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Is Guilt A Feeling An Analysis of Guilt PDF
Is Guilt A Feeling An Analysis of Guilt PDF
*This is a draft
Publication: COMPARATIVE AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/17570638.2017.1358926
Is Guilt a Feeling?
An Analysis of Guilt in Existential Philosophy
Hye Young Kim
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
The concept of guilt in relation to conscience and anxiety is not referred to as a feeling or an
emotion in existential philosophy. Rather, the phenomenon of guilt is analyzed through the
structure of existence. In Being and Time, Heidegger interprets guilt in the context of Dasein’s
understanding of its own Being. The nature of Dasein as a finite entity permeates the analysis of
guilt, which is based on the analysis of negation (nullity) and the time structure of Dasein
(temporality). An existential interpretation of guilt, conscience, and anxiety offers a new
dimension of the study of emotions with regard to the understanding of human Being.
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of the self-understanding of Dasein. Dasein is a term that refers to each of us as a human being.
Heidegger calls this entity “Being-in-the-world,” because it exists in the world. The way this
entity exists in the world, though, is different from any other entities in the world, which are
there with me as a particular and personal individual. This entity differentiates itself from other
entities in the world by taking its own Being as an issue. In other words, Dasein is an entity
which raises a question about its own Being for itself and understands itself in a certain way.
This self-understanding is the way of existence of Dasein itself.
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Through this interpretation of temporality as process, the mobility of this temporal structure of
Dasein as its own basic way of existence is better disclosed.
The main task of understanding the existence of human Dasein is to understand this
temporal process. In face of this nothing, in other words, understanding the possibility of not-
being as Dasein’s most authentic possibility of Being, Dasein stands in anxiety. This is not fear
or dread, but a fundamental state of Being of Dasein. In the sense that Dasein is conscious of its
own existence, anxiety or care (Sorge) would be rather a feeling than an emotion, if we take
Damasio’s definitions of feelings and emotions to be true. But Heidegger does not name this
state of Being a mere feeling. Anxiety is the state that comes when Dasein faces its future and
runs towards it before it has actually come. After that, it comes back to its present. This temporal
movement of Dasein is the very structure of its existence as an understanding entity. Heidegger
calls this whole process “care” (Sorge). Care is a name for the whole process of Dasein’s
existence, of which the ground is its nothingness. Dasein starts to understand the structure of care
from the basic state of mind, anxiety.
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An interpretation of Dasein’s understanding in relation to intelligibility, as stated in the following, can be read as
problematic: “Rather, the call refers back to a more basic level of intelligibility which in turn undergoes
development in a more radical form of understanding” (Schalow 1985, 371). In the same paper, conscience is
described with intelligibility as the essence of conscience, which enables the act of calling: “In owning up to itself in
this primordial way, Dasein brings the intelligibility of its own conscience into understanding” (Schalow 1985, 373).
The existential act of calling of the conscience, however, is not an act which consists of an intellectual
understanding, but rather, it is the very way of Being of Dasein itself.
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At this point, Heidegger raises a question about the ontological source of the character of
“not” in the context of the history of traditional metaphysics:
Has anyone ever made a problem of the ontological source of notness, or prior to
that, even sought the mere conditions on the basis of which the problem of the
‘not’ and its notness and the possibility of that notness can be raised? And how
else are these conditions to be found except by taking the meaning of Being in
general as a theme and clarifying it? (Heidegger 2006, 286)
My answer to this question is “yes.” Schelling, in the first book of the Ages of the World
(Weltalter), has already analyzed the “notness,” namely, negation as the primordial source of
every movement. The essence of Dasein’s Being as temporality lies in its movement. Schelling
proclaims: “Negation is therefore the necessary precedent (prius) of every movement” (Schelling
2000, 16). According to Schelling, “negation is the first transition whatsoever from nothing into
something” (Schelling 2000, 16). However, Omne agens agit propter finem; in other words,
everything that acts, acts on account of an end. Thus, “all beginning is, in accord with its nature,
only a desire for the end or for what leads to the end and hence, negates itself as the end”
(Schelling 2000, 16). On this account, the structure of this movement has to be circular, in which
the beginning and the end meet, or rather, are one and the same, for it is only in a circular form
that two opposite points can mutually exclude each other and simultaneously be the same. This
circular movement based on the primordial negation reveals also the structure of Dasein’s Being
as temporality in a whole process.
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only at the next level. Whether that person was good or bad can only be judged when he no
longer stands in the face of death.
Conscience makes one able to pause in the middle of life and look into oneself. In other
words, when conscience calls one to “come back” to itself, the true sense (Sinn)2 of one’s Being
is revealed. In the face of death, all ethical problems fall into the categories of inauthentic
everyday life, and only the most authentic problem of Being or not-Being remains. However, this
doesn’t mean that the call of conscience in the ontological sense is completely separated from the
problem of good and bad. The moment when conscience is awake and calls is the moment when
one has to undertake their own judgment of their own actions, thoughts or, fundamentally, their
own existence. The judgments of moral values, namely questions of good or bad, shake everyday
life and bring one into an uncomfortable (unheimlich)3 state of mind. When I think about the
value of life, the death of others, and the possibility of my own death, I question myself, my
Being, or rather, the meaning of my Being, and vice versa. The inauthentic problem of good and
bad is different from the authentic question of Being or not-Being. But the latter is not possible
without the former.
The catalyst of the call for conscience is guilt. Having a good or bad conscience depends
on the phenomenon of guilt. In Korean, conscience has a different name than in Indo-European
languages, which translates as “good heart (mind).” There is no such expression as “bad
conscience” (schlechtes Gewissen) in Korean. It’s either only good or not there at all. They say
“the non-existence of good mind” instead of “bad conscience.” This name of “good mind”
discloses the necessary condition of the conscience to know and distinguish good and bad. What
moves the good mind is, in this case also, guilt. When guilt is added to the “good mind,” this
good mind, namely the conscience, makes one feel uncomfortable. In this sense, guilt is being-
the-ground for one to turn back to oneself and face one’s own existence. However, only through
conscience can one be guilty. Conscience first has to call the one who is fallen in the midst of the
2
In the sense of purpose or end.
3
Normally the German term “unheimlich” means “eerie, uncanny or weird.” However, in the context of the analysis
of Dasein, this word is rather used in the sense that Dasein is seized with an “abnormal” feeling, which is not of
everyday life and authentic, when it faces the possibility of nothing, in other words, its own death. This feeling
doesn’t indicate a feeling of fear or horror; instead it means the anxious state of mind, which is rather an
uncomfortable feeling. In this sense, Heidegger analyzes the word “unheimlich” as a combination of the negative
prefix “un-” and “heim,” which means “home.” Therefore, this is a feeling of being thrown outside of one’s
comfort zone.
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inauthentic way of life back to its most authentic state of Being. This call of the ontological
conscience, though, is different from the “normal” call which reveals the difference between
good and evil. This call is the call of reticence, which brings us to the face of nothing, or rather,
not-Being as the most authentic possibility of Being. The call is the call of care (Heidegger 2006,
286). When Dasein stands in front of the possibility of nothing, it is, in the true sense, guilty.
“Being-guilty constitutes the Being to which we give the name of ‘care’” (Heidegger 2006, 287).
Heidegger summarizes as follows: “This calling-back in which conscience calls forth, gives
Dasein to understand that Dasein itself—the null basis for its null projection, standing in the
possibility of its Being—is to bring itself back to itself from its lostness in the ‘they’; and this
means that it is guilty” (Heidegger 2006, 287).
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be. Heidegger himself states clearly: “The primordial ‘Being-guilty’ cannot be defined by
morality, since morality already presupposes it for itself” (Heidegger 2006, 286).
Contact Information:
hye.young.kim[at]fu-berlin.de
References
Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of
Consciousness. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Heidegger, Martin. 2006. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Heller, Agnes. 2009. A Theory of Feelings. Plymouth: Lexington Books.
Kierkegaard, S. 2010. Der Begriff der Angst. München: dtv.
Mulhall, S. 2005. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time. London:
Routledge.
Schalow, F. 1985. “The Hermeneutical Design of Heidegger’s Analysis of Guilt.” The Southern
Journal of Philosophy 23(3): 361-76.
Schelling, F. W. J. 2000. The Ages of the World. Translated by J. Wirth. New York: State
University of New York Press.
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