Is anxiety fundamental? Lacoste’s reading of Heidegger

This chapter examines Jean-Yves Lacoste’s reading of Heidegger in Être en danger (2011) where he questions Heidegger’s determination of anxiety as the affective tonality par excellence. In Lacoste’s view, no single mood discloses all of what it means to be human, and others (e.g., peace, joy, innocence) each have the capacity to bring Dasein face to face with the meaning of its being. There is a knowing whose domain is that mode of being which is life. Moreover, Lacoste observes that Heidegger does not allow for the possibility of a spiritual life that might be known by means of affective tonalities, even if such experience cannot provide certainty. Lacoste’s reading helps to open up phenomenological approaches that intersect with theology.