The Concept of Anxiety
All of Kierkegaard's books have either a preface, dedication, or prayer at the beginning. This book includes a lengthy introduction. "The Concept of Anxiety" was published on exactly the same date as "Prefaces", June 17, 1844. Both books deal with Hegel’s idea of mediation. Mediation is a common thread throughout Kierkegaard’s works. His work up to this point was to show that faith was being mediated by knowledge. Here he takes up the questions of sin and guilt.
The Concept of Anxiety
Kierkegaard repeats the synthesis again in "The Sickness Unto Death" and he tied it to his idea of the "Moment" from "Philosophical Fragments". He says, "For the Greeks, the eternal lies behind as the past that can only be entered backwards. The category I maintain should be kept in mind, repetition, by which eternity is entered forwards." Kierkegaard wrote "Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits" in 1847. He said, "A Providence watches over each man’s wandering through life. It provides him with two guides. The one calls him forward. The other calls him back. They are, however, not in opposition to each other, these two guides, nor do they leave the wanderer standing there in doubt, confused by the double call. Rather the two are in eternal understanding with each other. For the one beckons forward to the Good, the other calls man back from evil. These guides are called repentance and remorse. The eager traveler hurries forward to the new, to the novel, and, indeed, away from experience. But the remorseful one, who comes behind, laboriously gathers up experience. Kierkegaard also mentions this idea in his Journals. He wrote: "It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards. Which principle, the more one thinks it through, ends exactly with the thought that temporal life can never properly be understood precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest in which to adopt a position: backwards.