Heidegger and Augustine: the phenomenon of the tentatio and the historicity of the self (Selbst) in the phenomenological appropriation of Book X of the Confessions

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomena of healing, according to the phenomenological appropriation of Book X of Augustine’s Confessions made by Martin Heidegger in the course at Freiburg entitled Augustinus und der Neuplatonismus (SS1921). I intend to present the phenomenon of temptation and the historicity of the self. According to the genuine appropriation of the being of the life of Augustine, the “tentatio” (Versuchung) becomes an expression of the mobility of the historical-actuative existence, which can never be understood as “stillness”. It is the life itself which, assumed in its totality, represents a “temptation”, an ordeal – understood in an ontological-existential sense – insofar as it indicates the “how” (Wie) of facticity. In the search for this originating “how”, there arises the fundamental question of what life is for itself: quaestio mihi factus sum (I made of myself a question). We see, in the loss of “I am”, the process of temporalization as deformitas, as the defluxus in distraction, as the fall into the “inauthentic”. On the basis of this appropriation of the being of Augustine’s life, we will reach the core of the phenomenon of healing, understanding healing as the fundamental character of phatic life and recognizing in the search for God the constitution of facticity and self-healing expressed in this search.

 Recebido: 30/12/2019
Aceito: 30/12/2019