understanding performance anxiety are presented, followed by a critique of these approaches. A connectionist model is proposed as an alternative approach to characterising performance anxiety by viewing performers’ anxious states at a specific time point as jointly determined by experience-dependent plasticity, competition between motivational systems, and ongoing cognitive and somatic states. Clarifying how experience-dependent plasticity contributes to the emergence of socio-evaluative anxiety in challenging situations can not only help performers avoid developing maladaptive emotional responses, but may also provide new clues about how memories of past events and imagined future states interact with motivational processes to drive changes in emotional states and cognitive processing. (shrink)

One of the main objectives of psychotherapy is to address emotion dysregulation that causes pathological symptoms and distress in patients. Following psychodynamic theory, we propose that in humans, the combination of emotions plus conditioned anxiety due to traumatic attachment can lead to dysregulated affects. Likewise, defenses can generate and maintain dysregulated affects (altogether Dysregulated Affective States, DAS). We propose the Experiential-Dynamic Emotion Regulation methodology, a framework to understand emotion dysregulation by integrating scientific evidence coming from the fields of affective neuroscience (...) and Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy aimed at resolving DAS. This method and the techniques proposed can be integrated within other approaches. Similarities and differences with the Cognitive model of emotion regulation and cognitive-behavioral approaches are discussed within the paper. (shrink)

The first part of this paper surveys the current literature in the history of nineteenth-century mathematics in order to show that the question “Did the increasing abstraction of mathematics lead to a sense of anxiety?” is a new and valid question. I argue that the mathematics of the nineteenth century is marked by a growing appreciation of error leading to a note of anxiety, hesitant at first but persistent by 1900. This mounting disquiet about so many aspects of mathematics after (...) 1850 is seldom discussed. The second part explores the issue of anxiety in mathematical life through an interesting account of an address made by a mathematician in 1911, Oscar Perron. The third and final part ventures some conclusions about the value of anxiety as a question for historians of mathematics to pursue. (shrink)

Although the role of emotion in socioeconomic decision making is increasingly recognised, the impact of specific emotional disorders, such as anxiety disorders, on these decisions has been surprisingly neglected. Twenty anxious patients and twenty matched controls completed a commonly used socioeconomic task (the Ultimatum Game), in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Anxious patients accepted significantly more unfair offers than controls. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent models of anxiety, (...) in particular the importance of interpersonal factors and assertiveness in an integrated model of decision making. Finally, we were able to show that pharmacological serotonin used to treat anxious symptomatology tended to normalise decision making, further confirming and extending the role of serotonin in co-operation, prosocial behaviour, and social decision making. These results show, for the first time, a different pattern of socioeconomic behaviour in anxiety disordered patients, in addition to the known memory, attentional and emotional biases that are part of this pathological condition. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo responde algunas críticas planteadas por Ignacio Ávila a mi interpretación de la epistemología davidsoniana. Presento argumentos en contra de: a) que sea necesario distinguir entre representaciones epistemológicamente “peligrosas”e “inofensivas”; b) que el empirismo mínimo sea un tipo de realismo directo; c) que mi uso de la expresión “evidencia distal” y el interés por la teoría de la correspondencia sean asuntos ajenos a Davidson. Finalmente, sostengo que la triangulación es un elemento fundamental de la epistemología davidsoniana, pues permite (...) sortear la ansiedad realista manteniéndose en una postura no representacionalista. ABSTRACT In this article, I respond to some of Ignacio Ávila's criticisms of my interpretation of Davidson’s epistemology. I argue against: a) the need to distinguish between epistemologically “dangerous” and “harmless” representations; b) the idea that minimal empiricism is a kind of direct realism; and c) the claim that my usage of the expression “distal evidence” and interest in the theory of correspondence are issues that do not pertain to Davidson. Finally, I claim that triangulation is a key element in Davidsonian epistemology since it allows us to deal with the realist anxiety while maintaining a non-representationalist viewpoint. (shrink)

While previous research has established that virtual reality (VR) can be successfully used in the treatment of anxiety disorders, including phobias and PTSD, no research has examined changes in brain patterns associated with the use of VR for generalized anxiety management. In the current study, we compared a brief nature-based mindfulness VR experience to a resting control condition on anxious participants. Self-reported anxiety symptoms and resting-state EEG were recorded across intervals containing quiet rest or the VR intervention. EEG activity was (...) analyzed as a function of global power shifts in Alpha and Beta activity, and with sLORETA current source density estimates of cingulate cortex regions of interest. Results demonstrated that both a quiet rest control condition and the VR meditation significantly reduced subjective reports of anxiety and increased Alpha power. However, the VR intervention uniquely resulted in shifting proportional power from higher Beta frequencies into lower Beta frequencies, and significantly reduced broadband Beta activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. These effects are consistent with a physiological reduction of anxiety. This pilot study provides preliminary evidence supporting the therapeutic potential of VR for anxiety management and stress reduction programs. (shrink)

People sometimes try to call others’ beliefs into question by pointing out the contingent causal origins of those beliefs. The significance of such ‘Etiological Challenges’ is a topic that has started attracting attention in epistemology. Current work on this topic aims to show that Etiological Challenges are, at most, only indirectly epistemically significant, insofar as they bring other generic epistemic considerations to the agent’s attention. Against this approach, we argue that Etiological Challenges are epistemically significant in a more direct and (...) more distinctive way. An Etiological Challenge prompts the agent to assess whether her beliefs result from practices of indoctrination, and whether she should reduce confidence in those beliefs, given the anti-reliability of indoctrination as a method of belief-acquisition. Our analysis also draws attention to some of the ways in which epistemic concerns interact with political issues—e.g. relating to epistemic injustice, identity-based discrimination, and segregation—when we’re thinking about the contingent causal origins of our beliefs. (shrink)

Worrying is the central feature of generalized anxiety disorder . Many people worry from time to time, but in GAD the worrying is prolonged and difficult to control. Worrying is a specific way of coping with perceived threats and feared situations. Meanwhile, it is not considered to be a helpful coping strategy, and the phenomenological account developed in this paper aims to show why. It builds on several phenomenological notions and in particular on Michael Wheeler's application of these notions to (...) artificial intelligence and the cognitive sciences. Wheeler emphasizes the value of 'online intelligence' as contrasted to 'offline intelligence'. I discuss and apply these concepts with respect to worrying as it occurs in GAD, suggesting that GAD patients overrate the value of detached contemplation , while underrating their embodied-embedded adaptive skills . I argue that this phenomenological account does not only help explaining why worrying is used as a coping strategy, but also why cognitive behavioral therapy is successful in treating GAD. (shrink)

This paper reports the results of three studies using mood induction procedures (MIPs) designed to investigate the relationship between anxiety and disgust. Study 1 used guided imagery vignettes (i.e., asking participants to imagine themselves in a series of described situations) and music (Mayer, Allen, & Beauregard, 1995). Study 2 used video clips (Gross & Levenson, 1995). Study 3 used autobiographical recall and music (Blagden & Craske, 1996). In order to be as sure as possible that target moods were being induced, (...) and that manipulation checks provided good evidence of mood induction, Studies 1 and 2 measured six moods (anxiety, sadness, happiness, anger, disgust, and contempt) on visual analogue scales. In addition, Study 3 included two further mood measures: a 30-adjective rating scale measuring 10 emotions, the Differential Emotion Scale (DES; Izard, 1972) and a free label questionnaire, allowing participants to record how they feel without any prior imposed structure. Results from all three studies demonstrated that induced anxiety will produce increases in reported disgust, but there was no evidence for an effect of induced disgust on reported anxiety. These findings were independent of the type of MIP (guided imagery vignette and music, video clips, and autobiographical recall and music), and the type of dependent mood measure used (visual analogue scale, differential emotion scale or a free label questionnaire). The findings have important implications for the putative role of disgust in anxious psychopathologies, and suggest that if disgust does have a causal influence in some anxious psychopathologies, this influence is not mediated simply by experienced disgust facilitating experienced anxiety. (shrink)

Widely regarded as the most influential proponent of the truth of original sin in the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr worked hard to excise any "literalistic" element from his interpretation of the doctrine. In his attempt to "correct" the Augustinian tradition on original sin by purging it of all "literalistic errors," however, Niebuhr assumed as his starting point the most characteristically modern objection to the doctrine: that birth is a thoroughly natural, animal, and morally meaningless event. As a result, Niebuhr unnecessarily (...) constrained his vision of the dimensions of human freedom, and hence his description of the dynamic of anxiety and freedom that energizes sin. Through a careful reading of Reinhold Niebuhr's writings on original sin, in light of the truth that the end of human life is inseparable from its origins, a reappraisal and recovery of the meaningfulness of the assertion of original sin as a literal inheritance is possible. The result of such a reappraisal and recovery is an amplified insight into the existential anxiety that Niebuhr otherwise described so convincingly. (shrink)

Philosophical issues with respect to anxiety and its pathological variants arise at the border between everyday and clinical understanding of anxiety, between clinical and scientific approaches and between scientific concepts and the philosophical frameworks they refer to. These four ways of understanding can be seen as epistemic levels that point at different aspects and qualities of anxiety. After a brief historical introduction the three interfaces will be discussed. Philosophical questions at the interface between the first two levels relate to the (...) issue of where to draw the boundary between normal and pathological manifestations of anxiety and of how to balance the medical view with everyday understandings of anxiety. At the interface between clinical and scientific approaches, the question arises whether scientific theories and models are adequate, more particularly, which aspects of the clinical picture can be explained by scientific theories and concepts. The third interface, between scientific concepts and the philosophical frameworks they presuppose, is the origin of debates about what belongs to science and what should be regarded as meta-theoretical or paradigmatic. To what extent does a particular scientific concept stand on its own and to what extent does it borrow from pre-theoretical and/or philosophical views? (shrink)

Debates about obesity are really about the meaning of responsibility. The trend toward local foods reflects the changing nature of space due to new communication technologies. Vegetarian theory capitalizes on biotechnology’s challenge to the meaning of species. And food politics, as this book makes powerfully clear, is actually about the political anxieties surrounding globalization. In _Eating Anxiety_, Chad Lavin argues that our culture’s obsession with diet, obesity, meat, and local foods enacts ideological and biopolitical responses to perceived threats to both (...) individual and national sovereignty. Using the occasion of eating to examine assumptions about identity, objectivity, and sovereignty that underwrite so much political order, Lavin explains how food functions to help structure popular and philosophical understandings of the world and the place of humans within it. He introduces the concept of digestive subjectivity and shows how this offers valuable resources for rethinking cherished political ideals surrounding knowledge, democracy, and power. Exploring discourses of food politics, _Eating Anxiety_ links the concerns of food—especially issues of sustainability, public health, and inequality—to the evolution of the world order and the possibilities for democratic rule. It forces us to question the significance of consumerist politics and—simultaneously—the relationship between politics and ethics, public and private. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Writing Anxiety: Christa Wolf’s KindheitsmusterMichael G. Levine (bio)For Diane C.Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster, published in English as Patterns of Childhood, takes very little for granted—least of all the question of beginnings. The novel literally opens with the words of another: “Das Vergangene ist nicht tot; es ist nicht einmal vergangen,” a slightly altered translation of a line from Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. It’s not (...) even past.” 1 Lacking a proper opening and haunted by the specter of an unmastered and perhaps unmasterable past—of a “model childhood” spent in the East Prussian town of L. during the Third Reich, the text begins by questioning the very possibility of a clean break and a fresh start. This insistent question, raised in a variety of ways throughout the novel, is posed at the outset as a kind of textual stutter, as a perseverating question rehearsed from the beginning—and in lieu of simply beginning—as a series of false starts, as repeated attempts to start over, as a desperate struggle to restart a narrative paralyzed by the anticipation of difficulties still to come. “You lay aside stacks of tentatively filled pages, insert a fresh sheet in the typewriter, and start once again with Chapter 1. As in so many times during the last eighteen months, when you were forced to learn: the difficulties haven’t even begun [die Schwierigkeiten haben noch gar nicht angefangen].” 2 The temporal structure of this passage, found in the second paragraph of the novel, is worth commenting upon, for here the difficult question of how to begin seems to be folded back on itself, turned inside-out, as it were, and reposed as a question of difficulties that apparently have not yet even started. Indeed, only in a text that stammers from the start and begins by beginning over and over again could it be said both that the difficulties have already started and that they have not yet even begun.Already/not yet: such is the split temporal framework of a difficult encounter, of an encounter with difficulties that will never have been confronted as such. 3 The language of confrontation, of squaring off face-to-face, is particularly inappropriate in this context since, as we will see, the difficulties that force “you,” the writer, to begin again are not simply identifiable or avoidable obstacles in the way of writing but, rather, irreducible and irreducibly conflicted aspects of the writing itself. They are what keeps the writing from ever having a self, from ever being one with or self-consciously coming to itself. 4 [End Page 106]While it is tempting to describe Kindheitsmuster as a novel that is self-conscious in the extreme—difficult writing that writes about the difficulties of writing—one should bear in mind that it is a text that repeatedly calls into question the presumed authority and the capacity for self-knowledge of an instance derisively referred to in a passage inexplicably deleted from the English translation as “His Majesty the Ego [Seine Majestät das Ich]” [83]. In an apparent attempt to suspend the privileges usually accorded to—or, rather, autocratically arrogated to itself by—das Ich, the narrator makes a point of scrupulously avoiding the first-person pronoun when referring to herself in the text. (There is, of course, one important exception to this rule toward the end of the novel to which we will return much later.) As was already evident in the passage cited earlier, “You lay aside stacks of tentatively filled pages, insert a fresh sheet in the typewriter, and start once again with Chapter 1,” the narrator employs the second person rather than the first when speaking in the present—as though she could speak of herself at the moment only by speaking to herself. More significant still in this autobiographical novel that deals at length with the narrator’s memories of growing up in Landsberg on the Warthe (now the Polish town of Gorzmploys the second person rather than the first when speaking in the presenerson when referring to the child she used to be.What is one to make of... (shrink)

The fear-anxiety distinction has been extensively discussed and debated among emotion researchers. In this study, we tested this distinction from a social-cognitive perspective. Drawing on construal level theory and regulatory scope theory, we examined whether fear and anxiety differ in their underlying level of construal and scope. Results from a preregistered autobiographical recall study (N = 200) that concerned either a fear situation or an anxiety situation and a large dataset from Twitter (N = 104,949) indicated that anxiety was associated (...) with a higher level of construal and a more expansive scope than fear. These findings support the notion that emotions serve as mental tools that deal with different challenges. While fear prompts people to seek immediate solutions to concrete threats in the here and now (contractive scope), anxiety prompts them to deal with distant and unknown threats that require more expansive and flexible solutions (expansive scope). Our study contributes to a growing literature on emotions and construal level and points to interesting avenues for further research. (shrink)

To shoot from a pistol: this essay explores the anxiety of beginning through a reading of Hegel and Gillian Rose. Hegel is anxious about philosophical beginnings and the presuppositions which they might take for granted. Yet he is also anxious to begin, to not waste time securing the beginning in advance, which would indefinitely forestall beginning altogether. For Hegel, one must take the risk of beginning, without any guarantees, if only to discover in retrospect the beginning's shortcomings and failings. Gillian (...) Rose takes this up in her reading of the philosophical canon. Past works are not dogma, unquestionable authorities which tell us what to think, but the work of authorships which, if followed, open up a space for self-reflexive and self-corrective thinking. She also takes it up in her conception of identity. She does not write ‘as a woman’ or ‘as a Jew’, for that would presuppose and fix those identities in advance as a beginning without anxiety. Instead, writing is the means of anxiously developing these identities and discovering their plasticity. Furthermore, Rose takes up the anxiety of beginning in her critique of those philosophies which infer from our failure to think the absolute that the absolute itself is a failure. For Rose, the failure to think the absolute must be recognised as a failure determined by its beginning in the middle of bourgeois property law (or capitalism). In this, I mount a Rosean critique of Slavoj Žižek who transforms the determined failure to think the absolute into an undetermined metaphysics which says that the absolute is a failure. Finally, she takes it up in her notion of justice. Unlike Derrida, for whom justice is a messianic promise outside the law, Rose argues that justice may only be realised through the anxiety of beginning, through the risky activity of the assuming and exercising of power for the sake of the universal interest, activity arising from a comprehension of actuality. This essay will recover the essential point that the (broken) middle for Rose is not only a spatial term, but a narratological or temporal term, naming the passage between the beginning and the end, which at once undoes the certainty of any beginning or end. The essay ends with some reflections on the anxiety of beginning in Palestine. (shrink)

A model of the neuropsychology of anxiety is proposed. The model is based in the first instance upon an analysis of the behavioural effects of the antianxiety drugs (benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and alcohol) in animals. From such psychopharmacologi-cal experiments the concept of a “behavioural inhibition system” (BIS) has been developed. This system responds to novel stimuli or to those associated with punishment or nonreward by inhibiting ongoing behaviour and increasing arousal and attention to the environment. It is activity in the BIS (...) that constitutes anxiety and that is reduced by antianxiety drugs. The effects of the antianxiety drugs in the brain also suggest hypotheses concerning the neural substrate of anxiety. Although the benzodiazepines and barbiturates facilitate the effects of γ-aminobutyrate, this is insufficient to explain their highly specific behavioural effects. Because of similarities between the behavioural effects of certain lesions and those of the antianxiety drugs, it is proposed that these drugs reduce anxiety by impairing the functioning of a widespread neural system including the septo-hippocampal system (SHS), the Papez circuit, the prefrontal cortex, and ascending monoaminergic and cholinergic pathways which innervate these forebrain structures. Analysis of the functions of this system (based on anatomical, physiological, and behavioural data) suggests that it acts as a comparator: it compares predicted to actual sensory events and activates the outputs of the BIS when there is a mismatch or when the predicted event is aversive. Suggestions are made as to the functions of particular pathways within this overall brain system. The resulting theory is applied to the symptoms and treatment of anxiety in man, its relations to depression, and the personality of individuals who are susceptible to anxiety or depression. (shrink)

The assumption was verified that for patients suffering from cancer levels of anxiety and self-esteem differ compared to other patients before surgery. 120 patients of urology were assigned to subgroups according to diagnosis and the duration of hospitalization. Patients suffering from cancer declared higher anxiety than other patients. Longer hospitalization was connected to higher anxiety. A threat-congruent difference in explicit self-esteem was revealed only between two groups: 1. cancer and long hospitalization and 2. non-cancer and short hospitalization. For implicit self-esteem (...) the phenomenon of implicit compensation of self-esteem was predicted and confirmed: among cancer-sufferers the Name Letter Effect was greater than among other patients. Also, in the cancerpatients group, the result of Rudman et al. was replicated: increasing anxiety was connected with increasing implicit self-esteem. (shrink)

In this study, three individual descriptions of anxiety as experienced in social situations were analyzed so that a general structure representing social anxiety could potentially be obtained. The descriptions analyzed produced results that not only overlapped with already existing literature from various perspectives on the topic, but also highlighted certain key factors that have largely been unaccounted for by prior studies. By utilizing the Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology , these factors were brought to light in more depth and clarity (...) than if the same phenomenon were studied using a third person approach. Specifically, six constituents of social anxiety were revealed; including factors related to inter-subjectivity, the relationship between fear and anxiety, and the relationship between desire and self-lack. (shrink)