Richardson (2003:81-82) – culpa (Schuld)

[…] Ao determinar o sentido existencial da culpa, o autor analisa os vários sentidos que a palavra pode ter e conclui que o denominador comum seria a noção de "falta" ou "ausência" do que pode e deve ser. Neste sentido, não pode haver culpa no Ser-aí que já é o que pode ser, ou seja, é a sua própria potencialidade. Porém, mais radicalmente ainda, há [82] na ideia de culpa um "não" (Nicht  ), ou seja, uma limitação. Além disso, em alguns casos, a culpa implica o fundamento de um "não" (falta) em outro, como quando um crime foi perpetrado. Heidegger fixa a noção existencial de culpa, então, assim: "… ser o fundamento do Ser que é determinado por um não, ou seja, ser o fundamento de uma negatividade. …" Se no Ser-aí há o "fundamento para uma negatividade", sc. limitação, o Ser-aí é, no sentido existencial, culpado.

What is it that this call of conscience “gives [There-being] to understand” ? Experience and philosophy are unanimous: somehow or other There-being’s “guilt” (Schuld  ). In determining the existential sense of guilt, the author analyses various senses that the word can have and concludes that the common denominator would be the notion of “lack” or “absence” of what can and should be. In this sense, there can be no guilt in There-being, which already is what it can-be, sc. it is its own potentiality. However, more radically still there lies [82] within the idea   of guilt somehow or other a “not  ” (Nicht), sc. a limitation. Furthermore, in some cases, guilt implies the ground for a “not” (lack) in another, as when a crime has been perpetrated. Heidegger fastens the existential notion of guilt, then, thus: “… to be the ground for Being that is determined by a not, i.e. to be the ground of a negativity. …” [1] If in There-being there is the “ground for a negativity,” sc. limitation, There-being is in the existential sense guilty.

How often have we seen that There-being is determined by a negativity. There-being is thrown, sc. it is not the origin of its self, and it never overcomes its primitive helplessness. If its essence is to exist, sc. if existence is the ground of the potentiality that it is, then this existence as permanently thrown is permeated by the “not” of its origin. It never is and never becomes master of itself but must continually take-over (Übernahme) its self. If there is a “not” in its origin, then there is a “not” in its achievement. Furthermore, if existence as its own ground is permeated with negativity, so too is existence as project. All project will also be tainted by a “not,” for the project, too, is thrown.

… This not belongs to the existential sense of thrown-ness. Being [its own] ground, [There-being] is itself the negativity of itself. Negativity … means a not that constitutes the Being of There-being [in virtue of] its thrown-ness. … [2]

And it is this radical negativity, penetrating There-being to its depths, which renders it possible to fall   into the negativity which constitutes inauthenticity. What more need be said to prove that”… There-being as such is guilty. … ” ? [3] The guilt consists in its finitude.