The Ethical Paradox in Kierkegaard’s Concept of Anxiety

It is no doubt well known that a certain passage from The Concept of Anxiety has left an enigmatic impression on the various editors’ and readers’ responses to what is considered Kierkegaard’s most difficult work. While discussing the concept of innocence and its difference from immediacy, Kierkegaard states: "Innocence is a quality, it is a state that may very well endure, and therefore the logical haste to have it annulled is meaning-less, whereas in logic it should try to hurry a little more, for in logic it always comes too late, even when it hurries" (37). As might already be apparent, the focused-on ambiguity or indeterminacy in this passage revolves precisely around the referential role of the it.