The sinking of the world. The impact of anxiety on the respects (Hinsichten) that make it possible to ask about it and on the familiar spatiality of existence

Abstract

In Being and Time, anxiety plays a crucial and primary role in the opening of existence. Against this backdrop, the paper reveals how the so-called collapse of the world is precipitated. It is well-known that when this occurs, anxiety breaks the daily absorption in the “they” and confronts Dasein with itself. The article highlights how Heidegger, to address this phenomenon, turns to formal elements of fear in Aristotle, reinterpreted as “points of view” (Hinsichten). For the philosopher, the “that-in-the-face-of-which” of anxiety is not an entity within the world but being-in-the-world as such, the consequence of which is the loss of the world’s significance. Furthermore, the paper examines how Heidegger applies to anxiety a specific form of the deficient modes in the totality of involvements, identified as “obstinacy” (Aufssäsigkeit). This often-overlooked aspect emphasizes that it is the world itself that becomes obstinate in anxiety, triggering the complete collapse of the familiarity of existence. Such obstinacy, now understood as the world’s obstinacy, impacts other dimensions of existence and spatiality, such as closeness, direction, position, and region.