Existential roots of anxiety in the political

Abstract

The thesis focuses on the existential perspective of anxiety suggested by Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger and its creative potentiality that allows access to the self and the ontological structure of existence. Furthermore, it argues in favour of Hannah Arendt's concept of the political where such potentiality can be actualized. The thesis reveals the influence of both philosophers on Arendt regarding individual existence and the question of truth; at the same time, her disagreement with them concerning the collective space as a place for the realization of the uniqueness of the individual in its potentialities. Influenced by Arendt, the thesis argues for two possible ways out of anxiety. First, through the social where individual anxiety is realized in mass society. Second, through the public space of the political, where an individual realizes himself through action and spontaneity, with the possibility to resist a violent order. Therefore, according to Arendt, public space is a necessary condition for actualizing the individual.