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Can anyone explain the difference between Anfechtung and Fristelse? These are both given in parentheses after the word temptation in an introductory book on philosophy I'm torturing myself with. I'm afraid Ich kenne nicht Deutsch.

Probably not what you're looking for, but "fristelse" is more likely Scandinavian than German. Browser lookups turn up several recipes for tempting edibles with "fristelse" as part of their names. I interpret this to imply that the temptation is not necessarily one with mortal consequences.

A search for "Anfechtung", on the other hand, immediately turned up this reference: "The Concept of Anfechtung in Luther's Thought" (http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/scaeranfechtung.pdf). This leads me to the conclusion that such a temptation is far more serious. Perhaps the temptation to which Faust succumbed would be considered an Anfechtung.

As I'm not a philosopher, this is only a surface conjecture, but if you'd like something more authoritative, I know someone I could ask.

My German-English dictionary has an entry for anfecht-en which it calls an irregular transitive verb. It includes anfechtung as a related member of the family. The glosses are

"attack, assail, combat; contest, impugn, challenge; trouble; tempt; was ficht dich an? - what's the matter with you?; was ficht mich das an - what is that to me? anfecht-bar, adjective, contestable, controvertible; vulnerable. anfecht-ung, feminine noun, attack; opposition; impeachment; vexation; (Theological) temptation."

The dictionary does not have an entry for "fristelse" but bbeeton's comment reminded me of a recent Goodword: Fress. There, Dr Goodword mentions an Icelandic cognate which in turn suggests there may be others in other Nordic languages.