Volume 4, 2011
Selected Essays from Northern Europe
Inga Römer
Pages 226-251
Vorlaufende Entschlossenheit oder Schuld gegenüber der Vergangenheit? Überlegungen zu Heidegger und Ricoeur
The essay confronts Heidegger’s notion of running ahead toward death in resoluteness with Ricoeur’s notion of indebtedness toward the past. A first section gives an interpretation of Heidegger’s concepts of an existential being guilty or responsible, the call of conscience and the running ahead toward death. The second section discusses Ricoeur’s critique of the Heideggerian conception of running ahead toward death and sketches Ricoeur’s own notion of death. A third section shows how Ricoeur modifies the Heideggerian notions of guilt and conscience. The essay closes with the integrative thesis that Heidegger’s understanding of death highlights the irreplacability of the individual and might, in spite of Ricoeur’s critique, very well find a place in Ricoeur’s temporal ethics.