Any good philosophical books on fear? I've just read sickness unto death by kierkegaard and really really liked it, I sorta had the feeling of something inside of me unravelling while reading it, so is there perhaps something similar specifically on fear? I've been told to look into Epicurus, is that a good recommendation? Cheers.
bump
>>23976263No.
>>23976728Helpful
Just keep reading Kierkegaard. Maybe Shestov's Athens and Jerusalem if you want something in the vein. Nobody hits like that glorious hunchback from Denmark.
>>23976730Of course. Go do something that generates fear in you until it doesn't.
>>23976732Sickness unto death helped tremendously, though I struggle with Kierkegaard by virtue of not being particularly religious. Also the Shestov recommendation is great, he's extremely underrated, I haven't finished Athens and Jerusalem yet but his other book on Kierkegaard is amazing.
>>23976740*though I generally struggle
>>23976740Fear and Trembling seems like the obvious next choice. I read it years ago but it left a profound impression on me.
>>23976756I don't think it's about fear in the same manner that sickness unto death is about despair. Isn't it about the unique faith of Abraham and the story of Job? As a non-Christian while still interesting isn't all very high up my to-read list currently. I want something specifically on fear.
>>23976767*it isn't very high
>>23976767He uses Abraham as a model someone who is able to overcome their greatest fear by enacting right up until the point of no return, and no further. It's the book that coined teleological suspension of the ethical, so it is philosophical. But I understand where you're coming from.
>>23976263As this is /lit/ the odds are you won't be rushing to read a feminist psychoanalytic critical theorist, but I recommend this nonetheless.
>>23978097I'll read it if it's good, I'm not picky as long as something is truly genuine
>>23976263The Laches of Plato is about fear and courage and about how you square the notion of courage with virtue, intellect and with fear. Laches is about rationalization of fear and understanding how to know when things are dangerous and how to behave.
>>23979030Thank you, but stop namefagging, it's embarassing.
>>23976263Epicurus is a good one. It's good to read De Rerum Natura after that. There's other Epicurean literature, like the works of Philodemus and The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda.
>>23976263Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an account of various moments of hysteria in history. It might interest you since most of them were driven by some kind of fear.The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker is an anthropological account of the fear of death and how it affects us psychologically.The Castle of Otranto is considered the first "gothic horror" novel and is decent. And of course, Edgar Allan Poe.
>>23980102Thank you!>>23980113Thank you! Though for the last one I'm not really interested in horror, I'm moreso looking for a dialectical account on fear that will lead to personal insight, like what Kierkegaard did with despair in sickness unto death.
>>23980135I'm >>23980102, coming back to say check out Spinoza. Arne Naess' essay, the Place of joy in a world of fact is a nice comfy piece about fear and anxiety being a sign of a lack of power from a Spinozist perspective. It's really short.
>>23979062
>>23980154Damn right. Trips across the board!
Upasena Sutta (SN 35:69)Once Ven. Sāriputta and Ven. Upasena were staying near Rājagaha in the Cool Forest, at Snakeshood Grotto. Then it so happened that a snake fell on Ven. Upasena’s body (and bit him). Then Ven. Upasena said to the monks, “Quick, friends, lift this body of mine onto a couch and carry it outside before it’s scattered like a fistful of chaff!”When this was said, Ven. Sāriputta said to Ven. Upasena, “But we don’t see any alteration in your body or change in your faculties.”Then Ven. Upasena said, “Quick, friends, lift this body of mine onto a couch and carry it outside before it’s scattered like a fistful of chaff! Friend Sāriputta, in anyone who had the thought, ‘I am the eye’ or ‘The eye is mine,’ ‘I am the ear’ or ‘The ear is mine,’ ‘I am the nose’ or ‘The nose is mine,’ ‘I am the tongue’ or ‘The tongue is mine,’ ‘I am the body or ‘The body is mine,’ ‘I am the intellect’ or ‘The intellect is mine’: In him there would be an alteration in his body or a change in his faculties. But as for me, the thought does not occur to me that ‘I am the eye’ or ‘The eye is mine,’ … ‘I am the tongue’ or ‘The tongue is mine,’ … ‘I am the intellect’ or ‘The intellect is mine.’ So what alteration should there be in my body, what change should there be in my faculties?”Now, Ven. Upasena’s I-making, my-making, & obsession with conceit had already been well rooted out for a long time, which is why the thought did not occur to him that “I am the eye” or “The eye is mine,” … “I am the tongue” or “The tongue is mine,” … “I am the intellect” or “The intellect is mine.”Then the monks lifted Ven. Upasena’s body on a couch and carried it outside. And Ven. Upasena’s body was scattered right there like a fistful of chaff.
>>23980154Lol
>>23976263https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/subcomandante-marcos-say-no-to-the-war-of-fear
>>23980443Huh
>>23976263Weininger talks about fear in UEBER DIE LETZTE DINGE, particularly in the essay on science and its relation to culture and also in some of the aphorisms.
>>23980596>>23976263"There is a fear of open places which is fear of light, and which is had by the person who feels himself to be guilty, who does not stand before God.""That is also why superstition and fear go so closely together. There is no superstition that does not invoke fear, and no fear that is not superstitious. Fear, however, is always fear of losing one's individuality, of losing the connection with the absolute that is guaranteed only through the logical and ethical in his personality (through Kantian “reason”). With a little effort, one can derive from this generalschema of fear, the fear of death, fear of the doppelgänger, fear of women (which is merelythe feeling that a woman has no metaphysical reality, no existence), and fear of sin and insanity."
>>23980596I'm a huge fan of Weininger actually. Once you actually understand what he's saying he's so damn good. Any other recommendations?
>>23981354You have to get past the meme shit and the worthless /pol/ adjacent vermin that have swarmed around his work. Wish he didn't kill himself, he could have been one of the greats.
I'm bumping once more
