“‘To What Extent Can I Depend on Myself?’ Anxiety and Body in Maine de Biran”

In this paper I aim to reflect on Maine de Biran’s modernity with regard to the subject of a philosophy of anxiety. Biran first notes a connection between anxiety and motility; secondly, Biran invites us to think of intersubjectivity as something that is not foreign to the sensation of anxiety; third, Biran feels “surprised several times”, as if his own anxiety, while interior, were something that seems to originate from outside. These will by the main axes of this paper.