In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

456 FRAMES
its Un-heim-lichkeit-not unlike the obsessive nationalism which was
then flourishing in remote colonial spaces. [see Center vs. Periphery]
Uncanniness and the quest for authenticity finally come together in what
constitutes the most immediate social dimension of Heidegger's worknamely,
his language. This language is based on an enthusiasm for (often
purely invented) historical meanings and on a passion for etymological
speculations that make even newly created words look archaic. There is
of course no linguistic reason to believe that elements selected from
ancient strata of a national language offer more insights or more terminological
precision than their younger equivalents. Heidegger's style as a
writer simply endows the past and the unfamiliar with authenticity. [see
Present vs. Past, Authenticity vs. Artificiality]
But for all the massive rhetorical investment through which Sein und
Zeit refines and illustrates the contrast between authenticity and inauthenticity,
Heidegger does not offer a solution to the question of how
Dasein can be motivated to opt for authenticity. There is reason to
speculate 70 that Heidegger was not even interested in opening his philosophy
to this type of problem, because then he would have had to
discuss an ethical dimension. On the other hand, authenticity was so
high a value in Heidegger's work-and in contemporary culture-that
he could not completely leave its choice to individual discretion. This is
where the traditionally religious topology of the "call of conscience"
(Gewissensruf)71 comes in; it is a motivation that bypasses the social
sphere as the dimension for ethical decisions, and activates the hermeneutic
capacity of hearkening to Being. But Heidegger's existentially
recycled call of conscience does not provide any specific orientation for
Dasein. The call of conscience only reminds Dasein that "it owes something"-reminds
Dasein of its Schuld;
Wanting to have conscience is ... the most primordial existential presupposition
for the possibility of factically coming to owe something.
In understanding the call, Dasein lets its ownmost Self take action in
itself . .. in terms of that potentiality-for-Being which it has chosen.
Only so can it be answerable ... Factically, however, any taking-action
is necessarily "conscienceless," not only because it may fail to avoid
some factical moral indebtedness, but because, on the null basis of its
null projection, it has, in Being with Others, already become guilty