The hermeneutic interpretation of conscience

Abstract

The object of the article is the interpretation of conscience found in the hermeneutic reflection of Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur. These thinkers understand conscience in an individualized manner that is individualized and prior with respect to various theologies, ontotheologies, and legal and moral social systems. Both Heidegger and Ricoeur, breaking with the understanding of conscience as oracle and tribunal found in the philosophical tradition, do not stop at its Freudian and Nietzschean demystification. After carrying out critical reflection they want to recover its sense; this is especially visible in the philosophy of Ricoeur, in which the “hermeneutics of destruction” is combined with a “hermeneutics of affirmation”. For Heidegger, although conscience is devoid of concrete contents, it calls to an authentic life, appearing in context of the problematic of truth as openness and unhiddenness; for Ricoeur, however, conscience is connected with the postulate of self-realization and testimony (fidelity to one’s given word), that is, truth as faith and trust toward Oneself and toward Another. Although Ricoeur was inspired in his conception of conscience by the philosophy of Heidegger, by adding to it aspects overlooked by the author of Being and time, he modified it significantly. In view of the similarities and differences between these two approaches, certain problems emerge, which I attempt to make clear in this work. Entering into a hermeneutic discourse, I leave this problematic open.