Phenomenology 2010

Volume 4, 2011

Selected Essays from Northern Europe

Heidegger, Derrida, the Question and the Call

Derrida alerts us to the significance of the question and the call in Heidegger’s philosophy; he claims that, for Heidegger, these two phenomena are always connected. The question emerges for Heidegger as the question of Being whereas the call is originally the call of conscience. Derrida claims that Heidegger imports unquestioned presuppositions into his investigations. A phenomenological perspective on the question and the call asks how, or in what way the question and the call are issued; it also asks from whom and to whom they are delivered. An investigation of the encounter shows that Heidegger’s text provides responses to at least some of Derrida’s criticism. In the end, the question and the call emerge as two ‘figures of the unconditional’ and thus serve to shed a new light on the unconditional in Derrida’s sense, including its ethical dimension.