Translated by Pete Ferreira
52
Conscience, particularly the willingness to listen to conscience that Heidegger calls having-a-conscience, now represents for being-there the possibility of discarding with the impersonal and inauthentic forms of the They, since in conscience being-there is placed in front of its self-same. Heidegger says that "conscience reveals itself as an attestation belonging to the being of Dasein--an attestation in which conscience calls Dasein forth to its ownmost potential-of-Being".46 And if by virtue of the call of conscience being-there frees itself from the flattery of everyday impersonality and directly assumes the weight of determining it's being, it is then authentic. Conscience thus calls being-there to decide for its having-to-be, to opt for its authentic being, and orients it towards authenticity.
The correspondence between Gewissen and φρόνησις that Heidegger notes does not then appear completely unjustified. In fact, as the conscience directs the being-there towards the authenticity of choosing itself, so φρόνησις represents to Aristotle the practical knowledge that can guide the actions and choices of man in a morally good sense, directing it to live well, towards the best type of life. In addition, this correspondence is confirmed by the analysis of a further determination essentially connected to conscience, namely resoluteness.
Resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) is the structural arrangement in which being-there wants to have conscience, when it listens to the call of conscience and selects itself, taking charge of it's own being. We can now see that as conscience corresponds to φρόνησις, likewise resoluteness has its counterpart in the Aristotelian determination of προαίρεσις; because as with Aristotle having φρόνιμος, i.e. being φρόνησις, determines the morally good character of προαίρεσις, similarly in Heidegger the will-to-have-conscience disposes being-there to the decision for authenticity, in which it chooses to be itself. Moreover, Heidegger asserts that the decision is always relative to the existential phenomenon of the situation, as with Aristotle for whom practical wisdom is knowledge of καιρός.47
His fundamental difference with Aristotle is that Heidegger elevates these practical determinations to ontological overtones of man's being itself. For Heidegger, thus, Gewissen and Entschlossenheit are not so to speak the fruit of an ἕξις productively and positively achieved by a moral subject, but are ontological structures that imply the finiteness of the being of being-there, which only exists on the basis of a being-thrown that it didn't cast. For this reason Heidegger says of conscience that it is "an attestation which belongs to Dasein's Being—an attestation in which conscience calls Dasein itself face to face with its ownmost potentiality-for-Being."48 And for this reason he says of the decision that it is "the disclosedness of Dasein in wanting to have a conscience, is thus constituted by anxiety as state-of-mind, by understanding as a projection of oneself upon one's ownmost Being-guilty"49 For this reason, finally, Heidegger can insist on the difference between the ontological nature of their practical determinations and practical-moral character of the traditional determinations. He may as well say: "this phenomenon which we have exhibited as 'resoluteness' can hardly be confused with an empty 'habitus' or an indefinite 'velleity'. Resoluteness does not first take cognizance of a Situation and put that Situation before itself; it has put itself into that Situation already. As resolute, Dasein is already taking action. The term 'take action' is one which we are purposely avoiding. For in the first place this term must be taken so broadly that "activity" [Aktivitat] will also embrace the passivity of resistance. In the second place, it suggests a misunderstanding in the ontology of Dasein, as if resoluteness were a special way of behavior belonging to the practical faculty as contrasted with one that is theoretical. Care, however, as concernful solicitude, so primordially and wholly envelops Dasein's Being that it must already be presupposed as a whole when we distinguish between theoretical and practical behavior; (...)".50
46 GA 2, 382-383 (= Being and Time, § 58, trans. It., p. 427) [B&T, p. 334. SuZ, p. 288.]. On the problematic nature of the general framework for interpretation, on the subject of the ontological breadth of the phenomena of conscience (and on the determinations of being-there connected with it), the essential remarks are those of V. Vitiello, Heidegger: il nulla e la fondazione della storicità. Dalla Überwindung der Metaphysik alla Daseinsanalyse, Argalia, Urbino 1976, pp. 405-425 (but see also the entire 2nd part).
47 GA 24, 409. On the essential connection between the decision and the phenomenon of death, which here it is not possible nor relevant to examine with themes presented, see G. Vattimo, Essere, storia, linguaggio in Heidegger, Filosofia, Torino 1963, pp. 37-74, and U.M. Ugazio, Il problema della morte nella filosofia di Heidegger, Mursia, Milano, 1976, pp. 19-67. See also F. Costa, Heidegger e la teologia, Longo, Ravenna, 1974, pp. 89-179.
48 GA 2, 382-383 (= Being and Time, § 58, trans. It., p. 427) [B&T, p. 334. SuZ, p. 288.].
49 Ibid, 393 (= Ibid, § 60, trans. It., p. 438) [Ibid, p. 343. Ibid, p. 298.].
50 Ibid, 398 (= Ibid, § 60, trans. It., p. 443) [Ibid, p. 347-348. Ibid, p. 300.].