Abstract

The aim of the study is to provide an explanatory account of the affect anxiety as a component of moral consciousness. The basis approach taken is Lonerganian insofar as I employ generalized empirical method and certain key notions, such as, the dynamic structure of conscious intentionality and conversion. ;In Chapter I the object of the study is distinguished from certain experiences and conditions commonly designated by the term 'anxiety', especially from fear and from psycho-pathological conditions. A sketch of the phenomenon of anxiety follows, in which it is described as an affective state characterized by ambivalence and tension, which, although lacking any determinate object, is nevertheless anticipatory. In Chapter II, in order to determine precisely what kind of affect anxiety is, I survey several typologies of the affective field, drawing from the works of Scheler, von Hildebrand, and Strasser. In Chapter III the key differentiae of affectivity are abstracted from this survey and clarified. ;In Chapter IV these differentiae are applied to the phenomenon of anxiety as presented in the works of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre. Analysis of the structure of anxiety reveals it to be a fundamental affective state intrinsically qualifying the transcendental dynamism of the fourth level of conscious intentionality. It is identical with moral consciousness, and an immanent quality of conscience. Anxiety is further determined to be the experience of the tension of the opposition between self-centeredness and moral self-transcendence. Determinations of the general object of anxiety generate three basic modes of anxiety: horizon--immanent anxiety, developmental anxiety, and conversional anxiety. ;The last chapter goes beyond the basic analysis of the structure of anxiety to raise two additional questions: the metaphysical question of whether anxiety is ineluctable or whether it can be transcended; and the practical question regarding one's relation to one's own anxiety. The dialectical options of appropriation and flight are analyzed, and, finally, a creative employment of appropriated anxiety is suggested