Article/Publication Details
Views: 1014

A PHENOMENOLOGICAL AND A POSTSTRUCTURALIST READING OF BEING AND TIME (SECTIONS 54–60)

Abstract
The article builds on Husserl’s “trivial” observations from the manuscript Reason — Science. Reason and Morality — Reason and Metaphysics on the topic of conscience, to then question the neglect of the topic of misguided conscience or self-deception in Heidegger’s model of conscience from §§ 54–60 of Being and Time. In Heidegger’s conception of conscience (as a silent call appealing to the authenticity of Dasein) we will not find a number of points important to the Husserlian understanding of conscience: neither the unrevealed horizons of prior life, nor the relativity of intersubjective contexts, nor a misguided (and doubting) conscience, still less a search for (presumed) evidence. That said, the way Heidegger axiomatically sets up the original culpability of Dasein creates a number of dead ends or blind spots in this model. It is to these that Mark Richir addresses in his interpretation (or, more precisely, two alternative interpretations), speaking of the “original symbolic mishap” that befell Dasein, and then of the “symbolic tautology” in which it has become a prisoner. Richir’s critique is not aimed at “overcoming” Heidegger’s model of conscience, but at demonstrating a transcendental illusion — probably inevitable for one who is guided by “authenticity” and the “inner voice.” This is a kind of critical phenomenology of “authenticity”, which manages to avoid the closedness of phenomenology in itself by “grafting” in it poststructuralism. This is why both the first and the second interpretation by the Belgian phenomenologist focus on the problem of symbolic structures: “original symbolic mishap” in the first case and “symbolic tautology” in the second.

Keywords
call of conscience, guilt, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Marc Richir, phenomenology, poststructuralism.

References

• Artemenko, N. A. (2015). Die “ethische” Dimension der heideggerschen Philosophie: die Frage nach der ursprünglichen Ethik. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 4 (1), 114–123.
• Chernavin, G. I. (2022). Symbolic tautology. Great Russian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://znaniya.org/c/simvolicheskaia-tavtologiia-71fbf5.(In Russian)
• De La Boétie, É. (1846). Oeuvres complètes d’Estienne de La Boëtie. Paris: J. Delalain.
• De La Boétie, É. (1952). Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. Rus. Ed. Moscow: Izd-vo AN SSSR Publ. (In Russian)
• Heidegger, M. (2002). Being and Time. Rus. Ed. St. Petersburg: Nauka Publ. (In Russian)
• Heidegger, M. (2006). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer.
• Heidegger, M. (2007). What is Metaphysics? Rus. Ed. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt Publ. (In Russian)
• Heidegger, M. (2017). Was ist Metaphysik? Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
• Husserl, E. (2014). Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der Instinkte. Metaphysik. Späte Ethik. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1937) (Hua XLII). Dordrecht: Springer.
• Richir, M. (1991). Du sublime en politique. Paris: Payot.
• Richir, M. (2004). Phantasia, imagination, affectivité. Grenoble: Millon.
• Richir, M. (2014). Phénomène et hyperbole. In C. Sommer (Ed.), Nouvelles phénoménologies en France (43–54). Paris: Hermann.
• Plato. (1990). Feag. In Sobranie sochinenii v 4-kh t. T. 1 (112–124). Rus. Ed. Moscow: Mysl’ Publ. (In Russian)