Introduction
The history of German philosophy’s thinking about guilt deserves our attention for: (i) German philosophy was more consistently interested in guilt than other European philosophical traditions; (ii) it presents different approaches to the phenomenon of guilt and thus provides an opportunity to survey the phenomenon from three distinct perspectives, metaphysical (Kant, Schelling, Schopenhauer), naturalist (Rée, Nietzsche), and phenomenological-existential (Heidegger); (iii) no sustained examination of the history of the philosophy of guilt with special emphasis on the German tradition has appeared. A main claim is formulated in this introductory chapter the examination of the history of German philosophy reveals that the different approaches to guilt embodied by the three perspectives follow upon each other in dialectical fashion. Some conceptual clarifications and methodological reflections are presented. Of central importance is the distinction between empirical or factical guilt (guilt for specific misdeeds) and ontological guilt (guilt in one’s very being).