Joseph Tanke Colloquium Philosophicum-előadása

Joseph Tanke (University of Hawai’i, Mānoa) 2025. június 18-án, szerdán, 18.00 órától, az i épület 113-as termében tart előadást készülő könyvéről, Anxiety as a Philosophical Problem: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Foucault  címmel, a Filozófia Intézet Colloquium Philosophicum című előadás-sorozata keretében.

Az előadás és az azt követő diskusszió nyelve angol, az ugyancsak angol nyelvű rezümét pedig alább olvashatják:

Anxiety as a Philosophical Problem:
Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Foucault

Since the onset of modernity, each generation has thought of itself, in the poet W.H. Auden’s words, as belonging to the “Age of Anxiety.” And yet, today many North American social scientists tell us we are witnessing an epidemic of anxiety, particularly amongst young people and students. To what should we attribute this seeming uptick in reports of anxiety? Is anxiety a problem for mental medicine, philosophy, or both? And what, after all, is the experience of anxiety inasmuch as it can be meaningfully differentiated from fear?  

Through an analysis of the canonical works of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, this presentation will propose a hermeneutic phenomenology of anxiety intended to draw out its connections with freedom and care. It will argue that the existentialist problematic is insufficient for the purposes of understanding the phenomenon of anxiety, and that we need to take up the problem in terms of a critical social philosophy. In the final portion of this presentation, then, we will turn to the works of Michel Foucault in order to argue that anxiety, particularly as it exists today, should be read as expression of power’s hold over the body.