ABSTRACT
We have seen how, at the end of Division II, Chapter 1, Heidegger wondered whether his projection of an authentic existential–ontological freedom for death might, ‘from an existentiell point of view’, seem to be ‘a fantastical exaction’ (266/311). We have also seen how Heidegger’s response to this worry led him to undertake an analysis of the phenomenon of conscience that would provide testimony to a kind of resoluteness that is prepared to accept itself as guilty for its own ‘being-the-basis-of-a-nullity’ (283/329). The outcome is the notion of ‘anticipatory resoluteness’, ‘a resoluteness that runs towards [death]’, in which Heidegger effectively combines the existential–ontological freedom of running towards death with the existentiell comportment of resoluteness. But has he done enough to allay his own worry concerning the existentiell deficit in his account?
