ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the third triad of categories: choice and freedom; nothingness and dread; authenticity and repetition. Even if the choice philosophers make should involve consequences that appear foreign to the ethical, they must accept the responsibility of their choice; though there are no objective signs to point the way, they must nevertheless go beyond the ethical stage. The idea of choice is present in the philosophy of Jaspers; indeed, his whole philosophy, at least as it is set forth in the second volume of his massive work, Philosophie, may be looked upon as a kind of catalogue of the various choices open to us. No doubt Kierkegaard sees a beauty and a purpose to the ethical choice; some of his writings may even be read as an apology of that choice. To choose the ethical is to become part of the community, find a vocation, marry, perform some function in life.
