Anesidemus See HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY, SKEP -. TIC. Angst, German term for a special form of anxiety, an emotion seen by existentialists as both constituting and revealing the human condition. Angst plays a key role in the writings of Heidegger, whose concept is closely related to Kierkegaard’s angest and Sartre’s angoisse. The concept is first treated in this distinctive way in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety (1844), where anxiety is described as ‘the dizziness of freedom.’ Anxiety here represents freedom’s self-awareness; it is the psychological precondition for the individual’s attempt to become autonomous, a possibility that is seen as both alluring and disturbing. See also HEIDEGGER , KIERKEGAARD , SARTRE. C.S.E.