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definition

Definition:
define, definition: bestimmen; umgrenzen (delimit, etc.); *Definition, *definieren; etc. [BTMR]

If we have thus determined that the Being of the ready-to-hand (involvement) is DEFINABLE as a context of assignments or references, and that even worldhood may so be DEFINED, then has not the ‘substantial Being’ of entities within-the-world been volatilized into a system of Relations? And inasmuch as Relations are always ‘something thought’, has not the Being of entities within-the-world been dissolved into ‘pure thinking’? [SZ:88] BTMR §18

The Being of that substance whose distinctive proprietas is presented by extensio thus becomes DEFINABLE in principle ontologically if we clarify the meaningof. Being which is ‘common’ to the three kinds of substances, one of them infinite, the others both finite. But “... nomen substantiae non convenit Deo et illis univoce ut dici solet in Scholis, hoc est ... quae Deo et creaturis sit communis.” Here Descartes touches upon a problem with which medieval ontology was often busied – the question of how the signification of “Being” signifies any entity which one may on occasion be considering. In the assertions ‘God is’ and ‘the world is’, we assert Being. This word ‘is’, however, cannot be meant to apply to these entities in the same sense (synonymos, univoce), when between them there is an infinite [SZ:93] difference of Being; if the signification of ‘is’ were univocal, then what is created would be viewed as if it were uncreated, or the uncreated would be reduced to the status of something crdated. But neither does ‘Being’ function as a mere name which is the same in both cases: in both cases ‘Being’ is understood. This positive sense in which ‘Being’ signifies is one which the Schoolmen took as a signification ‘by analogy’, as distinguished from one which is univocal or merely homonymous. Taking their departure from Aristotle, in whom this problem is foreshadowed in prototypical form just as at the very outset of Greek ontology, they established various kinds of analogy, so that even the ‘Schools’ have different ways of taking the signification-function of ‘.’Being”. In working out this problem ontologically, Descartes is always far behind the Schoolmen; indeed he evades the question. “... nulla eius nominis significatio potest distincte intelligi, quae Deo et creaturis sit communis.” This evasion is tantamount to his failing to discuss the meaning of Being which the idea of substantiality embraces, or the character of the ‘’universality’ which belongs to this signification. Of course even the ontology of the medievals has gone no further than that of the ancients in inquiring into what “Being” itself may mean. So it is not surprising if no headway is made with a question like that of the way in which “Being” signifies, as long as this has to be discussed on the basis of an unclarified meaning of Being which this signification ‘expresses’. The meaning remains unclarified because it is held to be ‘self-evident’. BTMR §20

In its “who”, the caller is DEFINABLE in a ‘worldly’ way by nothing at all. The caller is Dasein in its uncanniness: primordial, thrown Being-in-the-world as the “not-at-home” – the bare ‘that-it-is’ in the “nothing” of the world. The caller is unfamiliar to the everyday they-self; it is something like an alien voice. What could be more alien to the “they”, lost in the [SZ:277] manifold ‘world’ of its concern, than the Self which has been individualized down to itself in uncanniness and been thrown into the “nothing”? ‘It’ calls, even though it gives the concernfully curious ear nothing to hear which might be passed along in further retelling and talked about in public. But what is Dasein even to report from the uncannincss of its thrown Being? What else remains for it than its own potentiality-for-Being as revealed in anxiety? How else is “it” to call than by summoning Dasein towards this potentiality-for-Being, which alone is the issue? BTMR §57

In temporality, however, the constitutive totality of care has a possible basis for its unity. Accordingly it is within the horizon of Dasein’s temporal constitution that we must approach the ontological clarification of the ‘connectedness of life’ – that is to say, the stretching-along, the movement, and the persistence which are specific for Dasein. The movement [Bewegtheit] of existence is not the motion [Bewegung] of something present-at-hand. It is DEFINABLE in terms of the way Dasein stretches along. The specific movement in which Dasein is stretched along and stretches itself along, we call its “historizing”. The question of Dasein’s ‘connectedness’ is the ontological problem of Dasein’s historizing. To lay bare the structure of historizing, and the existential-temporal conditions of its possibility, signifies that one has achieved an ontological understanding of historicality. BTMR §72

1. First, it has been maintained that ‘Being’ is the ‘most universal’ concept: tò ón esti katholou malista panton. Illud quod primo cadit sub apprehensione est ens, cuius intellectus includitur in omnibus, quaecumque quis apprehendit. ‘An understanding of Being is already included in conceiving anything which one apprehends in entities.’, But the ‘universality’ of ‘Being’ is not that of a class or genus. The term ‘Being’ does not DEFINE that realm of entities which is uppermost when these are Articulated conceptually according to genus and species: oute tò ón genos. The ‘universality’ of Being ‘transcends’ any universality of genus. In medieval ontology ‘Being’ is designated as a ‘transcendens’. Aristotle himself knew the unity of this transcendental ‘universal’ as a unity of analogy in contrast to the multiplicity of the highest generic concepts applicable to things. With this discovery, in spite of his dependence on the way in which the ontological question had been formulated by Plato, he put the problem of Being on what was, in principle, a new basis. To be sure, even Aristotle failed to clear away the darkness of these categorial interconnections. In medieval ontology this problem was widely discussed, especially in the Thomist and Scotist schools, without reaching clarity as to principles. And when Hegel at last defines ‘Being’ as the ‘indeterminate immediate’ and makes this DEFINITION basic for all the further categorial explications of his ‘logic’, he keeps looking in the same direction as ancient ontology, except that he no longer pays heed to Aristotle’s problem of the unity of Being as over against the multiplicity of ‘categories’ applicable to things. So if it is said that ‘Being’ is the most universal concept, this cannot mean that it is the one which is clearest or that it needs no further discussion. It is rather the darkest of all. BTMR §1

Is there not, however, a manifest circularity in such an undertaking? If we must first DEFINE an entity in its Being, and if we want to formulate the question of Being only on this basis, what is this but going in a circle? In working out our question, have we not ‘presupposed’ something which only the answer can bring? Formal objections such as the argument about ‘circular reasoning’, which can easily be cited at any time in the study of first principles, are always sterile when one is considering concrete ways of investigating. When it comes to understanding the matter at hand, they carry no weight and keep us from penetrating into the field of study. BTMR §2

Mathematics, which is seemingly the most rigorous and most firmly constructed of the sciences, has reached a crisis in its ‘foundations’. In the controversy between the formalists and the intuitionists, the issue is one of obtaining and securing the primary way of access to what are supposedly the objects of this science. The relativity theory of physics arises from the tendency to exhibit the interconnectedncss of Nature as it is ‘in itself’. As a theory of the conditions under which we have access to Nature itself, it seeks to preserve the changelessness of the laws of motion by ascertaining all relativities, and thus comes up against the question of the structure of its own given area of study – the problem of matter. In biology there is an awakening tendency to inquire beyond the DEFINITIONS which mechanism and vitalism have given for “life” and “organism”, and to DEFINE anew the kind of Being which belongs to the living as such. In those humane sciences which are historiological in character, the urge towards historical actuality itself has been strengthened in the course of time by tradition and by the way tradition has been presented and handed down: the history of literature is to become the history of problems. Theology is seeking a more primordial interpretation of man’s Being towards God, prescribed by the meaning of faith itself and remaining within it. It is slowly beginning to understand once more Luther’s insight that the ‘foundation’ on which its system of dogma rests has not arisen from an inquiry in which faith is primary, and that conceptually this ‘foundation’ not only is inadequate for the problematic of theology, but conceals and distorts it. [SZ:10] BTMR §3

That kind of Being towards which Dasein can comport itself in one way or another, and always does comport itself somehow, we call “existence” [Existenz]. And because we cannot DEFINE Dasein’s essence by citing a “what” of the kind that pertains to a subject-matter [eines sachhaltigen Was], and because its essence lies rather in the fact that in each case it has its Being to be, and has it as its own, we have chosen to designate this entity as “Dasein”, a term which is purely an expression of its Being [als reiner Seinsausdruck]. BTMR §4

If, however, the phenomenological conception of phenomenon is to be understood at all, regardless of how much closer we may come to determining the nature of that which shows itself, this presupposes inevitably that we must have an insight into the meaning of the formal conception of phenomenon and its legitimate employment in an ordinary signification. – But before setting up our preliminary conception of phenomenology, we must also DEFINE the signification of logos so as to make clear in what sense phenomenology can be a ‘science of’ phenomena at all. BTMR §7

In our introduction we have already intimated that in the existential analytic of Dasein we also make headway with a task which is hardly less pressing than that of the question of Being itself – the task of laying bare that a priori basis which must be visible before the question of ‘what man is’ can be discussed philosophically. The existential analytic of Dasein comes before any psychology or anthropology, and certainly before any biology. While these too are ways in which Dasein can be investigated, we. can DEFINE the theme of our analytic with greater precision if we distinguish it from these. And at the same time the necessity of that analytic can thus be proved more incisively. BTMR §9

Nowadays there is much talk about ‘man’s having an environment [Umwelt]’; but this says nothing ontologically as long as this ‘having’ is left indefinite. In its very possibility this ‘having’ is founded upon the existential state of Being-in. Because Dasein is essentially an entity with Being-in, it can explicitly discover those entities which it encounters environmentally, it can know them, it can avail itself of them, it can have the ‘world’. To talk about ‘having an environment’ is ontically trivial, but ontologically it presents a problem. To solve it requires nothing else than DEFINING the Being of Dasein, and doing so in a way which is ontologically adequate. Although this state of Being is one of which use has made in biology, especially since K. von Baer, one must not conclude that its philosophical use implies ‘biologism’. For the environment is a structure which even biology as a positive science can never find and can never DEFINE, but must presuppose and constantly employ. Yet, even as an a priori condition for the objects which biology takes for its theme, this structure itself can be explained philosophically only if it has been conceived beforehand as a structure of Dasein. Only in terms of an orientation [SZ:58] towards the ontological structure thus conceived can ‘life’ as a state of Being be DEFINED a priori, and this must be done in a privative manner. Ontically as well as ontologically, the priority belongs to Being-in-the-world as concern. In the analytic of Dasein this structure undergoes a basic Interpretation. BTMR §12

The critical question now arises: does this ontology of the ‘world’ seek the phenomenon of the world at all, and if not, does it at least DEFINE some entity within-the-world fully enough so that the worldly character of this entity can be made visible in it? To both questions we must answer “No”. The entity which Descartes is trying to grasp ontologically and in principle with his “extensio”, is rather such as to become discoverable first of all by going through an entity within-the-world which is proximally ready-to-hand – Nature. Though this is the case, and though any ontological characterization of this latter entity within-the-world may lead us into obscurity, even if we consider both the idea of substantiality and the meaning of the “existit” and “ad existendum” which have been brought into the DEFINITION of that idea, it still remains possible that through an ontology based upon a radical separation of God, the “I”, and the ‘world’, the ontological problem of the world will in some sense get formulated and further advanced. If, however, this is not possible, we must then demonstrate explicitly not only that Descartes’ conception of the world is ontologically defective, but that his Interpretation and the foundations on which it is based have led him to pass over both the phenomenon of the world and the Being of those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to-hand. BTMR §21

That in the face of which we fear, the ‘fearsome’, is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world and which may have either readiness-to-hand, presence-at-hand, or Dasein-with as its kind of Being. We are not going to make an ontical report on those entities which can often and for the most part be ‘fearsome’: we are to DEFINE the fearsome phenomenally in its fearsomeness. What do we encounter in fearing that belongs to the fearsome as such? That in the face of which we fear can be characterized as threatening. Here several points must be considered. 1. What we encounter has detrimentality as its kind of involvement. It shows itself within a context of involvements. 2. The target of this detrimentality is a definite range of what can be affected by it; thus the detrimentality is itself made definite, and comes from a definite region. 3. The region itself is well known as such, and so is that which is coming from it; but that which is coming from it has something ‘queer’ about it. 4. That which is detrimental, as something that threatens us, is not yet within striking distance [in beherrschbarer Nähe], but it is coming close. In such a drawing-close, the detrimentality radiates out, and therein lies its threatening character. 5. This drawing-close is within what is close by. Indeed, something may be detrimental in the highest degree and may even be coming constantly closer; but if it is still far off, its fearsomeness remains veiled. If, however, that which is detrimental draws close and is close by, then it is threatening: it can reach us, and yet it may not. As it draws close, this ‘it can, and yet in the end it may not’ becomes aggravated. We say, “It is fearsome”. 6. This implies that what is detrimental as coming-close close by carries with it the patent possibility that it may stay away and pass us by; but instead of lessening or extinguishing our fearing, this enhances it. [SZ:141] BTMR §30

If we bring together the three significations of ‘assertion’ which we have analysed, and get a unitary view of the full phenomenon, then we may DEFINE “assertion” as “a pointing-out which gives something a definite character and which communicates”. It remains to ask with what justification we have taken assertion as a mode of interpretation at all. If it is something of this sort, then the essential structures of interpretation must recur in it. The pointing-out which assertion does is performed on the basis of what has already been disclosed in understanding or discovered circumspectively. Assertion is not a free-floating kind of behaviour which, in its own right, might be capable of disclosing entities in general in a primary way: on the contrary it always maintains itself on the basis of Being-in-the-world. What we have shown earlier in relation to knowing the world, holds just as well as assertion. Any assertion requires a fore-having of whatever has been disclosed; and this is what it points out by way of giving something a definite character. Furthermore, in any approach when one gives something a definite character, one is already taking a look directionally at what is to be put forward in the assertion. When an entity which has been presented is given a definite character, the function of giving it such a character is taken over by that with regard to which we set our sights towards the entity. Thus any assertion requires a fore-sight; in this the predicate which we are to assign [zuzuweisende] and make stand out, gets loosened, so to speak, from its unexpressed inclusion in the entity itself. To any assertion as a communication which gives something a definite character there belongs, moreover, an Articulation of what is pointed out, and this Articulation is in accordance with significations. Such an assertion will operate with a definite way of conceiving: “The hammer is heavy”, “Heaviness belongs to the hammer”, “The hammer has the property of heaviness”. When an assertion is made, some foreconception is always implied; but it remains for the most part inconspicuous, because the language already hides in itself a developed way of conceiving. Like any interpretation whatever, assertion necessarily has a fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception as its existential foundations. [SZ:157] BTMR §33

One of Dasein’s possibilities of Being is to give us ontical ‘information’ about Dasein itself as an entity. Such information is possible only in that disclosedness which belongs to Dasein and which is grounded in state-of-mind and understanding. How far is anxiety a state-of-mind which is distinctive? How is it that in anxiety Dasein gets brought before itself through its own Being, so that we can DEFINE phenomenologically the character of the entity disclosed in anxiety, and DEFINE it as such in its Being, or make adequate preparations for doing so? BTMR §40

”Being-true” (“truth”) means Being-uncovering. But is not this a highly arbitrary way to DEFINE “truth”? By such drastic ways of DEFINING this concept we may succeed in eliminating the idea of agreement from the conception of truth. Must we not pay for this dubious gain by plunging the ‘good’ old tradition into nullity? But while our DEFINITION is seemingly arbitrary, it contains only the necessary Interpretation of what was primordially surmised in the oldest tradition of ancient philosophy and even understood in a pre-phenomenological manner. If a logos as apophansis is to be true, its Being-true is aletheuein in the manner of apophainesthai – of taking entities out of their hiddenness and letting them be seen in their unhiddenness (their uncoveredness). The aletheia which Aristotle equates with pragma and phainomena in the passages cited above, signifies the ‘things themselves’; it signifies what shows itself – entities in the “how” of their uncoveredness. And is it accidental that in one of the fragments of Heracleitus – the oldest fragments of philosophical doctrine in which the logos is explicitly handled – the phenomenon of truth in the sense of uncoveredness (unhiddenness), as we have set it forth, shows through? Those who are lacking in understanding are contrasted with the logos, and also with him who speaks that logos, and understands it. The logos is phrazon hopos echei: it tells how entities comport themselves. But to those who are lacking in understanding, what they do remains hidden – lanthanei. They forget it (epilanthanontai); that is, for them it sinks back into hiddenness. Thus to the logos belongs unhiddenness – a-letheia. To translate this word as ‘truth’, and, above all, to DEFINE this expression conceptually in theoretical ways, is to cover up the meaning of what the Greeks made ‘self-evidently’ basic for the terminological use of aletheia as a pre-philosophical way of understanding it. BTMR §44

If in care we have arrived at Dasein’s primordial state of Being, then this must also be the basis for conceptualizing that understanding of Being which lies in care; that is to say, it must be possible to DEFINE the meaning of Being. But is the phenomenon of care one in which the most primordial existential-ontological state of Dasein is disclosed? And has the structural manifoldness which lies in this phenomenon, presented us with the most primordial totality of factical Dasein’s Being? Has our investigation up to this point ever brought Dasein into view as a whole? BTMR §44

But this lack-of-togetherness which belongs to such a mode of togetherness – this being-missing as still-outstanding – cannot by any means DEFINE ontologically that “not-yet” which belongs to Dasein as its possible death. Dasein does not have at all the kind of Being of something ready-to-handwithin-the-world. The togetherness of an entity of the kind which Dasein is ‘in running its course’ until that ‘course’ has been completed, is not constituted by a ‘continuing’ piecing-on of entities which, somehow and somewhere, are ready-to-hand already in their own right. BTMR §48

For instance, we can say, “The last quarter is still outstanding until the moon gets full”. The “not-yet” diminishes as the concealing shadow disappears. But here the moon is always present-at-hand as a whole already. Leaving aside the fact that we can never get the moon wholly in our grasp even when it is full, this “not-yet” does not in any way signify a not-yet-Being-together of the parts which belongs to the moon, but pertains only to the way we get it in our grasp perceptually. The “not-yet” which belongs to Dasein, however, is not just something which is provisionally and occasionally inaccessible to one’s own experience or even to that of a stranger; it ‘is’ not yet ‘actual’ at all. Our problem does not pertain to getting into our grasp the “not-yet’ which is of the character of Dasein; it pertains to the possible Being or not-Being of this “not-yet”. Dasein must, as itself, become – that is to say, be – what it is not yet. Thus if we are to be able, by comparison, to DEFINE that Being of the “not-yet” which is of the character of Dasein, we must take into conslderation entities. to whose kind of Being becoming belongs. BTMR §48

These ordinary significations of “Being-guilty” as ‘having debts to someone’ and ‘having responsibility for something’ can go together and DEFINE a kind of behaviour which we call ‘making oneself responsible’; that is, by having the responsibility for having a debt, one may break a law and make oneself punishable. Yet the requirement which one fails to satisfy need not ‘necessarily be related to anyone’s possessions; it can regulate the very manner in which we are with one other publicly. ‘Making oneself responsible’ by breaking a law, as we have thus DEFINED it, can indeed also have the character of ‘coming to owe something to Others’. This does not happen merely through law-breaking as such, but rather through my having the responsibility for the Other’s becoming endangered in his existence, led astray, or even ruined. This way of coming to owe something to Others is possible without breaking the ‘public’ law. Thus the formal conception of “Being-guilty” in the sense of having come to owe something to an Other, may be DEFINED as follows: “Being-the-basis for a lack of something in the Dasein of an Other, and in such a manner that this very Being-the-basis determines itself as ‘lacking in some way’ in terms of that for which it is the basis.” This kind of lacking is a failure to satisfy some requirement which applies to one’s existent Being with Others. BTMR §58

Nevertheless, in the idea of ‘Guilty there lies the character of the “not”. If the ‘Guilty!’ is something that can definitely apply to existence, then this raises the ontological problem of clarifying existentially the character of this “not” as a “not”. Moreover, to the idea of ‘Guilty!’ belongs what is expressed without further differentiation in the conception of guilt as ‘having responsibility for’ – that is, as Being-the-basis for ... Hence we DEFINE the formally existential idea of the ‘Guilty!’ as “Being-the-basis for a Being which has been DEFINED by a ‘not” – that is to say, as “Being-the-basis of a nullity”. The idea of the “not” which lies in the concept of guilt as understood existentially, excludes relatedness to anything presentat-hand which is possible or which may have been required; furthermore, Dasein is altogether incommensurable with anything present-at-hand or generally accepted [Geltenden] which is not it itself, or which is not in the way Dasein is – namely, existing; so any possibility that, with regard to Being-the-basis for a lack, the entity which is itself such a basis might be reckoned up as ‘lacking in some manner’, is a possibility which drops out. If a lack, such as failure to fulfil some requirement, has been ‘caused’ in a manner characteristic of Dasein, we cannot simply reckon back to there being something lacking [Mangelhaftigkeit] in the ‘cause’. Being-the-basis-for-something need not have the same “not”-character as the privativum which is based upon it and which arises from it. The basis need not acquire a nullity of its own from that for which it is the basis [seinern Begründeten]. This implies, however, that Being-guilty does not first result from an indebtedness [Verschuldung], but that, on the contrary, indebtedness becomes possible only ‘on the basis’ of a primordial Being-guilty. Can something like this be exhibited in Dasein’s Being, and how is it at all possible existentially? [SZ:284] BTMR §58

Kant’s analysis has two positive aspects. For one thing, he sees the impossibility of ontically reducing the “I” to a substance; for another thing, he holds fast to the “I” as ‘I think’. Nevertheless, he takes this “I” as subject again, and he does so in a sense which is ontologically inappropriate. For the ontological concept of the subject characterizes not the Selfhood of the “I” qua Self, but the selfsameness and steadiness of something that is always present-at-hand. To DEFINE the “I” ontologically as “subject” means to regard it as something always present-at-hand. The Being of the “I” is understood as the Reality of the res cogitans. BTMR §64

That which was projected in the primordial existential projection of existence has revealed itself as anticipatory resoluteness. What makes this authentic Being-a-whole of Dasein possible with regard to the unity of its articulated structural whole? Anticipatory resoluteness, when taken formally and existentially, without our constantly designating its full structural content, is Being towards one’s ownmost, distinctive potentiality for-Being. This sort of thing is possible only in that Dasein can, indeed, come towards itself in its ownmost possibility, and that it can put up with this possibility as a possibility in thus letting itself come towards itself – in other words, that it exists. This letting-itself-come-towards-itself in that distinctive possibility which it puts up with, is the primordial phenomenon of the future as coming towards. If either authentic or inauthentic Being-towards-death belongs to Dasein’s Being, then such Being-towards-death is possible only as something futural [als zukünftiges], in the sense which we have now indicated, and which we have still to DEFINE more closely. By the term ‘futural’, we do not here have in view a “now” which has not yet become ‘actual’ and which sometime will be for the first time. We have in view the coming [Kunft] in which Dasein, in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, comes towards itself. Anticipation makes Dasein authentically fatural, and in such a way that the anticipation itself is possible only in so far as Dasein, as being, is always coming towards itself – that is to say, in so far as it is futural in its Being in general. BTMR §65

The specific ecstatical unity which makes it existentially possible to be afraid, temporalizes itself primarily out of the kind of forgetting characterized above, which, as a mode of having been, modifies its Present and its future in their own temporalizing. The temporality of fear is a forgetting which awaits and makes present. The common-sense interpretation of fear, taking its orientation from what we encounter within-the-world, seeks in the first instance to designate the ‘oncoming evil’ as that in the face of which we fear, and, correspondingly, to DEFINE our relation to this evil as one of “expecting”. Anything else which belongs to the phenomenon remains a ‘feeling of pleasure or displeasure’. BTMR §68

Only an entity which, in accordance with the meaning of its Being, finds itself in a state-of-mind [sich befindet] – that is to say, an entity, which in existing, is as already having been, and which exists in a constant mode of what has been – can become affected. Ontologically such affection presupposes making-present, and indeed in such a manner that in this making-present Dasein can be brought back to itself as something that has been. It remains a problem in itself to DEFINE ontologically the way in which the senses can be stimulated or’ touched in something that merely has life, and how and where the Being of animals, for instance, is constituted by some kind of ‘time’. [SZ:346] BTMR §68

Tenses, like the other temporal phenomena of language – ‘aspects’ and ‘temporal stages’ [“Zeitstufen”] – do not spring from the fact that discourse expresses itself ‘also’ about ‘temporal’ processes, processes encountered ‘in time’. Nor does their basis lie in the fact that speaking runs its course ‘in a psychical time’. Discourse in itself is temporal, since all talking about ..., of ..., or to ..., is grounded in the ecstatical unity of temporality. Aspects have their roots in the primordial temporality of concern, whether or not this concern relates itself to that which is within time. The problem of their existential-temporal structure cannot even be formulated with the help of the’ ordinary traditional conception of time, to which the science of language needs must have recourse. But because in any discourse one is talking about entities, even if not primarily and predominantly in the sense of theoretical assertion, the analysis of the temporal Constitution of discourse and the explication of the temporal characteristics of language-patterns can be tackled only if the problem of how Being and truth are connected in principle, is broached in the light of the problematic of temporality. We can then DEFINE even the ontological meaning of the ‘is’, which a superficial theory of propositions and judgments has deformed to a mere ‘copula’. Only in terms of the temporality of discourse – that is, of Dasein in general – can we clarify how ‘signification’ ‘arises’ and make the possibility of concept-formation ontologically intelligible. BTMR §68

We must now make an existential-analytical inquiry as to the temporal conditions, for the possibility of the spatiality that is characteristic of Dasein – the spatiality upon which in turn is founded the uncovering of space within-the-world. We must first remember in what way Dasein is spatial. Dasein can be spatial only as care, in the sense of existing as factically falling. Negatively this means that Dasein is never present-at-hand in space, not even proximally. Dasein does not fill up a bit of space as a Real Thing or item of equipment would, so that the boundaries dividing it from the surrounding space would themselves just DEFINE that space spatially. Dasein takes space in; this is to be understood literally. It is by no means just present-at-hand in a bit of space which its body fills up. In existing, it has already made room for its own leeway. It determines its own location in such a manner that it comes back from the space it has made room for to the ‘place’ which it has reserved. To be able to say that Dasein is present-at-hand at a position in space, we must first take [auffassen] this entity in a way which is ontologically inappropriate. Nor does the distinction between the ‘spatiality’ of an extended Thing and that of Dasein lie in the fact that Dasein knows about space; for taking space in [das Raum-einnehmen] is so far from identical with a ‘representing’ of the spatial, that it is presupposed by it instead. Neither may Dasein’s spatiality be interpreted as an imperfection which adheres to existence by reason of the fatal ‘linkage of the spirit to a body’. On the contrary, because Dasein is ‘spiritual’, and only because of this, it can be spatial in a way which remains essentially impossible for any extended corporeal Thing. [SZ:368] BTMR §70

Thus the historical character of the antiquities that are still preserved is grounded in the ‘past’ of that Dasein to whose world they belonged. But according to this, only ‘past’ Dasein would be historical, not Dasein ‘in the present’. However, can Dasein be past at all, if we DEFINE ‘past’ as ‘now no longer either present-at-hand or ready-to-hand’? Manifestly, Dasein can never be past, not because Dasein is non-transient, but because it essentially can never be present-at-hand. Rather, if it is, it exists. A Dasein which no longer exists, however, is not past, in the ontologically strict sense; it is rather “having-been-there” [da-gewesen]. The antiquities which are still present-at-hand have a character of ‘the past,’ and of history by reason of the fact that they have belonged as equipment to a world that has been – the world of a Dasein that has been there – and that they have been derived from that world. This Dasein is what is primarily historical. But does Dasein first become historical in that it is no longer there? Or is it not historical precisely in so far as it factically exists? Is Dasein just something that “has been” in the sense of “having been there”, or has it been as something futural which is making present – that is to say, in the temporalizing of its temporality? [SZ:381] BTMR §73

In the development of this ordinary conception, there is a remarkable vacillation as to whether the character to be attributed to time is ‘subjective’ or ‘Objective’. Where time is taken as being in itself, it gets allotted pre-eminently to the ‘soul’ notwithstanding. And where it has the kind of character which belongs to ‘consciousness’, it still functions ‘Objectively’. In Hegel’s Interpretation of time both possibilities are brought to the point where, in a certain manner, they cancel each other out. Hegel tries to DEFINE the connection between ‘time’ and ‘spirit’ in such a manner as to make intelligible why the spirit, as history, ‘falls into time’. We seem to be in accord with Hegel in the results of the Interpretation we have given for Dasein’s temporality and for the way world-time belongs to it. But because our analysis differs in principle from his in its approach, and because its orientation is precisely the opposite of his in that it aims at fundamental ontology, a short presentation of Hegel’s way of taking the relationship between time and spirit may serve to make plain our existential-ontological Interpretation of Dasein’s temporality, of world-time and of the source of the ordinary conception of time, and may settle this in a provisional manner. BTMR §78

‘Public time’ turns out to be the kind of time ‘in which’ the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand within-the-world are encountered. This requires that these entities which are not of the character of Dasein, shall be called entities “within-time”. The Interpretation of within-time-ness gives us a more primordial insight into the essence of ‘public time’ and likewise makes it possible to DEFINE its ‘Being’. BTMR §80

And because the temporality of that Dasein which must take its time is finite, its days are already numbered. Concernful awaiting takes precaution to DEFINE the ‘thens’ with which it is to concern itself – that is, to divide up the day. And the ‘during-the-daytime’ makes this possible. This dividing-up, in turn, is done with regard to that by which time is dated – the journeying sun. Sunset and midday, like the sunrise itself, are distinctive ‘places’ which this heavenly body occupies. Its regularly recurring passage is something which Dasein, as thrown into the world and giving itself time temporalizingly, takes into its reckoning. Dasein historizes from day to day by reason of its way of interpreting time by dating it – a way which is adumbrated in its thrownness into the “there”. BTMR §80

How does something like ‘time’ first show itself for everyday circumspective concern? In what kind of concernful equipment-using dealings does it become explicitly accessible? If it has been made public with the disclosedness of the world, if it has always been already a matter of concern with the discoveredness of entities within-the-world – a discoveredness which belongs to the world’s disclosedness – and if it has been a matter of such concern in so far as Dasein calculates time in reckoning with itself, then the kind of behaviour in which ‘one’ explicitly regulates oneself according to time, lies in the use of clocks. The existential-temporal meaning of this turns out to be a making-present of the travelling pointer. By following the positions of the pointer in a way which makes present, one counts them. This making-present temporalizes itself in the ecstatical unity of a retention which awaits. To retain the ‘on that former occasion’ and to retain it by making it present, signifies that in saying “now” one is open for the horizon of the earlier – that is, of the “now-no-longer”. To await the ‘then’ by making it present, means that in saying “now” one is open for the horizon of the later – that is, of the “now-not-yet”. Time is what shows itself in such a making-present. How then, are we to DEFINE the time which is manifest within the horizon of the circumspective concernful clock-using in which one takes one’s time? This time is that which is counted and which shows itself when one follows the travelling pointer, counting and making present in such a way that this making-present temporalizes itself in an ecstatical unity with the retaining and awaiting which are horizonally open according to the “earlier” and “later”. This, however, is nothing else than an existential-ontological interpretation of Aristotle’s DEFINITION of “time”: touto gar estin ho chronos, arithmos kineseos kata to proteron kai hysteron. “For this is time: that which is counted in the movement which we encounter within the horizon of the earlier and later.” This DEFINITION may seem strange at first glance; but if one defines the existential-ontological horizon from which Aristotle has taken it, one sees that it is as ‘obvious’ as it at first seems strange, and has been genuinely derived. The source of the time which is thus manifest does not become a problem for Aristotle. His Interpretation of time moves rather in the direction of the ‘natural’ way of understanding Being. Yet because this very understanding and the Being which is thus understood have in principle been made a problem for the investigation which lies before us, it is only after we have found a solution for the question of Being that the Aristotelian analysis of time can be Interpreted thematically in such a way that it may indeed gain some signification in principle, if the formulation of this question in ancient ontology, with all its critical limitations, is to be appropriated in a positive manner. BTMR §81

It is no accident that world-time thus gets levelled off and covered up by the way time is ordinarily understood. But just because the everyday interpretation of time maintains itself by looking solely in the direction of concernful common sense, and understands only what ‘shows’ itself within the common-sense horizon, these structures must escape it. That which gets counted when one measures time concernfully, the “now”, gets co-understood in one’s concern with the present-at-hand and the ready-to-hand. Now so far as this concern with time comes back to the time itself which has been co-understood, and in so far as it ‘considers’ that time, it sees the “nows” (which indeed are also somehow ‘there’) within the horizon of that understanding-of-Being by which this concern is itself constantly guided. Thus the “nows” are in a certain manner co-present-at-hand: that is, entities are encountered, and so too is the “now”. Although it is not said explicitly that the “nows” are present-at-hand in the same way as Things, they still get ‘seen’ ontologically within the horizon of the idea of presence-at-hand. The “nows” pass away, and those which have passed away make up the past. The “nows” come along, and those which are coming along DEFINE the ‘future’. The ordinary interpretation of world-time as now-time never avails itself of the horizon by which such things as world, significance, and datability can be made accessible. These structures necessarily remain covered up, all the more so because this covering-up is reinforced by the way in which the ordinary interpretation develops its characterization of time conceptually. [SZ:423] BTMR §81

History, which is essentially the history of spirit, runs its course ‘in time’. Thus ‘the development of history falls into time’. Hegel is not satisfied, however, with averring that the within-time-ness of spirit is a Fact, but seeks to understand how it is possible for spirit to fall into time, which is ‘the non-sensuous sensuous’. Time must be able, as it were, to take in spirit. And spirit in turn must be akin to time and its essence. Accordingly two points come up for discussion: (1) how does Hegel DEFINE the essence of time? (2) what belongs to the essence of spirit which makes it possible for it to ‘fall into time’? Our answer to these questions will serve merely to elucidate our Interpretation of Dasein as temporality, and to do so by way of a comparison. We shall make no claim to give even a relatively full treatment of the allied problems in Hegel, especially since ‘criticizing’ him will not help us. Because Hegel’s conception of time presents the most radical way in which the ordinary understanding of time has been given form conceptually, and one which has received too little attention, a comparison of this conception with the idea of temporality which we have expounded is one that especially suggests itself. BTMR §82

If Hegel can say that when spirit gets actualized, it accords with it to fall into time, with “time” DEFINED as a negation of a negation, how has spirit itself been understood? The essence of spirit is the concept. By this Hegel understands not the universal which is intuited in a genus as the form of something thought, but rather the form of the very thinking which thinks itself: the conceiving of oneself – as the grasping of the not-I. Inasmuch as the grasping of the not-I presents a differentiation, there lies in the pure concept, as the grasping of this differentiation, a differentiation of the difference. Thus Hegel can DEFINE the essence of the spirit formally and apophantically as the negation of a negation. This ‘absolute negativity’ gives a logically formalized Interpretation of Descartes’ “cogito me cogitare rem”, wherein he sees the essence of the conscientia. [SZ:433] BTMR §82

Science in general may be DEFINED as the totality established through an interconnection of true propositions. This DEFINITION is not complete, nor does it reach the meaning of science. As ways in which man behaves, sciences have the manner of Being which this entity – man himself – possesses. This entity we denote by the term “Dasein”. Scientific research is not the only manner of Being which this entity can have, nor is it the one which lies closest. Moreover, Dasein itself has a special distinctiveness as compared with other entities, and it is worth our while to bring this to view in a provisional way. Here our discussion must anticipate later analyses, in which our results will be authentically exhibited for the first time. [SZ:12] BTMR §4

Yet Descartes not only continued to neglect this and thus to accept a completely indefinite ontological status for the res cogitans sive mens sive animus [‘the thing which cognizes, whether it be a mind or spirit’]: he regarded this entity as a fundamentum inconcussum, and applied the medieval ontology to it in carrying through the fundamental considerations of his Meditationes. He DEFINED the res cogitans ontologically as an ens; and in the medieval ontology the meaning of Being for such an ens had been fixed by understanding it as an ens creatum. God, as ens infinitum, was the ens increatum. But createdness [Geschaffenheit] in the widest sense of something’s having been produced [Hergestelltheit], was an essential item in the structure of the ancient conception of Being. The seemingly new beginning which Descartes proposed for philosophizing has revealed itself as the implantation of a baleful prejudice, which has kept later generations from making any thematic ontological analytic of the ‘mind’ [“Gemütes”] such as would take the question of Being as a clue and would at the same time come to grips critically with the traditional ancient ontology. [SZ:25] BTMR §6

The problematic of Greek ontology, like that of any other, must take its clues from Dasein itself. In both ordinary and philosophical usage, Dasein, man’s Being, is ‘DEFINED’ as the zoon logon echon – as that living thing whose Being is essentially determined by the potentiality for discourse. legein is the clue for arriving at those structures of Being which belong to the entities we encounter in addressing ourselves to anything or speaking about it [im Ansprechen und Besprechen]. (Cf. Section 7 b.) This is why the ancient ontology as developed by Plato turns into ‘dialectic’. As the ontological clue gets progressively worked out – namely, in the ‘hermeneutic’ of the logos – it becomes increasingly possible to grasp the problem of Being in a more radical fashion. The ‘dialectic’, which has been a genuine philosophical embarrassment, becomes superfluous. That is why Aristotle ‘no longer has any understanding’ of it, for he has put it on a more radical footing and raised it to a new level [aufhob]. legein itself – or rather noein, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being – has the Temporal structure of a pure ‘making-present’ of something. Those entities which show themselves in this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence (ousia). BTMR §6

The Greek expression phainomenon, to which the term ‘phenomenon’ goes back, is derived from the verb phainesthai, which signifies “to show itself “. Thus phainomenon means that which shows itself, the manifest [das, was sich zeigt, das Sichzeigende, das Offenbare]. phainesthai itself is a middle-voiced form which comes from phaino – to bring to the light of day, to put in the light. phaino comes from the stem pha – , like phos, the light, that which is bright – in other words, that wherein something can become manifest, visible in itself. Thus we must keep in mind that the expression ‘phenomenon’ signifies that which shows itself in itself, the manifest. Accordingly the phainomena or ‘phenomena’ are the totality of what lies in the light of day or can be brought to the light – what the Greeks sometimes identified simply with ta onta (entities). Now an entity can show itself from itself [von ihm selbst her] in many ways, depending in each case on the kind of access we have to it. Indeed it is even possible for an entity to show itself as something which in itself it is not. When it shows itself in this way, it ‘looks like something or other’ [“sieht” ... “so aus wie ...”]. This kind of showing-itself is what we call “seeming” [Scheinen]. Thus in Greek too the expression phainomenon (“phenomenon”) signifies that which looks like something, that which is ‘semblant’, ‘semblance’ [das “Scheinbare”, der “Schein”]. phainomenon agathon means something good which looks like, but ‘in actuality’ is not, what it gives itself out to be. If we are to have any further understanding of the concept of phenomenon, everything depends on our seeing how what is designated in the first signification of phainomenon (‘phenomenon’ as that which shows itself) and what is designated in the second (‘phenomenon’ as semblance) are structurally interconnected. Only when the meaning of something is such that it makes a pretension of showing itself – that is, of being a phenomenon – can it show itself as something which it is not; only then can it ‘merely look like so-and-so’. When phainomenon signifies ‘semblance’, the primordial signification (the phenomenon as the manifest) is already included as that upon which the second signification is founded. We shall allot the term ‘phenomenon’ to this positive and primordial signification of phainomenon, and distinguish “phenomenon” from “semblance”, which is the privative modification of “phenomenon” as thus DEFINED. But what both these terms express has proximally nothing at all to do with what iscalled an ‘appearance’, or still less a ‘mere appearance’. BTMR §7

In spite of the fact that ‘appearing’ is never a showing-itself in the sense of “phenomenon”, appearing is possible only by reason of a showing-itself of something. But this showing-itself, which helps to make possible the appearing, is not the appearing itself. Appearing is an announcing-itself [das Sich-melden] through something that shows itself. If one then says that with the word ‘appearance’ we allude to something wherein something appears without being itself an appearance, one has not thereby DEFINED the concept of phenomenon: one has rather presupposed it. This presupposition, however, remains concealed; for when one says this sort of thing about ‘appearance’, the expression ‘appear’ gets used in two ways. “That wherein something ‘appears’” means that wherein something announces itself, and therefore does not show itself; and in the words [Rede] ‘without being itself an “appearance”’, “appearance” signifies the showing-itself. But this showing-itself belongs essentially to the ‘wherein’ in which something announces itself. According to this, phenomena are never appearances, though on the other hand every appearance is dependent on phenomena. If one defines “phenomenon” with the aid of a conception of ‘appearance’ which is still unclear, then everything is stood on its head, and a ‘critique’ of phenomenology on this basis is surely a remarkable undertaking. [SZ:30] BTMR §7

All explicata to which the analytic of Dasein gives rise are obtained by considering Dasein’s existence-structure. Because Dasein’s characters of Being are DEFINED in terms of existentiality, we call them “existentialia”. These are to be sharply distinguished from what we call “categories” – characteristics of Being for entities whose character is not that of Dasein. Here we are taking the expression “category” in its primary ontological signification, and abiding by it. In the ontology of the ancients, the entities we encounter within the world are taken as the basic examples for the interpretation of Being. noein (or the logos, as the case may be) is accepted as a way of ‘access to them. Entities are encountered therein. But the Being of these entities must be something which can be grasped in a distinctive kind of legein (letting something be seen), so that this Being becomes intelligible in advance as that which it is – and as that which it is already in every entity. In any discussion (logos) of entities, we have previously addressed ourselves to Being; this addressing is kategoresthai. This signifies, in the first instance, making a public accusation, taking someone to task for something in the presence of everyone. When used ontologically, this term means taking an entity to task, as it were, for whatever it is as an entity – that is to say, letting everyone see it in its Being. The kategoriai are what is sighted and what is visible in such a seeing. They include the various ways in which the nature of those entities which can be addressed and discussed in a logos may be [SZ:45] determined a priori. Existentialia and categories are the two basic possibilities for characters of Being. The entities which correspond to them require different kinds of primary interrogation respectively: any entity is either a “who” (existence) or a “what” (presence-at-hand in the broadest sense). The connection between these two modes of the characters of Being cannot be handled until the horizon for the question of Being has been clarified. BTMR §9

This is no less true of ‘psychology’, whose anthropological tendencies are today unmistakable. Nor can we compensate for the absence of ontological foundations by taking anthropology and psychology and building them into the framework of a general biology. In the order which any possible comprehension and interpretation must follow, biology as a ‘science of life’ founded upon the ontology of Dasein, even if not entirely. Life, in its own right, is a kind of Being; but essentially it is accessible only in Dasein. The ontology of life is accomplished by way of a privative Interpretation; it determines what must be the case if there can be anything like mere-aliveness [Nur-noch-leben]. Life is not a mere Being-present-at-hand, nor is it Dasein. In turn, Dasein is never to be DEFINED ontologically by regarding it as life (in an ontologically indefinite manner) plus something else. [SZ:50] BTMR §10

Being-in-the-world shall first be made visible with regard to that item of its structure which is the ‘world’ itself. To accomplish this task seems easy and so trivial as to make one keep taking for granted that it may be dispensed with. What can be meant by describing ‘the world’ as a phenomenon? It means to let us see what shows itself in ‘entities’ within the world. Here the first step is to enumerate the things that are ‘in’ the world: houses, trees, people, mountains, stars. We can depict the way such entities ‘look’, and we can give an account of occurrences in them and with them. This, however, is obviously a pre-phenomenological ‘business’ which cannot be at all relevant phenomenologically. Such a description is always confined to entities. It is ontical. But what we are seeking is Being. And we have formally DEFINED ‘phenomenon’ in the phenomenological sense as that which shows itself as Being and as a structure of Being. BTMR §14

‘Worldhood’ is an ontological concept, and stands for the structure of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-world. But we know Being-in-the-world as a way in which Dasein’s character is DEFINED existentially. Thus worldhood itself is an existentiale. If we inquire ontologically about the ‘world’, we by no means abandon the analytic of Dasein as a field for thematic study. Ontologically, ‘world’ is not a way of characterizing those entities which Dasein essentially is not; it is rather a characteristic of Dasein itself. This does not rule out the possibility that when we investigate the phenomenon of the ‘world’ we must do so by the avenue of entities within-the-world and the Being which they possess. The task of ‘describing’ the world phenomenologically is so far from obvious that even if we do no more than determine adequately what form it shall take, essential ontological clarifications will be needed. BTMR §14

Here, however, “Nature” is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind ‘in the sails’. As the ‘environment’ is discovered, the ‘Nature’ thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this ‘Nature’ itself can be discovered and DEFINED simply in its pure presence-at-hand. But when this happens, the Nature which ‘stirs and strives’, which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist’s plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the ‘source’ which the geographer establishes for a river is not the ‘springhead in the dale’. BTMR §15

The kind of Being which belongs to these entities is readiness-to-hand. But this characteristic is not to be understood as merely a way of taking them, as if we were talking such ‘aspects’ into the ‘entities’ which we proximally encounter, or as if some world-stuff which is proximally present-at-hand in itself were ‘given subjective colouring’ in this way. Such an Interpretation would overlook the fact that in this case these entities would have to be understood and discovered beforehand as something purely present-at-hand, and must have priority and take the lead in the sequence of those dealings with the ‘world’ in which something is discovered and made one’s own. But this already runs counter to the ontological meaning of cognition, which we have exhibited as a founded mode of Being-in-the-world. To lay bare what is just present-at-hand and no more, cognition must first penetrate beyond what is ready-to-hand in our concern. Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are ‘in themselves’ are DEFINED ontologico-categorially. Yet only by reason of something present-at-hand, ‘is there’ anything ready-to-hand. Does it follow, however, granting this thesis for the nonce, that readiness-to-hand is ontologically founded upon presence-at-hand? BTMR §15

But signs, in the first instance, are themselves items of equipment whose specific character as equipment consists in showing or indicating. We find such signs in signposts, boundary-stones, the ball for the mariner’s stormwarning, signals, banners, signs of mourning, and the like. Indicating can be DEFINED ‘as a ‘kind’ of referring. Referring is, if we take it as formally as possible, a relating. But relation does not function as a genus for ‘kinds’ or ‘species’, of references which may somehow become differentiated as sign, symbol, expression, or signification. A relation is something quite formal which may be read off directly by way of ‘formalization’ from any kind of context, whatever its subject-matter or its way of Being. BTMR §17

We have indicated that the state which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand as equipment is one of reference or assignment. How can entities with this kind of Being be freed by the world with regard to their Being? Why are these the first entities to be encountered? As definite, kinds of references we have mentioned serviceability-for-, detrimentality [Abträglichkeit], usability, and the like. The “towards-which” [das Wozu] of a serviceability and the “for-which” [das Wofür] of a usability prescribed the ways in which such a reference or assignment can become concrete. But the ‘indicating’ of the sign and the ‘hammering’ of the hammer are not properties of entities. Indeed, they are not properties at all, if the ontological structure designated by the term ‘property’ is that of some definite character which it is possible for Things to possess [einer möglichen Bestimmtheit von Dingen]. Anything ready-to-hand is, at the worst, appropriate for some purposes and inappropriate for others; and its ‘properties’ are, as it were, still bound up in these ways in which it is appropriate or inappropriate, just as presence-at-hand, as a possible kind of Being for something ready-to-hand, is bound up in readiness-to-hand. Serviceability too, however, as a constitutive state of equipment (and serviceability is a reference), is not an appropriateness of some entity; it is rather the condition (so far as Being is in question) which makes it possible for the character of such an entity to be DEFINED by its appropriatenesses. But what, then, is “reference” or “assignment” to mean? To say that the Being of the ready-to-hand has the structure of assignment or reference means that it has in itself the character of having been assigned or referred [Verwiesenheit]. An entity is discovered when it has been assigned or referred to something, and referred as that entity which it is. With any such entity there is an involvement which it has in something. The character of Being which belongs to the ready-to-hand is just such an involvement. If something has an involvement, this implies letting it be involved in something. The relationship of the “with ... in ...” shall be indicated by the term “assignment” or “reference” . BTMR §18

[SZ:84] When an entity within-the-world has already been proximally freed for its Being, that Being is its “involvement”. With any such entity as entity, there is some involvement. The fact that it has such an involvement is ontologically definitive for the Being of such an entity, and is not an ontical assertion about it. That in which it is involved is the “towards-which” of serviceability, and the “for-which” of usability. With the “towards-which” of serviceability there can again be an involvement: with this thing, for instance, which is ready-to-hand, and which we accordingly call a “hammer”, there is an involvement in hammering; with hammering, there is an involvement in making something fast; with making something fast, there is an involvement in protection against bad weather; and this protection ‘is’ for the sake of [um-willen] providing shelter for Dasein – that is to say, for the sake of a possibility of Dasein’s Being. Whenever something ready-to-hand has an involvement with it, what involvement this is, has in each case been outlined in advance in terms of the totality of such involvements. In a workshop, for example, the totality of involvements which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand in its readiness-to-hand, is ‘earlier’ than any single item of equipment; so too for the farmstead with all its utensils and outlying lands. But the totality of involvements itself goes back ultimately to a “towards-which” in which there is no further involvement: this “towards-which” is not an entity with the kind of Being that belongs to what is ready-to-hand within a world; it is rather an entity whose Being is DEFINED as Being-in-the-world, and to whose state of Being, worldhood itself belongs. This primary “towards-which” is not just another “towards-this” as something in which an involvement is possible. The primary ‘towards-which’ is a “for-the-sake-of-which”. But the ‘for-the-sake-of’ always pertains to the Being of Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is essentially an issue. We have thus indicated the interconnection by which the structure of an involvement leads to Dasein’s very Being as the sole authentic “for-the-sake-of-which”; for the present, however, we shall pursue this no further. ‘Letting something be involved’ must first be clarified enough to give the phenomenon of worldhood the kind of definiteness which makes it possible to formulate any problems about it. BTMR §18

– the “in-order-to”, the “for-the-sake-of”, and the “with-which” of an involvement – is such that they resist any sort of mathematical functionalization; nor are they merely something thought, first posited in an ‘act of thinking.’ They are rather relationships in which concernful circumspection as such already dwells. This ‘system of Relations’, as something constitutive for worldhood, is so far from volatilizing the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world, that the worldhood of the world provides the basis on which such entities can for the first time be discovered as they are ‘substantially’ ‘in themselves’. And only if entities within-the-world can be encountered at all, is it possible, in the field of such entities, to make accessible what is just present-at-hand and no more. By reason of their Being-just-present-at-hand-and-no-more, these latter entities can have their ‘properties’ DEFINED mathematically in ‘functional concepts.’ Ontologically, such concepts are possible only in relation to entities whose Being has the character of pure substantiality. Functional concepts are never possible except as formalized substantial concepts. BTMR §18

If Dasein, in its concern, brings something close by, this does not signify that it fixes something at a spatial position with a minimal distance from some point of the body. When something is close by, this means that it is within the range of what is proximally ready-to-hand for circumspection. Bringing-close is not oriented towards the I-Thing encumbered with a body, but towards concernful Being-in-the-world – that is, towards whatever is proximally encountered in such Being. It follows, moreover, that Dasein’s spatiality is not to be DEFINED by citing the position at which some corporeal Thing is present-at-hand. Of course we say that even Dasein always occupies a place. But this ‘occupying’ must be distinguished in principle’ from Being-ready-to-hand at a place in some particular region. Occupying a place must be conceived as a desevering of the environmentally ready-to-hand into a region which has been circumspectively discovered in advance. Dasein understands its “here” [Hier] in terms of its environmental “yonder”. The “here” does not mean the “where” of something present-at-hand, but rather the “whereat” [Wobei) of a de-severant Being-alongside, together with this de-severance. Dasein, in accordance with its spatiality, is proximally never here but yonder; from this “yonder” it comes back to its “here”; and it comes back to its “here” only in the way in which it interprets its concernful Being-towards in terms of what is ready-to-hand yonder. This becomes quite plain if we consider a certain phenomenal peculiarity of tlae de-severance structure of Being-in. [SZ:108] BTMR §23

In accordance with its Being-in-the-world, Dasein always has space presented as already discovered, though not thematically. On the other hand, space in itself, so far as it embraces the mere possibilities of the pure spatiail Being of something, remains proximally still concealed. The fact that space essentially shows itself in a world is not yet decisive for the kind of Being which it possesses. It need not have the kind of Being characteristic of something which is itself spatially ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. Nor does the Being of space have the kind of Being which belongs to Dasein. Though the Being of space itself cannot be conceived as the kind of Being which belongs to a res extensa, it does not follow that it must be DEFINED ontologically as a ‘phenomenon’ of such a res. (In its Being, it would not be distinguished from such a res.) Nor does it follow that the Being of space can be equated to that of the res cogilans and conceived as merely ‘subjective’, quite apart from the questionable character of the Being of such a subject. [SZ:113] BTMR §24

[SZ:121] If Dasein-with remains existentially constitutive for Being-in-the-world, then, like our circumspective dealings with the ready-to-hand within-the-world (which, by way of anticipation, we have called ‘concern’), it must be Interpreted in terms of the phenomenon of care; for as “care” the Being of Dasein in general is to be DEFINED. (Compare Chapter 6 of this Division.) Concern is a character-of-Being which Being-with cannot have as its own, even though Being-with, like concern, is a Being towards entities encountered within-the-world. But those entities towards which Dasein as Being-with comports itself do not have the kind of Being which belongs to equipment ready-to-hand; they are themselves Dasein. These entities are not objects of concern, but rather of solicitude. BTMR §26

The ontologically relevant result of our analysis of Being-with is the insight that the ‘subject character’ of one’s own Dasein and that of Others is to be DEFINED existentially – that is, in terms of certain ways in which one may be. In that with which we concern ourselves environmentally the Others are encountered as what they arc; they are what they do [sie sind das, was sie betreiben]. [SZ:126] BTMR §27

All interpretation is grounded on understanding. That which has been articulated as such in interpretation and sketched out beforehand in the understanding in general as something articulable, is the meaning. In so far as assertion (‘judgment’) is grounded on understanding and presents us with a derivative form in which an interpretation has been carried out, it too ‘has’ a meaning. Yet this meaning cannot be DEFINED as something which occurs ‘in’ [“an”] a judgment along with the judging itself. In our [SZ:154] present context, we shall give an explicit analysis of assertion, and this analysis will serve several purposes. BTMR §33

But to what extent does it become a derivative mode of interpretation? What has been modified in it? We can point out the modification if we stick to certain limiting cases of assertion which function in logic as normal cases and as examples of the ‘simplest’ assertion-phenomena. Prior to all analysis, logic has already understood ‘logically’ what it takes as a theme under the heading of the “categorical statement” – for instance, ‘The hammer is heavy’. The unexplained presupposition is that the ‘meaning’ of this sentence is to be taken as: “This Thing – a hammer – has the property of heaviness”. In concernful circumspection there are no such assertions ‘at first’. But such circumspection has of course its specific ways of interpreting, and these, as compared with the ‘theoretical judgment’ just mentioned, may take some such form as ‘The hammer is too heavy’, or rather just ‘Too heavy!’, ‘Hand me the other hammer!’ Interpretation is carried out primordially not in a theoretical statement but in an action of circumspective concern – laying aside the unsuitable tool, or exchanging it, ‘without wasting words’. From the fact that words are absent, it may not be concluded that interpretation is absent. On the other hand, the kind of interpretation which is circumspectively expressed is not necessarily already an assertion in the sense we have DEFINED. By what existential-ontological modifications does assertion arise from circums interpretation? BTMR §33

It is on the basis of this potentiality for hearing, which is existentially primary, that anything like hearkening [Horchen] becomes possible. Hearkening is phenomenally still more primordial than what is DEFINED ‘in the first instance’ as “hearing” in psychology – the sensing of tones and the perception of sounds. Hearkening too has the kind of Being of the hearing which understands. What we ‘first’ hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking waggon, the motor-cycle. We hear the column on the march, the north wind, the woodpecker tapping, the fire crackling. BTMR §34

Because discourse is constititutive for the Being of the “there” (that is, for states-of-mind and understanding), while “Dasein” means Being-in-the-world, Dasein as discursive Being-in, has already expressed itself. Dasein has language. Among the Greeks, their everyday existing was largely diverted into talking with one another, but at the same time they ‘had eyes’ to see. Is it an accident that in both their pre-philosophical and their philosophical ways of interpreting Dasein, they DEFINED the essence of man as zoon logon echon? The later way of interpreting this DEFINITION of man in the sense of the animal rationale, ‘something living which has reason’, is not indeed ‘false’, but it covers up the phenomenal basis for this DEFINITION of “Dasein”. Man shows himself as the entity which talks. This does not signify that the possibility of vocal utterance is peculiar to him, but rather that he is the entity which is such as to discover the world and Dasein itself. The Greeks had no word for “language”; they understood this phenomenon ‘in the first instance’ as discourse. But because the logos came into their philosophical ken primarily as assertion, this was the kind of logos which they took as their clue for working out the basic structures of the forms of discourse and its components. Grammar sought its foundations in the ‘logic’ of this logos. But this logic was based upon the ontology of the present-at-hand. The basic stock of ‘categories of signification’, which passed over into the subsequent science of language, and which in principle is still accepted as the standard today, is oriented towards discourse as assertion. But if on the contrary we take this phenomenon to have in principle the primordiality and breadth of an existentiale, then there emerges the necessity of re-establishing the science of language on foundations which are ontologically more primordial. The task of liberating grammar from logic requires beforehand a positive understanding of the basic a priori structure of discourse in general as an existentiale. It is not a task that can be carried through later on by improving and rounding out what has been handed down. Bearing this in mind, we must inquire into the basic forms in which it is possible to articulate anything understandable, and to do so in accordance with significations; and this articulation must not be confined to entities within-the-world which we cognize by considering them theoretically, and which we express in sentences. A doctrine of signification will not emerge automatically even if we make a comprehensive comparison of as many languages as possible, and those which are most exotic. To accept, let us say, the philosophical horizon within which W. von Humboldt made language a problem, would be no less inadequate. The doctrine of signification is rooted in the ontology of Dasein. Whether it prospers or decays depends on the fate of this ontology. BTMR §34

This term does not express any negative evaluation, but is used to signify that Dasein is proximally and for the most part alongside the ‘world’ of its concern. This “absorption in ...” [Aufgehen bei ...] has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the “they”. Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away [abgefallen] from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the ‘world’. “Fallenness” into the ‘world’ means an absorption in Being-with-one-another, in so far as the latter is guided by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Through the Interpretation of falling, what we have called the “inauthenticity” of Dasein may now be DEFINED more precisely. On no account, however, do the terms “inauthentic” and “non-authentic” signify ‘really not’, as if in this mode of Being, Dasein were altogether to lose its Being. “Inauthenticity,” does not mean anything like Being-no-longer-in-the-world, but amounts rather to a quite distinctive kind of Being-in-the-world – the kind which is completely, fascinated by the ‘world’ and by the Daseinwith of Others in the “they”. Not-Being-its-self [Das Nicht-es-selbst-sein] functions as a positive possibility of that entity which, in its essential concern, is absorbed in a world. This kind of not-Being has to be conceived as that kind of Being which is closest to Dasein and in which Dasein maintains itself for the most part. [SZ:176] BTMR §38

Being-in-the-world is a structure which is primordially and constantly whole. In the preceding chapters (Division One, Chapters 2-5) this structure has been elucidated phenomenally as a whole, and also in its constitutive items, though always on this basis. The preliminary glance which we gave to the whole of this phenomenon in the beginning has now lost the emptiness of our first general sketch of it. To be sure, the constitution of the structural whole and its everyday kind of Being, is phenomenally so manifold that it can easily obstruct our looking at the whole as such phenomenologically in a way which is unified. But we may look at it more freely and our unified view of it may be held in readiness more securely if we now raise the question towards which we have been working in our preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein in general: “how is the totality of that structural whole which we have pointed out to be DEFINED. in an existential-ontological manner?” [SZ:181] BTMR §39

Dasein exists factically. We shall inquire whether existentiality and facticity have an ontological unity, or whether facticity belongs essentially to existentiality. Because Dasein essentially has a state-of-mind belonging to it, Dasein has a kind of Being in which it is brought before itself and becomes disclosed to itself in its thrownness. But thrownness, as a kind of Being, belongs to an entity which in each case is its possibilities, and is them in such a way that it understands itself in these possibilities and in terms of them, projecting itself upon them. Being alongside the ready-to-hand, belongs just as primordially to Being-in-the-world as does Being-with Others; and Being-in-the-world is in each case for the sake of itself. The Self, however, is proximally and for the most part inauthentic, the they-self. Being-in-the-world is always fallen. Accordingly Dasein’s “average everydayness” can be DEFINED as “Being-in-the-world which is falling and disclosed, thrown and projecting, and for which its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is an issue, both in its Being alongside the ‘world’ and in its Being-with Others”. BTMR §39

Again everyday discourse and the everyday interpretation of Dasein furnish our most unbiased evidence that anxiety as a basic state-of-mind is disclosive in the manner we have shown. As we have said earlier, a state-of-mind makes manifest ‘how one is’. In anxiety one feels ‘uncanny’. Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: the “nothing and nowhere”. But here “uncanniness” also means “not-being-at-home” [das Nichtzuhause-sein]. In our first indication of the phenomenal character of Dasein’s basic state and in our clarification of the existential meaning of “Being-in” as distinguished from the categorial signification of ‘insideness’, Being-in was DEFINED as “residing alongside ...”, “Being-familiar with ...” This character of Being-in was then brought to view more concretely through the everyday publicness of the “they”, which brings tranquillized self-assurance – ‘Being-at-home’, with all its obviousness – into the average everydayness of Dasein. On the other hand, as Dasein falls, anxiety brings it back from its absorption in the ‘world’. Everyday familiarity collapses. Dasein has been individualized, but individualized as Being-in-the-world. Being-in enters into the existential ‘mode’ of the “not-at-home”. Nothing else is meant by our talk about ‘uncanniness’. [SZ:189] BTMR §40

Because Being-in-the-world is essentially care, Being-alongside the ready-to-hand could be taken in our previous analyses as concern, and Being with the Dasein-with of Others as we encounter it within-the-world could be taken as solicitude. Being-alongside something is concern, because it is DEFINED as a way of Being-in by its basic structurecare. Care does not characterize just existentiality, let us say, as detached from facticity and falling; on the contrary, it embraces the unity of these ways in which Being may be characterized. So neither does “care” stand primarily and exclusively for an isolated attitude of the “I” towards itself. If one were to construct the expression ‘care for oneself’ [“Selbstsorge”], following the analogy of “concern” [Besorgen] and “solicitude” [Fürsorge], this would be a tautology. “Care” cannot stand for some special attitude towards the Self; for the Self has already been characterized ontologically by “Being-ahead-of-itself”, a characteristic in which the other two items in the structure of care – Being-already-in ... and Being-alongside ... – have been posited as well [mitgesetzt]. [SZ:193] BTMR §41

Care, as a primordial structural totality, lies ‘before’ [“vor”] every. factical ‘attitude’ and ‘situation’ of Dasein, and it does so existentially a priori; this means that it always lies in them. So this phenomenon by no means expresses a priority of the ‘practical’ attitude over the theoretical. When we ascertain something present-at-hand by merely beholding it, this activity has the character of care just as much as does a ‘political action’ or taking a rest and enjoying oneself. ‘Theory’ and ‘practice’ are possibilities of Being for an entity whose Being must be DEFINED as “care”. BTMR §41

At the same time our interpretation of understanding has shown that, in accordance with its falling kind of Being, it has, proximally and for the most part, diverted itself [sich ... verlegt] into an understanding of the ‘world’. Even where the issue is not only one of ontical experience but also one of ontological understanding, the interpretation of Being takes its orientation in the first instance from the Being of entities within-the-world. Thereby the Being of what is proximally ready-to-hand gets passed over, and entities are first conceived as a context of Things (res) which are present-at-hand. “Being” acquires the meaning of “Reality”. Substantiality becomes the basic characteristic of Being. Corresponding to this way in which the understanding of Being has been diverted, even the ontological understanding of Dasein moves into the horizon of this conception of Being. Like any other entity, Dasein too is present-at-hand as Real. In this way “Being in general” acquires the meaning of “Reality”. Accordingly the concept of Reality has a peculiar priority in the ontological problematic. By this priority the route to a genuine existential analytic of Dasein gets diverted, and so too does our very view of the Being of what is proximally ready-to-hand within-the-world. It finally forces the general problematic of Being into a direction that lies off the course. The other modes of Being become DEFINED negatively and privatively with regard to Reality. BTMR §43

Nor is resistance experienced in a drive or will which ‘emerges’ in its own right. These both turn out to be modifications of care. Only entities with this kind of Being can come up against something resistant as something within-the-world. So if “Reality” gets DEFINED as “the character of resisting”, we must notice two things: first, that this is only one character of Reality among others; second, that the character of resisting presupposes necessarily a world which has already been disclosed. Resistance characterizes the ‘external world’ in the sense of entities within-the-world, but never in the sense of the world itself. ‘Consciousness of Reality’ is itself a way of Being-in-the-world. Every ‘problematic of the external world’ comes back necessarily to this basic existential phenomenon. [SZ:211] BTMR §43

From time immemorial, philosophy has associated truth and Being. Parmenides was the first to discover the Being of entities, and he ‘identified’ Being with the perceptive understanding of Being: to gar auto noein estin te kai einai. Aristotle, in outlining the history of how the archai have been uncovered, emphasizes that the philosophers before him, under the guidance of ‘the things themselves’ have been compelled to inquire further: auto to pragma hodopoiesen autois kai sunenagkase zetein. He is describing the same fact when he says that anagkazomenos dakolouthei tois phainomenois – that he ( Parmenides) was compelled to follow that which showed itself in itself. In another passage he remarks that these thinkers carried on their researches hyp autes tes aletheias anagkazomenoi – “compelled by the ‘truth’ itself”. Aristotle describes these researches as philosophein peri tes aletheias – “ ‘philosophizing’ about the ‘truth’ “ – or even as apophainesthia peri tes aletheias – as exhibiting something and letting it be seen with regard to the ‘truth’ and within the range of the ‘truth’. Philosophy itself is DEFINED as episteme tis tes aletheias – “the science of the ‘truth’”. But it is also characterized as episteme, he theorei to on he on – as “a science which contemplates entities as entities” – that is, with regard to their Being. [SZ:213] BTMR §44

There are three theses which characterize the way in which the essence of truth has been traditionally taken and the way it is supposed to have been first DEFINED: (1) that the ‘locus’ of truth is assertion (judgment); (2) that the essence of truth lies in the ‘agreement’ of the judgment with its object; (3) that Aristotle, the father of logic, not only has ‘assigned truth to the judgment as its primordial locus but has set going the DEFINITION of “truth” as ‘agreement’. BTMR §44

What does it mean to ‘presuppose’? It is to understand something as the ground for the Being of some other entity. Such understanding of an entity in its interconnections of Being, is possible only on the ground of disclosedness – that is, on the ground of Dasein’s Being something which uncovers. Thus to presuppose ‘truth’ means to understand it as something for the sake of which Dasein is. But Dasein is already ahead of itself in each case; this is implied in its state-of-Being as care. It is an entity for which, in its Being, its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is an issue. To Dasein’s Being and its potentiality-for-Being as Being-in-the-world, disclosedness and uncovering belong essentially. To Dasein its potentialityfor-Being-in-the-world is an issue, and this includes concerning itself with entities within-the-world and uncovering them circumspectively. In Dasein’s state-of-Being as care, in Being-ahead-of-itself, lies the most primordial ‘presupposing’. Because this presupposing of itself belongs to Dasein’s Being, ‘we’ must also presuppose ‘ourselves’ as having the attribute of disclosedness. There are also entities with a character other than that of Dasein, but the ‘presupposing’ which lies in Dasein’s Being does not relate itself to these; it relates itself solely to Dasein itself. The truth which has been presupposed, or the ‘there is’ by which its Being is to be DEFINED, has that kind of Being – or meaning of Being – which belongs to Dasein itself. We must ‘make’ the presupposition of truth because it is one that has been ‘made’ already with the Being of the ‘we’. BTMR §44

Being (not entities) is something which ‘there is’ only in so far as truth is. And truth is only in so far as and as long as Dasein is. Being and truth ‘are’ equiprimordially. What does it signify that Being ‘is’, where Being is to be distinguished from every entity? One can ask this concretely only if the meaning of Being and the full scope of the understanding of Being have in general been clarified. Only then can one also analyse primordially what belongs to the concept of a science of Being as such, and to its possibilities and its variations. And in demarcating this research and its truth, the kind of research in which entities are uncovered, and its accompanying truth, must be DEFINED ontologically. BTMR §44

What is the status of the fore-sight by which our ontological procedure has hitherto been guided? We have DEFINED the idea of existence as a potentiality-for-Being – a potentiality which understands, and for which its own Being is an issue. But this potentiality-for-Being, as one which is in each case mine, is free either for authenticity or for inauthenticity or for a mode in which neither of these has been differentiated. In starting with average everydayness, our Interpretation has heretofore been confined to the analysis of such existing as is either undifferentiated or inauthentic. Of course, even along this path, it was possible and indeed necessary to reach a concrete determination of the existentiality of existence. Nevertheless, our ontological characterization of the constitution of existence still lacked something essential. “Existence” means a potentiality-for-Being – but also one which is authentic. As lofig as the existential structure of an authentic potentiality-for-Being has not been brought into the idea of existence, the fore-sight by which an existential Interpretation is guided will lack primordiality. [SZ:233] BTMR §45

Even the Dasein of Others, when it has reached its wholeness in death, is no-longer-Dasein, in the sense of Being-no-longer-in-the-world. Does not dying mean going-out-of-the-world, and losing one’s Being-in-the-world? Yet when someone has died, his Being-no-longer-in-the-world (if we understand it in an extreme way) is still a Being, but in the sense of the Being-just-present-at-hand-and-no-more of a corporeal Thing which we encounter. In the dying of the Other we can experience that remarkable phenomenon of Being which may be DEFINED as the change-over of an entity from Dasein’s kind of Being (or life) to no-longer-Dasein. The end of the entity qua Dasein is the beginning of the same entity qua something present-at-hand. BTMR §47

Ripening is the specific Being of the fruit. It is also a kind of Being of the “not-yet” (of unripeness); and, as such a kind of Being, it is formally analogous to Dasein, in that the latter, like the former, is in every case already its “not-yet” in a sense still to be DEFINED. But even then, this does not signify that ripeness as an ‘end’ and death as an ‘end’ coincide with regard to their ontological structure as ends. With ripeness, the fruit fulfils itself. But is the death at which Dasein arrives, a fulfilment in this sense? With its death, Dasein has indeed ‘fulfilled its course’. But in doing so, has it necessarily exhausted its specific possibilities? Rather, are not these precisely what gets taken away from Dasein? Even ‘unfulfilled’ Dasein ends. On the other hand, so little is it the case that Dasein comes to its ripeness only with death, that Dasein may well have passed its ripeness before the end. For the most part, Dasein ends in unfulfilment, or else by having disintegrated and been used up. BTMR §48

Our attempt to understand Dasein’s totality by taking as our point of departure a clarification of the “not-yet” and going on to a characterization of “ending”, has not led us to our goal. It has shown only in a negative way that the “not-yet” which Dasein in every case is, resists Interpretation as something still outstanding. The end towards which Dasein is as existing, remains inappropriately DEFINED by the notion of a “Being-at-an-end”. These considerations, however, should at the same time make it plain that they must be turned back in their course. A positive characterization of the phenomena in question (Being-not-yet, ending, totality) succeeds only when it is unequivocally oriented to Dasein’s state of Being. But if we have any insight into the realms where those endstructures and totality-structures which are to be construed ontologically with Dasein belong, this will, in a negative way, make this unequivocal character secure against wrong turnings. [SZ:246] BTMR §48

Underlying this biological-ontical exploration of death is a problematic that is ontological. We still have to ask how the ontological essence of death is DEFINED in terms of that of life. In a certain way, this has always been decided already in the ontical investigation of death. Such investigations operate with preliminary conceptions of life and death, which have been more or less clarified. These preliminary conceptions need to be sketched out by the ontology of Dasein. Within the ontology of Dasein, which is superordinate to an ontology of life, the existential analysis of death is, in turn, subordinate to a characterization of Dasein’s basic state. The ending of that which lives we have called ‘perishing’. Dasein too ‘has’ its death, Of the kind appropriate to anything that lives; and it has it, not in ontical isolation, but as codetermined by its primordial kind of Being. In so far as this is the case, Dasein too can end without authentically dying, though on the other hand, qua Dasein, it does not simply perish. We designate this intermediate phenomenon as its “demise”. Let the term “dying” stand for that way of Being in which Dasein is towards its death. Accordingly we must say that Dasein never perishes. Dasein, however, can demise only as long as it is dying. Medical and biological investigation into “demising” can obtain results which may even become significant ontologically if the basic orientation for an existential Interpretation of death has been made secure. Or must sickness and death in general – even from a medical point of view – be primarily conceived as existential phenomena? [SZ:247] BTMR §49

On the other hand, in the ontological analysis of Being-towards-the-end there is no anticipation of our taking any existentiell stand toward death. If “death” is DEFINED as the ‘end’ of Dasein – that is to say, of Being-in-the-world – this does not imply any ontical decision whether ‘after death’ still another Being is possible, either higher or lower, or whether Dasein ‘lives on’ or everi ‘outlasts’ itself and is ‘immortal’. Nor is anything decided ontically about the ‘other-worldly’ and its possibility, any more than about the ‘this-worldly’; it is not as if norms and rules for comporting oneself towards death were to be proposed for ‘edification’. But our analysis of death remains purely ‘this-worldly’ in so far as it Interprets that phenomenon merely in the way in which it enters into any particular Dasein as a possibility of its Being. Only when death is conceived in its full ontological essence can we have anymethodological assurance in even asking what may be after death; only then can we do so with meaning and justification. Whether such a question is a possible theoretical question at all will not be decided here. The this-worldly ontological Interpretation of death takes precedence over any ontical other-worldly speculation. [SZ:248] BTMR §49

From our considerations of totality, end, and that which is still outstanding, there has emerged the necessity of Interpreting the phenomenon of death as Being-towards-the-end, and of doing so in terms of Dasein’s basic state. Only so can it be made plain to what extent Being-a-whole, as constituted by Being towards-the-end, is possible in Dasein itself in conformity with the structure of its Being. We have seen that care is the basic state of Dasein. The ontological signification of the expression “care” has been expressed in the ‘DEFINITION’: “ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in (the world) as Being-alongside entities which we encounter (within-the-world)”. In this are expressed the fundamental characteristics of Dasein’s Being: existence, in the “ahead-of-itself”; facticity, in the “Being-already-in”; falling, in the “Being-alongside”. If indeed death belongs in a distinctive sense to the Being of Dasein, then death (or Being-towards-the-end) must be DEFINED in terms of these characteristics. [SZ:250] BTMR §50

In our preliminary existential sketch, Being-towards-the-end has been DEFINED as Being towards one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and is not to be outstripped. Being towards this possibility, as a Being which exists, is brought face to face with the absolute impossibility of existence. Beyond this seemingly empty characterization of Being-towards-death, there has been revealed the concretion of this Being in the mode of everydayness. In accordance with the tendency to falling, which is essential to everydayness, Being-towards-death has turned out to be an evasion in the face of death – an evasion which conceals. While our investigation has hitherto passed from a formal sketch of the ontological structure of death to the concrete analysis of everyday Being-towards-the-end, the direction is now to be reversed, and we shall arrive at the full existential conception of death by rounding out our Interpretation of everyday Being-towards-the-end. BTMR §52

Now that we have completed our Interpretation of the everyday manner in which the “they” talks about death and the way death enters into Dasein, we have been led to the characters of certainty and indefiniteness. The full existential-ontological conception of death may now be DEFINED as follows: death, as the end of Dasein, is Dasein’s ownmost possibility – non-relational, certain and as such indefinite, not to be outstripped. Death is, as Dasein’s end, in the Being of this entity towards its end. [SZ:259] BTMR §52

Can Dasein also understand authentically its ownmost possibility, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped, which is certain and, as such, indefinite? That is, can Dasein maintain itself in an authentic Being-towards-its-end? As long as this authentic Being-towards-death has not been set forth and ontologically DEFINED, there is something essentially lacking in our existential Interpretation of Being-towards-the-end. [SZ:260] BTMR §52

In this attestation an authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self is to be given us to understand. The question of the “who” of Dasein has been answered with the expression ‘Self’. Dasein’s Selfhood has been DEFINED formally as a way of existing, and therefore not as an entity present-at-hand. For the most part I myself am not the “who” of Dasein; the they-self is its “who”. Authentic Being-one’s-Self takes the definite form of an existentiell modification of the “they”; and this modification must be DEFINED existentially. What does this modification imply, and what are the ontological conditions for its possibility? BTMR §54

But is not the question of what the call says answered more easily and surely if we ‘simply’ allude to what we generally hear or fail to hear in any experience of conscience: namely, that the call either addresses Dasein as ‘Guilty!’, or, as in the case when the conscience gives warning, refers to a possible ‘Guilty!’, or affirms, as a ‘good’ conscience, that one is ‘conscious of no guilt’? Whatever the ways in which conscience is experienced or interpreted, all our experiences ‘agree’ on this ‘Guilty!’. If only it were not DEFINED in such wholly different ways! And even if the meaning of this ‘Guilty!’ should let itself be taken in a way upon which everyone is agreed, the existential conception of this Being-guilty would still remain obscure. Yet if Dasein ‘addresses itself as ‘Guilty!’, whence could it draw its idea of guilt except from the Interpretation of its own Being? All the same, the question arises a new: who says how we are guilty and what “guilt” signifies? On the other hand, the idea of guilt is not one which could be thought up arbitrarily and forced upon Dasein. If any understanding of the essence of guilt is possible at all, then this possibility must have been sketched out in Dasein beforehand. How are we to find the trail which can lead to revealing this phenomenon? All ontological investigations of such phenomena as guilt, conscience, and death, must start with what the everyday interpretation of Dasein ‘says’ about them. Because Dasein has falling as its kind of Being, the way Dasein gets interpreted is for the most part inauthentically ‘oriented’ and does not reach the ‘essence’; for to Dasein the primordially appropriate ontological way of formulating questions remains alien. But whenever we see something wrongly, some injunction as to the primordial ‘idea’ of the phenomenon is revealed along with it. Where, however, shall we get our criterion for the primordial existential meaning of the ‘Guilty!’? From the fact that this ‘Guilty!’ turns up as a predicate for the ‘I am’. Is it possible that what is understood as ‘guilt’ in our inauthentic interpretation lies in Dasein’s Being as such, and that it does so in such a way that so far as any Dasein factically exists, it is also guilty? [SZ:281] BTMR §58

If this is our goal, the idea of ‘Guilty!’ must be sufficiently formalized so that those ordinary phenomena of “guilt” which are related to our concernful Being with Others, will drop out. The idea of guilt must not only be raised above the domain of that concern in which we reckon things up, but it must also be detached from relationship to any law or “ought” such that by failing to comply with it one loads himself with guilt. For here too “guilt” is still necessarily DEFINED as a lack – when something which ought to be and which can be is missing. To be missing, however, means not-Being-present-at-hand. A lack, as the not-Being-present-at-hand of something which ought to be, is a definite sort of Being which goes with the present-at-hand. In this sense it is essential that in existence there can be nothing lacking, not’ because it would then be perfect, but because its character of Being remains distinct from any presence-at-hand. BTMR §58

In being a basis – that is, in existing as thrown – Dasein constantly lags behind its possibilities. It is never existent before its basis, but only from it and as this basis. Thus “Being-a-basis” means never to have power over one’s ownmost Being from the ground up. This “not” belongs to the existential meaning of “thrownness”. It itself, being a basis, is a nullity of itself. “Nullity” does not signify anything like not-Being-present-at-hand or not-subsisting; what one has in view here is rather a “not” ‘which is constitutive for this Being of Dasein – its thrownness. The character of this “not”,as a “not” may be DEFINED existentially: in being its Self, Dasein is, as a Self, the entity that has been thrown. It has been released from its basis, not through itself but to itself, so as to be as this basis. Dasein is not itself the basis of its Being, inasmuch as this basis first arises from its own projection; rather, as Being-its-Self, it is the Being of its basis. This basis [SZ:285] is never anything but the basis for an entity whose Being has to take over Being-a-basis. BTMR §58

Not only can entities whose Being is care load themselves with factical guilt, but they are guilty in the very basis of their Being; and this Being-guilty is what provides, above all, the ontological condition for Dasein’s ability to come to owe anything in factically existing. This essential Being-guilty is, equiprimordially, the existential condition for the possibility of the ‘morally’ good and for that of the ‘morally’ evil – that is, for morality in general and for the possible forms which this may take factically. The primordial “Being-guilty” cannot be DEFINED by morality, since morality already presupposes it for itself. BTMR §58

To escape this conclusion, the “good’ conscience has been Interpreted as a privation of the ‘bad’ one, and DEFINED as ‘an Experienced lack of bad conscience’. This would make it an experience of not having the call turn up – that is, of my having nothing with which to reproach myself. But how is such a ‘lack’ ‘Experienced’? This supposed Experience is by no means the experiencing of a call; it is rather a making-certain that a deed attributed to Dasein has not been perpetrated by it and that Dasein is therefore not guilty. Becoming certain that one has not done something, has by no means the character of a conscience-phenomenon. It can, however, signify rather that one is forgetting one’s conscience – in other words, that one is emerging from the possibility of being able to be appealed to. In the ‘certainty’ here mentioned lurks the tranquillizing suppression of one’s wanting to have a conscience – that is, of understanding one’s ownmost and constant Being-guilty. The ‘good’ conscience is neither a self-subsistent form of conscience, nor a founded form of conscience; in short, it is not a conscience-phenomenon at all. [SZ:292] BTMR §59

To present the factical existentiell possibilities in their chief features and interconnections, and to Interpret them according to their existential structure, falls among the tasks of a thematic existential anthropology. For the purposes of the present investigation as a study of fundamental ontology, it is enough if that authentic potentiality-for-Being which conscience attests for Dasein itself in terms of Dasein itself, is DEFINED existentially. BTMR §60

Ontologically, Dasein is in principle different from everything that is present-at-hand or Real. Its ‘subsistence’ is not based on the substantiality of a substance but on the ‘Self-subsistence’ of the existing Self, whose Being has been conceived as care. The phenomenon of the Self – a phenomenon which is included in care – needs to be DEFINED existentially in a way which is primordial and authentic, in contrast to our preparatory exhibition of the inauthentic they-self. Along with this, we must establish what possible ontological questions are to be directed towards the ‘Self’, if indeed it is neither substance nor subject. BTMR §61

But Dasein is equiprimordially in the untruth. Anticipatory resoluteness gives Dasein at the same time the primordial certainty that it has been closed off. In anticipatory resoluteness, Dasein holds itself open for its constant lostness in the irresoluteness of the “they” – a lostness which is possible from the very basis of its own Being. As a constant possibility of Dasein, irresoluteness is co-certain. When resoluteness is transparent to itself, it understands that the indefiniteness of one’s potentiality-for-Being is made definite only in a resolution as regards the current Situation. It knows about the indefiniteness by which an entity that exists is dominated through and through. But if this knowing is to correspond to authentic resoluteness, it must itself arise from an authentic disclosure. The indefiniteness of one’s own potentiality-for-Being, even when this potentiality has become certain in a resolution, is first made wholly manifest in Being-towards-death. Anticipation brings Dasein face to face with a possibility which is constantly certain but which at any moment remains indefinite as to when that possibility will become an impossibility. Anticipation makes it manifest that this entity has been thrown into the indefiniteness of its ‘limit-Situation’; when resolved upon the latter, Dasein gains its authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. The indefiniteness of death is primordially disclosed in anxiety. But this primordial anxiety strives to exact resoluteness of itself. It moves out of the way everything which conceals the fact that Dasein has been abandoned to itself. The “nothing” with which anxiety brings us face to face, unveils the nullity by which Dasein, in its very basis, is DEFINED; and this basis itself is as thrownness into death. BTMR §62

Care does not need to be founded in a Self. But existentiality, as constitutive for care, provides the ontological constitution of Dasein’s Self-constancy, to which there belongs, in accordance with the full structural content of care, its Being-fallen factically into non-Self-constancy. When fully conceived, the care-structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood. This phenomenon is clarified by Interpreting the meaning of care; and it is as care that Dasein’s totality of Being has been DEFINED. BTMR §64

Temporality ‘is’ not an entity at all. It is not, but it temporalizes itself. Nevertheless, we cannot avoid saying, ‘Temporality “is”... . the meaning of care’, ‘Temporality “is” ... DEFINED in such and such a way’; the reason for this can be made intelligible only when we have clarified the idea of Being and that of the ‘is’ in general. Temporality temporalizes, and indeed it temporalizes possible ways of itself. These make possible the multiplicity of Dasein’s modes of Being, and especially the basic possibility of authentic or inauthentic existence. BTMR §65

Care is Being-towards-death. We have DEFINED “anticipatory resoluteness” as authentic Being towards the possibility which we have characterized as Dasein’s utter impossibility. In such Being-towards-its-end, Dasein exists in a way which is authentically whole as that entity which it can be when ‘thrown into death’. This entity does not have an end at which it just stops, but it exists finitely. The authentic future is temporalized primarily by that temporality which makes up the meaning of anticipatory resoluteness; it thus reveals itself as finite. But ‘does not time go on’ in spite of my own no-longer-Dasein? And can there not be an unlimited number of things which still lie ‘in the future’ and come along out of it? [SZ:330] BTMR §65

We must answer these questions affirmatively. In spite of this, they do not contain any objections to the finitude of primordial temporality – because this is something which is no longer handled by these at all. The question is not about everything that still can happen ‘in a time that goes on’, or about what kind of letting-come-towards-oneself we can encounter ‘out of this time’, but about how “coming-towards-oneself” is, as such, to be primordially DEFINED. Its finitude does not amount primarily to a stopping, but is a characterisitic of temporalization itself. The primordial and authentic future is the “ towards-oneself” (to oneself!), existing as the possibility of nullity, the possibility which is not to be outstripped. The ecstatical character of the primordial future lies precisely in the fact that the future closes one’s potentiality-for-Being; that is to say, the future itself is closed to one, and as such it makes possible the resolute existentiell understanding of nullity. Primordial and authentic coming-towards-oneself is the meaning of existing in one’s ownmost nullity. In our thesis that temporality is primordially finite, we are not disputing that ‘time goes on’; we are simply holding fast to the phenomenal character of primordial temporality – a character which shows itself in what is projected in Dasein’s primordial existential projecting. BTMR §65

We shall begin our analysis by exhibiting the temporality of fear. Fear has been characterized as an inauthentic state-of-mind. To what extent does the existential meaning which makes such a state-of-mind possible lie in what has been? Which mode of this ecstasis designates the specific temporality of fear? Fear is a fearing in the face of something threatening – of something which is detrimental to Dasein’s factical potentiality-for-Being, and which brings itself close in the way we have described, within the range of the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand with which we concern ourselves. Fearing discloses something threatening, and it does so by way of everyday circumspection. A subject which merely beholds would never be able to discover anything of the sort. But if something is disclosed when one fears in the face of it, is not this disclosure a letting-something-come-towards-oneself [ein Auf-sich-zukommenlassen]? Has not “fear” been rightly DEFINED as “the expectation of some oncoming evil” [eines ankommenden Übels] (“malum futurum”)? Is not the primary meaning of fear the future, and least of all, one’s having been? Not only does fearing ‘relate’ itself to ‘something future’ in the signification of something which first comes on ‘in time’; but this self-relating is itself futural in the primordially temporal sense. All this is incontestable. Manifestly an awaiting is one of the things that belong to the existential-temporal Constitution of fear. But proximally this just means that the temporality of fear is one that is inauthentic. Is fearing in the face of something merely an expecting of something threatening which is coming on? Such an expectation need not be fear already, and it is so far from being fear that the specific character which fear as a ‘mood possesses is missing. This character lies in the fact that in fear the awaiting lets what is threatening come back [zurückkommen] to one’s factically concernful potentiality-for-Being. Only if that to which this comes back is already ecstatically open, can that which threatens be awaited right back to the entity which I myself am; only so can my Dasein be threatened. The awaiting which fears is one which is afraid ‘for itself’; that is to say, fearing in the face of something, is in each case, a fearing about; therein lies the character of fear as mood and as affect. When one’s Being-in-the-world has been threatened and it concerns itself with the ready-to-hand, it does so as a factical potentiality-for-Being of its own. In the face of this potentiality one backs away in bewilderment, and this kind of forgetting oneself is what constitutes the existential-temporal meaning of fear. Aristotle rightly defines “fear” as lype tis he tarache – as “a kind of depression or bewilderment”. This depression forces Dasein back to its thrownness, but in such a way that this thrownness gets quite closed off. The bewilderment is based upon a forgetting. When one forgets and backs away in the face of a factical potentiality-for-Being which is resolute, one clings to those possibilities of self-preservation and evasion which one has already discovered circumspectively beforehand. When concern is afraid, it leaps from next to next, because it forgets itself and therefore does not take hold of any definite possibility. Every ‘possible’ possibility offers itself, and this means that the impossible ones do so too. The man who fears, does not stop with any of these; his ‘environment’ does not disappear, but it is encountered without his knowing his way about in it any longer. This bewildered making-present of the first thing that comes into one’s head, is something that belongs with forgetting oneself in fear. It is well known, for instance, that the inhabitants of a burning house will often ‘save’ the most indifferent things that are most closely ready-to-hand. When one has forgotten oneself and makes present a jumble of hovering possibilities, one thus makes possible that bewilderment which goes to make up the mood-character of fear. The having forgotten which goes with such bewilderment modifies the awaiting too and gives it the character of a depressed or bewildered awaiting which is distinct from any pure expectation. [SZ:342] BTMR §68

The ecstatical unity of temporality – that is, the unity of the ‘outsideof-itself’ in the raptures of the future, of what has been, and of the Present – is the condition for the possibility that there can be an entity which exists as its “there”. The entity which bears the title “Being-there” is one that has been ‘cleared’. The light which constitutes this clearedness [Gelichtetheit] of Dasein, is not something ontically present-at-hand as a power or source for a radiant brightness occurring in the entity on occasion. That by which this entity is essentially cleared – in other words, that which makes it both ‘open’ for itself and ‘bright’ for itself – is what we have DEFINED as “care”, in advance of any ‘temporal’ Interpretation. In care is grounded the full disclosedness of the “there”. Only by this clearedness is any illuminating or illumining, any awareness, ‘seeing’, or having of something, made possible. We understand the light of this clearedness only if we are not seeking some power implanted in us and present-at-hand, but are interrogating the whole constitution of Dasein’sBeing – namely, care – and are interrogating it as to the unitary basis for its existential possibility. Ecstatical temporality clears the “there” primordially. It is what primarily regulates the possible unity of all Dasein’s existential structures. [SZ:351] BTMR §69

Only through the fact that Being-there is rooted in temporality can we get an insight into the existential possibility of that phenomenon which, at the beginning of our analytic of Dasein, we have designated as its basic state: Being-in-the-world. We had to assure ourselves in the beginning that the structural unity of this phenomenon cannot be torn apart. The question of the basis which makes the unity of this articulated structure possible, remained in the background. With the aim of protecting this phenomenon from those tendencies to split it up which were the most obvious and therefore the most baleful, we gave a rather thorough Interpretation of that everyday mode of Being-in-the-world which is closest to us – concernful Being alongside the ready-to-hand within-the-world. Now that care itself has been DEFINED ontologically and traced back to temporality as its existential ground, concern can in turn be conceived explicitly in terms of either care or temporality. BTMR §69

We have DEFINED Dasein’s Being as “care”. The ontological meaning of “care” is temporality. We have shown that temporality constitutes the disclosedness of the “there”, and we have shown how it does so. In the disclosedness of the “there” the world is disclosed along with it. The unity of significance – that is, the ontological constitution of the world – must then likewise be grounded in temporality. The existential-temporal condition for the possibility of the world lies in the fact that temporality, as an ecstatical unity, has something like a horizon. Ecstases are not simply raptures in which one gets carried away. Rather, there belongs to each ecstasis a ‘whither’ to which one is carried away. This “whither” of the ecstasis we call the “horizonal schema”. In each of the three ecstases the ecstatical horizon is different. The schema in which Dasein comes towards itself futurally, whether authentically or inauthentically, is the “for-the-sake-of-itself”. The schema in which Dasein is disclosed to itself in a state-of-mind as thrown, is to be taken as that in the face of which it has been thrown and that to which it has been abandoned. This characterizes the horizonal schema of what has been. In existing for the sake of itself in abandonment to itself as something that has been thrown, Dasein, as Being-alongside, is at the same time making present. The horizonal schema for the Present is DEFINED by the “in-order-to”. [SZ:365] BTMR §69

What seems ‘simpler’ than to characterize the ‘connectedness of life’ between birth and death? It consists of a sequence of Experiences ‘in time’. But if one makes a more penetrating study of this way of characterizing the ‘connectedness’ in question, and especially of the ontological assumptions behind it, the remarkable upshot is that, in this sequence of Experiences, what is ‘really’ ‘actual’ is, in each case, just that Experience which is present-fit-hand ‘in the current “now”’, while those Experiences which have passed away or are only coming along, either are no longer or are not yet ‘actual’. Dasein traverses the span of time granted to it between the two boundaries, and it does so in such a way that, in each case, it is ‘actual’ only in the “now”, and hops, as it were, through the sequence of “nows” of its own ‘time’. Thus it is said that Dasein is ‘temporal’. In spite of the constant changing of these Experiences, the Self maintains itself throughout with a certain selfsameness. Opinions diverge as to how that which thus persists is to be DEFINED, and how one is to determine what relation it may possibly have to the changing Experiences. BTMR §72

[SZ:375] With the analysis of the specific movement and persistence which belong to Dasein’s historizing, we come back in our investigation to the problem which we touched upon immediately before exposing temporality to view – the question of the constancy of the Self, which we DEFINED as the “who” of Dasein. Self-constancy is a way of Being of Dasein, and is therefore grounded in a specific temporalizing of temporality. The analysis of historizing will lead us face to face with the problems of a thematical investigation of temporalizing as such. BTMR §72

The four significations are connected in that they relate to man as the ‘subject’ of events. How is the historizing character of such events to be DEFINED? Is historizing a sequence of processes, an ever-changing emergence and disappearance of events? In what way does this historizing of history belong to Dasein? Is Dasein already factically ‘present-at-hand’ to begin with, so that on occasion it can get ‘into a history’? Does Dasein first become historical by getting intertwined with events and circumstances? Or is the Being of Dasein constituted first of all by historizing, so that anything like circumstances, events, and vicissitudes is ontologically possible only because Dasein is historical in its Being? Why is it that the function of the past gets particularly stressed when the Dasein which historizes ‘in time’ is characterized ‘temporally’? BTMR §73

Dasein factically has its ‘history’, and it can have something of the sort because the Being of this entity is constituted by historicality. We must now justify this thesis, with the aim of expounding the ontological problem of history as an existential one. The Being of Dasein has been DEFINED as care. Care is grounded in temporality. Within the range of temporality, therefore, the kind of historizing which gives existence its definitely historical character, must be sought. Thus the Interpretation of Dasein’s historicality will prove to be, at bottom, just a more concrete working out of temporality. We first revealed temporality with regard to that way of existing authentically which we characterized as anticipatory resoluteness. How far does this imply an authentic historizing of Dasein? BTMR §74

We have DEFINED “resoluteness” as a projecting of oneself upon one’s own Being-guilty – a projecting which is reticent and ready for anxiety. Resoluteness gains its authenticity as anticipatory resoluteness. In this, Dasein understands itself with regard to its potentiality-for-Being, and it does so in such a manner that it will go right under the eyes of Death in order thus to take over in its thrownness that entity which it is itself, and to take it over wholly. The resolute taking over of one’s factical ‘there’, signifies, at the same time, that the Situation is one which has been resolved upon. In the existential analysis we cannot, in principle, discuss what Dasein factically resolves in any particular case. Our investigation excludes even the existential projection of the factical possibilities of existence. Nevertheless, we must ask whence, in general, Dasein can draw those possibilities upon which it factically projects itself. One’s anticipatory projection of oneself on that possibility of existence which is not to be outstripped – on death – guarantees only the totality and authenticity of one’s resoluteness. But those possibilities of existence which have been factically disclosed are not to be gathered from death. And this is still less the case when one’s anticipation of this possibility does not signify that one is speculating about it, but signifies precisely that one is coming back to one’s factical “there”. Will taking over the thrownness of the Self into its world perhaps disclose an horizon from which existence snatches its factical possibilities away? Have we not said in addition that Dasein never comes back behind its thrownness? Before we decide too quickly [SZ:383] whether Dasein draws it authentic possibilities of existence from thrownness or not, we must assure ourselves that we have a full conception of thrownness as a basic attribute of care. BTMR §74

One is acquainted with it, discusses it, encourages it, combats it, retains it, and forgets it, but one always does so primarily with regard to what is getting done and what is ‘going to come of it’ [was ... “herausspringt”]. We compute the progress which the individual Dasein has made – his stoppages, readjustments, and ‘output’; and we do so proximally in terms of that with which he is concerned – its course, its status, its changes, its availability. No matter how trivial it may be to allude to the way in which Dasein is understood in everyday common sense, ontologically this understanding is by no means transparent. But in that case, why should not Dasein’s ‘connectedness’ be DEFINED in terms of what it is concerned with, and what it ‘Experiences’? Do not equipment and work and every thing which Dasein dwells alongside, belong to ‘history’ too? If not, is the historizing of history just the isolated running-off of ‘streams of Experience’ in individual subjects? BTMR §75

But even in this pure sequence of “nows” which passes away in itself, primordial time still manifests itself throughout all this levelling off and covering up. In the ordinary interpretation, the stream of time is DEFINED as an irreversible succession. Why cannot time be reversed? Especially if one looks exclusively at the stream of “nows”, it is incomprehensible in itself why this sequence should not present itself in the reverse direction. The impossibility of this reversal has its basis in the way public time originates in temporality, the temporalizing of which is primarily futural and ‘goes’ to its end ecstatically in such a way that it ‘is’ already towards its end. [SZ:426] BTMR §81

If space gets represented – that is, if it gets intuited immediately in the indifferent subsistence of its differences – then the negations are, as it were, simply given. But by such a representation, space does not get grasped in its Being. Only in thinking is it possible for this to be done – in thinking as the synthesis which has gone through thesis and antithesis and transmuted them. Only if the negations do not simply remain subsisting in their indifference but get transmuted – that is, only if they themselves get negated – does space get thought and thus grasped in its Being. In the negation of the negation (that is, of punctuality) the point posits itself for itself and thus emerges from the indifference of subsisting. As that which is posited for itself, it differentiates itself from this one and from that one: it is no longer this and not yet that. In positing itself for itself, it posits’ the. succession in which it stands – the sphere of Being-outside-of-itself, which is by now the sphere of the negated negation. When punctuality as indifference gets transmuted, this signifies that it no longer remains lying in the ‘paralysed tranquillity of space’. The point ‘gives itself airs’ before all the other points. According to Hegel, this negation of the negation as punctuality is time. If this discussion has any demonstrable meaning, it can mean nothing else than that the positing-of-itself-for-itself of every point is a “now-here”, “now-here”, and so on. Every point ‘is’ posited for itself as a now-point. ‘In time the point thus has actuality.’ That through which each point, as this one here, can posit itself for itself, is in each case a “now”. The “now” is the condition for the possibility of the point’s positing itself for itself. This possibility-condition makes up the Being of the point, and Being is the same as having been thought. Thus in each case the pure thinking of punctuality – that is, of space – ‘thinks’ the “now” and the Being-outside-of-itself of the “now”; because of this, space ‘is’ time. How is time itself DEFINED? BTMR §82

‘Time, as the negative unity of Being-outside-of-itself, is likewise something simply abstract, ideal. It is that Being which, in that it is, is not, and which, in that it is not, is: it is intuited becoming. This means that those differences which, to be sure, are simply momentary, transmuting themselves immediately, are DEFINED as external, yet as external to themselves.’ For this interpretation, time reveals itself as ‘intuited becoming’. According to Hegel this signifies a transition from Being to nothing or from nothing to Being. Becoming is both arising and passing away. BTMR §82

[SZ:431] Either Being ‘makes the transition’, or not-Being does so. What does this mean with regard to time? The Being of time is the “now”. Every “now”, however, either ‘now’ is-no-longer, or now is-not-yet; so it can be taken also as not-Being. Time is ‘intuited’ becoming – that is to say, it is the transition which does not get thought but which simply tenders itself in the sequence of “nows”. If the essence of time is DEFINED as ‘intuited becoming’, then it becomes manifest that time is primarily understood in terms of the “now”, and indeed in the very manner in which one comes across such a “now” in pure intuition. BTMR §82

But because ‘truth’ has this meaning, and because the logos is a definite mode of letting something be seen, the logos is just not the kind of thing that can be considered as the primary ‘locus’ of truth. If, as has become quite customary nowadays, one defines “truth” as something that ‘really’ pertains to judgment, and if one then invokes the support of Aristotle with this thesis, not only is this unjustified, but, above all, the Greek conception of truth has been misunderstood. aisthesis, the sheer sensory perception of something, is ‘true’ in the Greek sense, and indeed more primordially than the logos which we have been discussing. Just as seeing aims at colours, any aisthesis aims at its idia (those entities which are genuinely accessible only through it and for it); and to that extent this perception is always true. This means that seeing always discovers colours, and hearing always discovers sounds. Pure noein is the perception of the simplest determinate ways of Being which entities as such may possess, and it perceives them just by looking at them. This noein is what is ‘true’ in the purest and most primordial sense; that is to say, it merely discovers, and it does so in such a way that it can never cover up. This noein can never cover up; it can never be false; it can at worst remain a non-perceiving, agnoein, not sufficing for straightforward and appropriate access. BTMR §7

Descartes distinguishes the ‘ego cogito’ from the ‘res corporea’. This distinction will thereafter be determinative ontologically for the distinction between ‘Nature’ and ‘spirit’. No matter with how many variations ‘of content the opposition between ‘Nature’ and ‘spirit’ may get set up ontically, its ontological foundations, and indeed the very poles of this opposition, remain unclarified; this unclarity has its proximate [nächste] roots in Descartes’ distinction. What kind of understanding of Being does he have when he defines the Being of these entities? The term for the Being of an entity that is in itself, is “substantia”. Sometimes this expression means the Being of an entity as substance, substantiality; at other times it means the entity itself, a substance. That “substantia” is used in these two ways is not accidental; this already holds for the ancient conception of ousia. [SZ:90] BTMR §19

To what extent has our characterization of the ready-to-hand already come up against its spatiality? We have been talking about what is proximalty ready-to-hand. This means not only those entities which we encounter first before any others, but also those which are ‘close by’. What is ready-to-hand in our everyday dealings has the character of closeness. To be exact, this closeness of equipment has already been intimated in the term ‘readiness-to-hand’, which expresses the Being of equipment. Every entity that is ‘to hand’ has a different closeness, which is not to be ascertained by measuring distances. This closeness regulates itself in terms of circumspectively ‘calculative’ manipulating and using. At the same time what is close in this way gets established by the circumspection of concern, with regard to the direction in which the equipment is accessible at any time. When this closeness of the equipment has been given directionality, this signifies not merely that the equipment has its position [Stelle] in space as present-at-hand somewhere, but also that as equipment it has been essentially fitted up and installed, set up, and put to rights. Equipment has its place [Platz], or else it ‘lies around’; this must be distinguished in principle from just occurring at random in some spatial position. When equipment for something or other has its place, this place defines itself as the place of this equipment – as one place out of a whole totality; of places directionally lined up with each other and belonging to the context of equipment that is environmentally ready-to-hand. Such a place and such a muliplicity of places are not to be interpreted as the “where” of some random Being-present-at-hand of Things. In each case the place is the definite ‘there’ or ‘yonder’ [“Dort” und “Da”] of an item of equipment which belongs somewhere. Its belonging-somewhere at the time [Die jeweilige Hingehörigheit] corresponds to the equipmental character of what is ready-to-hand; that is, it corresponds to the belonging-to [Zugehörigkeit] which the ready-to-hand has towards a totality of equipment in accordance with its involvements. But in general the “whither” to which the totality of places for a context of equipment gets allotted, is the underlying condition which makes possible the belonging-somewhere of an equipmental totality as something that can be placed. This “whither”, which makes it possible for equipment to belong somewhere, and which we circumspectively keep in view ahead of us in our concernful dealings, we call the “region”. BTMR §22

The third consideration which we have mentioned invokes the fact that the everyday experience of the conscience has no acquaintance with anything like getting summoned to Being-guilty. This must be conceded. But does this everyday experience thus give us any guarantee that the ‘full possible content of the call of the voice of conscience has been heard therein? Does it follow from this that theories of conscience which are based on the ordinary way of experiencing it have made certain that their ontological horizon for analysing this phenomenon is an appropriate one? Does not falling, which is an essential kind of Being for Dasein, show us rather that ontically this entity understands itself proximally and for the most part in terms of the horizon of concern, but that ontologically, it defines “Being” in the sense of presence-at-hand? This, however, leads to covering up the phenomenon in two ways: what one sees in this theory is a sequence of Experiences or ‘psychical processes’ – a sequence whose kind of Being is for the most part wholly indefinite. In such experience the conscience is encountered as an arbiter and admonisher, with whom Dasein reckons and pleads its cause. [SZ:293] BTMR §59

When in the course of existential ontological analysis we ask how theoretical discovery ‘arises’ out of circumspective concern, this implies already that we are not making a problem of the ontical history and development of science, or of the factical occasions for it, or of its proximate goals. In seeking the ontological genesis of the theoretical attitude, we are asking which of those conditions implied in Dasein’s state of Being are existentially necessary for the possibility of Dasein’s existing in the way of scientific research. This formulation of the question is aimed at an existential conception of science. This must be distinguished from the ‘logical’ conception which understands science with regard to its results and defines it as ‘something established on an interconnection of true propositions – that is, propositions counted as valid’. The existential conception understands science as a way of existence and thus as a mode of Being-in-the-world, which discovers or discloses either entities or Being. Yet a fully adequate existential Interpretation of science cannot be carried out until the meaning of Being and the ‘connection’ between Being and truth have been clarified in terms of the temporality of existence. The following deliberations are preparatory to the understanding of this central problematic, within which, moreover, the idea of phenomenology, as distinguished from the preliminary conception of it which we indicated by way of introduction will be developed for the first time. BTMR §69

If Hegel calls time ‘intuited becoming’, then neither arising nor passing away has any priority in time. Nevertheless, on occasion he characterizes time as the ‘abstraction of consuming’ [“Abstraktion des Verzehrens”] – the most radical formula for the way in which time is ordinarily experienced and interpreted. On the other hand, when Hegel really defines “time”, he is consistent enough to grant no such priority to consuming and passing away as that which the everyday way of experiencing time rightly adheres to; for Hegel can no more provide dialectical grounds for such a priority than he can for the ‘circumstance’ (which he has introduced as self-evident) that the “now” turns up precisely in the way the point posits itself for itself. So even when he characterizes time as “becoming”, Hegel understands this “becoming” in an ‘abstract’ sense, which goes well beyond the representation of the ‘stream’, of time. Thus [SZ:432] the most appropriate expression which the Hegelian treatment of time receives, lies in his DEFINING it as “the negation of a negation” (that is, of punctuality). Here the sequence of “nows” has been formalized in the most extreme sense and levelled off in such a way that one can hardly go any farther. Only from the standpoint of this formal-dialectical conception of time can Hegel produce any connection between time and spirit. BTMR §82

In the question which we are to work out, what is asked about is Being – that which determines entities as entities, that on the basis of which [woraufhin] entities are already understood, however we may discuss them in detail. The Being of entities ‘is’ not itself an entity. If we are to understand the problem of Being, our first philosophical step consists in not mython tina diegeisthai, in not ‘telling a story’ – that is to say, in not DEFINING entities as entities by tracing them back in their origin to some other entities, as if Being had the character of some possible entity. Hence Being, as that which is asked about, must be exhibited in a way of its own, essentially different from the way in which entities are discovered. Accordingly, what is to be found out by the asking – the meaning of Being – also demands that it be conceived in a way of its own, essentially contrasting with the concepts in which entities acquire their determinate signification. BTMR §2

[SZ:29] This is what one is talking about when one speaks of the ‘symptoms of a disease’ [“Krankheitserscheinungen”]. Here one has in mind certain occurrences in the body which show themselves and which, in showing themselves a s thus showing themselves, ‘indicate’ [“indizieren”] something which does not show itself. The emergence [Auftreten] of such occurrences, their showing-themselves, goes together with the Being-present-at-hand of disturbances which do not show themselves. Thus appearance, as the appearance ‘of something’, does not mean showingitself; it means rather the announcing-itself by [von] something which does not show itself, but which announces itself through something which does show itself. Appearing is a not-showing-itself. But the ‘not’ we find here is by no means to be confused with the privative “not” which we used in DEFINING the structure of semblance. What appears does not show itself; and anything which thus fails to show itself, is also something which can never seem. All indications, presentations, symptoms, and symbols have this basic formal structure of appearing, even though they differ among themselves. BTMR §7

The researches of Wilhelm Dilthey were stimulated by the perennial question of ‘life’. Starting from ‘life’ itself as a whole, he tried to understand its ‘Experiences’ in their structural and developmental inter-connections. His ‘geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie’ is one which no longer seeks to be oriented towards psychical elements and atoms or to piece the life of the soul together, but aims rather at ‘Gestalten’ and ‘life as a whole’. Its philosophical relevance, however, is not to be sought here, but rather in the fact that in all this he was, above all, on his way towards the question of ‘life’. To be sure, we can also see here very plainly how limited were both his problematic and the set of concepts with which it had to be put [SZ:47] into words. These limitations, however, are found not only in Dilthey and Bergson but in all the ‘personalistic’ movements to which they have given direction and in every tendency towards a philosophical anthropology. The phenomenological Interpretation of personality is in principle more radical and more transparent; but the question of the Being of Dasein has a dimension which this too fails to enter. No matter how much Husserl and Scheler may differ in their respective inquiries, in their methods of conducting them, and in their orientations towards the world as a whole, they are fully in agreement on the negative side of their Interpretations of personality. The question of ‘personal Being’ itself is one which they no longer raise. We have chosen Scheler’s Interpretation as an example, not only because it is accessible in print, but because he emphasizes personal Being explicitly as such, and tries to determine its character by DEFINING the specific Being of acts as contrasted with anything ‘psychical’. For Scheler, the person is never to be thought of as a Thing or a substance; the person ‘is rather the unity of living-through [Er-lebens] which is immediately experienced in and with our Experiences – not a Thing merely thought of behind and outside what is immediately Experienced’. The person is no Thinglike and substantial Being. Nor can the Being of a person be entirely absorbed in being a subject of rational acts which follow certain laws. BTMR §10

First, the ‘in-the-world’. With regard to this there arises the task of inquiring into the ontological structure of the ‘world’ and DEFINING the idea of worldhood as such. (See the third chapter of this Division.) BTMR §12

The Greeks had an appropriate term for ‘Things’: pragmata – that is to say, that which one has to do with in one’s concernful dealings (praxis). But ontologically, the specifically ‘pragmatic’ character of the pragmata is just what the Greeks left in obscurity; they thought of these ‘proximally’ as ‘mere Things’. We shall call those entities which we encounter in concern “equipment”. In our dealings we come across equipment for writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement. The kind of Being which equipment possesses must be exhibited. The clue for doing this lies in our first DEFINING what makes an item of equipment – namely, its equipmentality. BTMR §15

Thus the ontological grounds for DEFINING the ‘world’ as res extensa have been made plain: they lie in the idea of substantiality, which not only remains unclarified in the meaning of its Being, but gets passed off as something incapable of clarification, and gets represented indirectly by way of whatever substantial property belongs most pre-eminently to the particular substance. Moreover, in this way of DEFINING “substance” through some substantial entity, lies the reason why the term “substance” is used in two ways. What is here intended is substantiality; and it gets understood in terms of a characteristic of substance – a characteristic which is itself an entity. Because something ontical is made to underlie the ontological, the expression “substantia” functions sometimes with a signification which is ontological, sometimes with one which is ontical, but mostly with one which is hazily ontico-ontological. Behind this slight difference of signification, however, there lies hidden a failure to master the basic problem of Being. To treat this adequately, we must ‘track down’ the equivocations in the right way. He who attempts this sort of thing does not just ‘busy himself’ with ‘merely verbal significations’; he must venture forward into the most primordial problematic of the ‘things themselves’ to get such ‘nuances’ straightened out. [SZ:95] BTMR §20

For one thing, it can be demonstrated, by considering assertion, in what ways the structure of the ‘as’, which is constitutive for understanding and interpretation, can be modified. When this has been done, both understanding and interpretation will be brought more sharply into view. For another thing, the analysis of assertion has a special position in the problematic of fundamental ontology, because in the decisive period when ancient ontology was beginning, the logos functioned as the only clue for obtaining access to that which authentically is [zun eigentlich Seienden], and for DEFINING the Being of such entities. Finally assertion has been accepted from ancient times as the primary and authentic ‘locus’ of truth. The phenomenon of truth is so thoroughly coupled with the problem of Being that our investigation, as it proceeds further, will necessarily come up against the problem of truth; and it already lies within the dimensions of that problem, though not explicitly. The analysis of assertion will at the same time prepare the way for this latter problematic. BTMR §33

With the expression ‘care’ we have in mind a basic existential-ontological phenomenon, which all the same is not simple in its structure. The ontologically elemental totality of the care-structure cannot be traced back to some ontical ‘primal element’, just as Being certainly cannot be ‘explained’ in terms of entities. In the end it will be shown that the idea of Being in general is just as far from being ‘simple’ as is the Being of Dasein. In DEFINING “care” as “Being-ahead-of-oneself – in-Being-already-in ... – as Being-alongside ...”, we have made it plain that even this phenomenon is, in itself, still structurally articulated. But is this not a phenomenal symptom that we must pursue the ontological question even further until we can exhibit a still more primordial phenomenon which provides the ontological support for the unity and the totality of the structural manifoldness of care? Before we follow up this question, we must look back and appropriate with greater precision what we have hitherto Interpreted in aiming at the question of fundamental ontology as to the meaning of Being in general. First, however, we must show that what is ontologically ‘new’ in this Interpretation is ontically quite old. In explicating Dasein’s Being as care, we are not forcing it under an idea of our own contriving, but we are conceptualizing existentially what has already been disclosed in an ontico-existentiell manner. BTMR §41

From the foregoing discussion of the ontological possibility of getting death into our grasp, it becomes clear at the same time that substructures of entities with another kind of Being (presence-at-hand or life) thrust themselves to the fore unnoticed, and threaten to bring confusion to the Interpretation of this phenomenon – even to the first suitable way of presenting it. We can encounter this phenomenon only by seeking, for our further analysis, an ontologically adequate way of DEFINING the phenomena which are constitutive for it, such as “end” and “totality”. BTMR §47

Ending, as Being-towards-the-end, must be clarified ontologically in terms of Dasein’s kind of Being. And presumably the possibility of an existent Being of that “not-yet” which lies ‘before’ the ‘end’, will become intelligible only if the character of ending has been determined existentially. The existential clarification of Being-towards-the-end will also give us for the first time an adequate basis for DEFINING what can possibly be the meaning of our talk about a totality of Dasein, if indeed this totality is to be constituted by death as the ‘end’. BTMR §48

DEFINING the existential structure of Being-towards-the-end helps us to work out a kind of Being of Dasein in which Dasein, as Dasein, can be a whole. The fact that even everyday Dasein already is towards its end – that is to say, is constantly coming to grips with its death, though in a ‘fugitive’ manner – shows that this end, conclusive [abschliessende] and determinative for Being-a-whole, is not something to which Dasein ultimately comes only in its demise. In Dasein, as being towards its death, its own uttermost “not-yet” has already been included – that “not-yet” which all others lie ahead of. So if one has given an ontologically inappropriate Interpretation of Dasein’s “not-yet” as something still outstanding, any formal inference from this to Dasein’s lack of totality will not be correct. The Phenomenon of the “not-yet” has been taken over from the “ahead-of-itself”; no more than the care-structure in general, can it serve as a higher court which would rule against the possibility of an existent Being-a-whole; indeed this “ahead-of-itself” is what first of all makes such a Being-towards-the-end possible. The problem of the possible Being-a-whole of that entity which each of us is, is a correct one if care, as Dasein’s basic state, is ‘connected’ with death – the uttermost possibility for that entity. BTMR §52

We need not consider how such requirements arise and in what way their character as requirements and laws must be conceived by reason of their having such a source. In any case, “Being-guilty” in the sense last mentioned, the breach of a ‘moral requirement’, is a kind of Being which belongs to Dasein. Of course this holds good also for “Being-guilty” as ‘making oneself punishable’ and as ‘having debts’, and for any ‘having responsibility for ...’. These too are ways in which Dasein behaves. If one takes ‘laden with moral guilt’ as a ‘quality’ of Dasein, one has said very little. On the contrary, this only makes it manifest that such a characterization does not suffice for distinguishing ontologically between this kind of ‘attribute of Being’ for Dasein and those other ways of behaving which we have just listed. After all, the concept of moral guilt has been so little clarified ontologically that when the idea of deserving punishment, or even of having debts to someone, has also been included in this concept, or when these ideas have been employed in the very DEFINING of it, such interpretations of this phenomenon could become prevalent and have remained so. But therewith the ‘Guilty!’ gets thrust aside into the domain of concern in the sense of reckoning up claims and balancing them off. [SZ:283] BTMR §58

Now that resoluteness has been worked out as Being-guilty, a selfprojection in which one is reticent and ready for anxiety, our investigation has been put in a position for DEFINING the ontological meaning of that potentiality which we have been seeking – Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. By now the authenticity of Dasein is neither an empty term nor an idea which someone has fabricated. But even so, as an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, the authentic Being-towards-death which we have deduced existentially still remains a purely existential project for which Dasein’s attestation is missing. Only when such attestation has been found will our investigation suffice to exhibit (as its problematic requires) an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, existentially confirmed and clarified – a potentiality which belongs to Dasein. For only when this entity has become phenomenally accessible in its authenticity and its totality, will the question of the meaning of the Being of this entity, to whose existence there belongs in general an understanding of Being, be based upon something which will stand any test. BTMR §60

Under the guidance of this idea the preparatory analysis of the everydayness that lies closest to us has been carried out as far as the first conceptual [SZ:314] DEFINITION of “care”. This latter phenomenon has enabled us to get a more precise grasp of existence and of its relations to facticity and falling. And DEFINING the structure of care has given us a basis on which to distinguish ontologically between existence and Reality for the first time. This has led us to the thesis that the substance of man is existence. BTMR §63

How are we to conceive this unity? How can Dasein exist as a unity in the ways and possibilities of its Being which we have mentioned? Manifestly, it can so exist only in such a way that it is itself this Being in its essential possibilities – that in each case I am this entity. The ‘I’ seems to ‘hold together’ the totality of the structural whole. In the ‘ontology’ of this entity, the ‘I’ and the ‘Self’ have been conceived from the earliest times as the supporting ground (as substance or subject). Even in its preparatory characterization of everydayness, our analytic has already come up against the question of Dasein’s “who”. It has been shown that proximally and for the most part Dasein is not itself but is lost in the they-self, which is an existentiell modification of the authentic Self. The question of the ontological constitution of Selfhood has remained unanswered. In principle, of course, we have already fixed upon a clue for this problem; for if the Self belongs to the essential [wesenhaften] attributes of Dasein, while Dasein’s ‘Essence’ [“Essenz”] lies in existence, then “I”-hood and Selfhood must be conceived existentially. On the negative side, it has also been shown that our ontological characterization of the “they” prohibits us from making any use of categories of presence-at-hand (such as substance). It has become clear, in principle, that ontologically care is not to be derived from Reality or to be built up with the [SZ:318] categories of Reality. Care already harbours in itself the phenomenon of the Self, if indeed the thesis is correct that the expression ‘care for oneself’ [“Selbstsorge”], would be tautological if it were proposed in conformity with the term “solicitude” [Fürsorge] as care for Others. But in that case the problem of DEFINING ontologically the Selfhood of Dasein gets sharpened to the question of the existential ‘connection’ between care and Selfhood. BTMR §64

The temporal Interpretation of everyday Dasein must start with those structures in which disclosedness constitutes itself: understanding, state-of-mind, falling, and discourse. The modes in which temporality temporalizes are to be laid bare with regard to these phenomena, and will give us a basis for DEFINING the temporality of Being-in-the-world. This leads us back to the phenomenon of the world, and permits us to delimit the specifically temporal problematic of worldhood. This must be confirmed by characterizing that kind of Being-in-the-world which in an everyday manner is closest to us – circumspective, falling concern. The temporality of this concern makes it possible for circumspection to be modified into a perceiving which looks at things, and the theoretical cognition which is grounded in such perceiving. The temporality of Being-in-the-world thus emerges, and it turns out, at the same time, to be the foundation for that spatiality which is specific for Dasein. We must also show the temporal Constitution of deseverance and directionality. Taken as a whole, these analyses will reveal a possibility for the temporalizing of temporality in which Dasein’s inauthenticity is ontologically grounded; and they will lead us face to face with the question of how the temporal character of everydayness – the temporal meaning of the phrase ‘proximally and for the most part’, which we have been using constantly hitherto – is to be understood. By fixing upon this problem we shall have. made it plain that the clarification of this phenomenon which we have so far attained is insufficient, and we shall have shown the extent of this insufficiency. [SZ:335] BTMR §67

‘The genuine Philologus – he conceives of History as a cabinet of antiquities. Where nothing is palpable – whither one has been guided only by a living psychical transposition – these gentlemen never come. At heart they are natural scientists, and they become sceptics all the more because experimentation is lacking. We must keep wholly aloof from all such rubbish, for instance, as how often Plato was in Magna Graecia or Syracuse. On this nothing vital depends. This superficial affectation which I have seen through critically, winds up at last with a big question-mark and is put to shame by the great Realities of Homer, Plato, and the New Testament. Everything that is actually Real becomes a mere phantom when one considers it as a “Thing in itself” – when it does not get Experienced’ (p. 61). ‘These “scientists” stand over against the powers of the times like the over-refined French society of the revolutionary period. Here as there, formalism, the cult of the form; the DEFINING of relationship is the last word in wisdom. Naturally, thought which runs in this direction has its own history, which, I suppose, is still unwritten. The groundlessness of such thinking and of any belief in it (and such thinking, epistemologically considered, is a metaphysical attitude) is a Historical product’ (p. 39). ‘It seems to me that the ground-swells evoked by the principle of eccentricity, which led to a new era more than four hundred years ago, have become exceedingly broad and flat; that our knowledge has progressed to the point of cancelling itself out; that man has withdrawn so far from himself that he no longer sees himself at all. The “modern man” – that is to say, the post-Renaissance man – is ready for burial’ (p. 83). On the other hand, “All History that is truly alive and not just reflecting a tinge of life, is a critique’ (p. 19). ‘But historical knowledge is, for the best [SZ:401] part, knowledge of the hidden sources’ (p. 109). ‘With history, what makes a spectacle and catches the eye is not the main thing. The nerves are invisible, just as the essentials in general are invisible. While it is said that “if you were quiet, you would be strong”, the variant is also true that “if you are quiet, you will perceive – that is, understand”’ (p. 26). ‘And then I enjoy the quietude of soliloquizing and communing with the spirit of history. This spirit is one who did not appear to Faust in his study, or to Master Goethe either. But they would have felt no alarm in making way for him, however grave and compelling such an apparition might be. For he is brotherly, akin to us in another and deeper sense than are the denizens of bush and field. These exertions are like Jacob’s wrestling – a sure gain for the wrestler himself. Indeed this is what matters first of all’ (p. 133). BTMR §77

Yorck gained his clear insight into the basic character of history as ‘virtuality’ from his knowledge of the character of the Being which human Dasein itself possesses, not from the Objects of historical study, as ‘a theory of science would demand. ‘The entire psycho-physical datum is not one that is (Here “Being” equals the Being-present-at-hand of Nature. – Author’s remark) but one that lives; this is the germinal point of historicality. And if the consideration of the Self is directed not at an abstract “I” but at the fulness of my Self, it will find me Historically determined, just as physics knows me as cosmically determined. Just as I am Nature, so I am history ...’ (p. 71). And Yorck, who saw through all bogus ‘DEFINING of relationships’ and ‘groundless’ relativisms, did not hesitate to draw the final conclusion from his insight into the historicality of Dasein. ‘But, on the other hand, in view of the inward historicality of self-consciousness, a systematic that is divorced from History is methodologically inadequate. Just as physiology cannot be studied in abstraction from physics, neither can philosophy from historicality – especially if it is a critical philosophy. Behaviour and historicality are like breathing and atmospheric pressure; and – this may sound rather paradoxical – it seems to me methodologically like a residue from metaphysics not to historicize one’s philosophizing’ (p. 69). ‘Because to philosophize is to live, there is, in my opinion (do not be alarmed!), a philosophy of history – but who would be able to write it? Certainly it is not the sort of thing it has hitherto been taken to be, or the sort that has so far been attempted; you have declared yourself incontrovertibly against all that. Up till now, the question has been formulated in a way which is false, even impossible; but this is not the only way of formulating it. Thus there is no longer any [SZ:402] actual philosophizing which would not be Historical. The separation between systematic philosophy and Historical presentation is essentially incorrect’ (p. 251). ‘That a science can become practical is now, of course, the real basis for its justification. But the mathematical praxis is not the only one. The practical aim of our standpoint is one that is pedagogical in the broadest and deepest sense of the word. Such an aim is the soul of all true philosophy, and the truth of Plato and Aristotle’ (pp. 42 f.). ‘You know my views on the possibility of ethics as a science. In spite of that, this can always be done a little better. For whom are such books really written? Registries about registries! The only thing worthy of notice is what drives them to come from physics to ethics’ (p. 73). ‘If philosophy is conceived as a manifestation of life, and not as the coughing up of a baseless kind of thinking (and such thinking appears baseless because one’s glance gets turned away from the basis of consciousness), then one’s task is as meagre in its results as it is complicated and arduous in the obtaining of them. Freedom from prejudice is what it presupposes, and such freedom is hard to gain’ (p. 250). BTMR §77

Hitherto our arguments for showing that the question must be restated have been motivated in part by its venerable origin but chiefly by the lack of a definite answer and even by the absence of any satisfactory formulation of the question itself. One may, however, ask what purpose this question is supposed to serve. Does it simply remain – or is it at all – a mere matter for soaring speculation about the most general of generalities, or is it rather, of all questions, both the most basic arid the most concrete? [SZ:9] BTMR §3

Being is always the Being of an entity. The totality of entities can, in accordance with its various domains, become a field for laying bare and delimiting certain definite areas of subject-matter. These areas, on their part (for instance, history, Nature, space, life, Dasein, language, and the like), can serve as objects which corresponding scientific investigations may take as their respective themes. Scientific research accomplishes, roughly and naïvely, the demarcation and initial fixing of the areas of subject-matter. The basic structures of any such area have already been worked out after a fashion in our pre-scientific ways of experiencing and interpreting that domain of Being in which the area of subject-matter is itself confined. The ‘basic concepts’ which thus arise remain our proximal clues for disclosing this area concretely for the first time. And although research may always lean towards this positive approach, its real progress comes not so much from collecting results and storing them away in ‘manuals’ as from inquiring into the ways in which each particular area is basically constituted [Grundverfassungen] – an inquiry to which we have been driven mostly by reacting against just such an increase in information. BTMR §3

Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it. But in that case, this is a constitutive state of Dasein’s Being, and this implies that Dasein, in its Being, has a relationship towards that Being – a relationship which itself is one of Being. And this means further that there is some way in which Dasein understands itself in its Being, and that to some degree it does so explicitly. It is peculiar to this entity that with and through its Being, this Being is disclosed to it. Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein’s Being. Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological. BTMR §4

Sciences are ways of Being in which Dasein comports itself towards entities which it need not be itself. But to Dasein, Being in a world is something that belongs essentially. Thus Dasein’s understanding of Being pertains with equal primordiality both to an understanding of something like a ‘world’, and to the understanding of the Being of those entities which become accessible within the world. So whenever an ontology takes for its theme entities whose character of Being is other than that of Dasein, it has its own foundation and motivation in Dasein’s own ontical structure, in which a pre-ontological understanding of Being is comprised as a definite characteristic. BTMR §4

Everyone who is acquainted with the middle ages sees that Descartes is ‘dependent’ upon medieval scholasticism and employs its terminology. But with this ‘discovery’ nothing is achieved philosophically as long as it remains obscure to what a profound extent the medieval ontology has influenced the way in which posterity has determined or failed to determine the ontological character of the res cogitans. The full extent of this cannot be estimated until both the meaning and the limitations of the ancient ontology have been exhibited in terms of an orientation directed towards the question of Being. In other words, in our process of destruction we find ourselves faced with the task of Interpreting the basis of the ancient ontology in the light of the problematic of Temporality. When this is done, it will be manifest that the ancient way of interpreting the Being of entities is oriented towards the ‘world’ or ‘Nature’ in the widest sense, and that it is indeed in terms of ‘time’ that its understanding of Being is obtained. The outward evidence for this (though of course it is merely outward evidence) is the treatment of the meaning of Being as parousia or ousia, which signifies, in ontologico-Temporal terms, ‘presence’ [“Anwesenheit”]. Entities are grasped in their Being as ‘presence’; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time – the ‘Present’ BTMR §6

When, moreover, we use the term “ontology”, we are not talking about some definite philosophical discipline standing in interconnection with the others. Here one does not have to measure up to the tasks of some discipline that has been presented beforehand; on the contrary, only in terms of the objective necessities of definite questions and the kind of treatment which the ‘things themselves’ require, can one develop such a discipline. BTMR §7

In determining itself as an entity, Dasein always does so in the light of a possibility which it is itself and which, in its very Being, it somehow understands. This is the formal meaning of Dasein’s existential constitution. But this tells us that if we are to Interpret this entity ontologically, the problematic of its Being must be developed from the existentiality of its existence. This cannot mean, however, that “Dasein” is to be construed in terms of some concrete possible idea of existence. At the outset of our analysis it is particularly important that Dasein should not be Interpreted with the differentiated character [Differenz] of some definite way of existing, but that it should be uncovered [aufgedeckt] in the undifferentiated character which it has proximally and for the most part. This undifferentiated character of Dasein’s everydayness is not nothing, but a positive phenomenal characteristic of this entity. Out of this kind of Being – and back into it again – is all existing, such as it is. We call this everyday undifferentiated character of Dasein “averageness” [Durchschnittlichkeit]. BTMR §9

Dasein’s average everydayness, however, is not to be taken as a mere ‘aspect’. Here too, and even in the mode of inauthenticity, the structure of existentiality lies a priori. And here too Dasein’s Being is an issue for it in a definite way; and Dasein comports itself towards it in the mode of average everydayness, even if this is only the mode of fleeing in the face of it and forgetfulness thereof. BTMR §9

At the same time it is of course misleading to exemplify the aim of our analytic historiologically in this way. One of our first tasks will be to prove that if we posit an “I” or subject as that which is proximally given, we shall completely miss the phenomenal content [Bestand] of Dasein. Ontologicaly, every idea of a ‘subject’ – unless refined by a previous ontological determination of its basic character – still posits the subjectum (hypokeimenon) along with it, no matter how vigorous one’s ontical protestations against the ‘soul substance’ or the ‘reification of consciousness’. The Thinghood itself which such reification implies must have its ontological origin demonstrated if we are to be in a position to ask what we are to understand positively when we think of the unreified Being of the subject, the soul, the consciousness, the spirit, the person. All these terms refer to definite phenomenal domains which can be ‘given form’ [“ausformbare”]: but they are never used without a notable failure to see the need for inquiring about the Being of the entities thus designated. So we are not being terminologically arbitrary when we avoid these terms – or such expressions as ‘life’ and ‘man’ – in designating those entities which we are ourselves. BTMR §10

The person is not a Thing, not a substance, not an object. Here Scheler is emphasizing what Husserl suggests when he insists that the unity of the person must have a Constitution essentially different from that required for the unity of Things of Nature. What Scheler says of the person, he applies to acts as well: ‘But an act is never also an object; for it is essential to the Being of acts that they are Experienced only in their performance itself and given in reflection.’ Acts are something nonpsychical. Essentially the person exists only in the performance of intentional acts, and is therefore essentially not an object. Any psychical Objectification of acts, and hence any way of taking them as something psychical, is tantamount to depersonalization. A person is in any case given as a performer of intentional acts which are bound together by the unity of a meaning. Thus psychical Being has nothing to do with personal Being. Acts get performed; the person is a performer of acts. What, however, is the ontological meaning of ‘performance’? How is the kind of Being which belongs to a person to be ascertained ontologically in a positive way? But the critical question cannot stop here. It must face the Being of the whole man, who is customarily taken as a unity of body, [SZ:48] soul, and spirit. In their turn “body”, “soul”, and “spirit” may designate phenomenal domains which can be detached as themes for definite investigations; within certain limits their ontological indefiniteness may not be important. When, however, we come to the question of man’s Being, this is not something we can simply compute by adding together those kinds of Being which body, soul, and spirit respectively possess – kinds of Being whose nature has not as yet been determined. And even if we should attempt such an ontological procedure, some idea of the Being of the whole must be presupposed. But what stands in the way of the basic question of Dasein’s Being (or leads it off the track) is an orientation thoroughly coloured by the anthropology of Christianity and the ancient world, whose inadequate ontological foundations have been overlooked both by the philosophy of life and by personalism. There are two important elements in this traditional anthropology: sin wort, zeigt er klarlich an, dass er nach siner natur etwas Gott näher anerborn, etwas mee nachschlägt, etwas zuzugszu jm hat, das alles on zwyfel darus flüsst, dass er nach dem bildnus Gottes geschaffen ist’. BTMR §10

But heretofore our information about primitives has been provided by ethnology. And ethnology operates with definite preliminary conceptions and interpretations of human Dasein in general, even in first ‘receiving’ its material, and in sifting it and working it up. Whether the everyday psychology or even the scientific psychology and sociology which the ethnologist brings with him can provide any scientific assurance that we can have proper access to the phenomena we are studying, and can interpret them and transmit them in the right way, has not yet been established. Here too we are confronted with the same state of affairs as in the other disciplines we have discussed. Ethnology itself already presupposes as its clue an inadequate analytic of Dasein. But since the positive sciences neither ‘can’ nor should wait for the ontological labours of philosophy to be done, the further course of research will not take the form of an ‘advance’ but will be accomplished by recapitulating what has already been ontically discovered, and by purifying it in a way which is ontologically more transparent. BTMR §11

[SZ:53] But these are both ways in which Dasein’s Being takes on a definite character, and they must be seen and understood a priori as grounded upon that state of Being which we have called “Being-in-the-world’. An interpretation of this constitutive state is needed if we are to set up our analytic of Dasein correctly. BTMR §12

What is meant by “Being-in”? Our proximal reaction is to round out this expression to “Being-in ‘in the world’”, and we are inclined to understand this Being-in as ‘Being in something’ (“Sein in ...”]. This latter term designates the kind of Being which an entity has when it is ‘in’ another one, as the water is ‘in’ the glass, or the garment is ‘in’ the cupboard. By this ‘in’ we mean the relationship of Being which two entities extended ‘in’ space have to each other with regard to their location in that space. Both water and glass, garment and cupboard, are ‘in’ space and ‘at’ a location, and both in the same way. This relationship of Being can be expanded: for instance, the bench is in the lecture-room, the lecture-room is in the university, the university is in the city, and so on, until we can say that the bench is ‘in world-space’. All entities whose Being ‘in’ one another can thus be described have the same kind of Being – that of Being-present-at-hand – as Things occurring ‘within’ the world. Being-present-at-hand ‘in’ something which is likewise present-at-hand, and Being-present-at-hand-along-with [Mitvorhandensein] in the sense of a definite location-relationship with something else which has the same kind of Being, are ontological characteristics which we call “categorial”: they are of such a sort as to belong to entities whose kind of Being is not of the character of Dasein. [SZ:54] BTMR §12

As an existentiale, ‘Being alongside’ the world never means anything like the Being-present-at-hand-together of Things that occur. There is no such thing as the ‘side-by-side-ness’ of an entity called ‘Dasein’ with another entity called ‘world’. Of course when two things are present-at-hand together alongside one another, we are accustomed to express this occasionally by something like ‘The table stands “by” [‘bei’] the door’ or ‘The chair “touches” [‘berührt’] the wall’. Taken strictly, ‘touching’ is never what we are talking about in such cases, not because accurate reexamination will always eventually establish that there is a space between the chair and the wall, but because in principle the chair can never touch the wall, even if the space between them should be equal to zero. If the chair could touch the wall, this would presuppose that the wall is the sort of thing ‘for’ which a chair would be encounterable. An entity present-at-hand within the world can be touched by another entity only if by its very nature the latter entity has Being-in as its own kind of Being – only if, with its Being-there [Da-sein], something like the world is already revealed to it, so that from out of that world another entity can manifest itself in touching, and thus become accessible in its Being-present-at-hand. When two entities are present-at-hand within the world, and furthermore are worldless in themselves, they can never ‘touch’ each other, nor can either of them ‘be’ ‘alongside’ the other. The clause ‘furthermore are worldless’ must not be left out; for even entities which are not worldless – Dasein itself, for example – are present-at-hand ‘in’ the world, or, more exactly, can with some right and within certain limits be taken as merely present-at-hand. To do this, one must completely disregard or just not see the existential state of Being-in. But the fact that ‘Dasein’ can be taken as something which is present-at-hand and just present-at-hand, is not to be confused with a certain way of ‘presence-at-hand’ which is Dasein’s own. This latter kind of presence-at-hand becomes accessible not by disregarding Dasein’s specific structures but only by understanding them in advance. Dasein understands its ownmost Being in the sense of a certain ‘factual Being-present-at-hand’. And yet the ‘factuality’ of the fact [Tatsache] of one’s own Dasein is at bottom quite different ontologically from the factual occurrence of some kind of mineral, for example. Whenever Dasein is, it is as a Fact; and the factuality of such a Fact is what we shall call Dasein’s “facticity”. This is a definite way of Being [Seinsbestimmtheit], and it has a complicated structure which cannot even be grasped as a problem until Dasein’s basic existential states have been worked out. The concept of “facticity” implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its ‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world. [SZ:56] BTMR §12

Dasein’s facticity is such that its Being-in-the-world has always dispersed [zerstreut] itself or even split itself up into definite ways of Being-in. The multiplicity of these is indicated by the following examples: having to do with something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go, undertaking, accomplishing, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, determining... . All these ways of Being-in have concern as their kind of Being – a kind of Being which we have yet to characterize in detail. Leaving undone, neglecting, renouncing, taking a rest – these too are ways of concern; but these are all deficient modes, in which the possibilities of concern are kept to a ‘bare minimum’. The term ‘concern’ has, in the first instance, its colloquial [vorwissenschaftliche] signification, and can mean to carry out something, to get it done [erledigen], to ‘straighten it out’. It can also mean to ‘provide oneself with something’. We use the expression with still another characteristic turn of phrase when we say “I am concerned for the success of the undertaking.” Here ‘concern’ means something like apprehensiveness. In contrast to these colloquial ontical significations, the expression ‘concern’ will be used in this investigation as an ontological term for an existentiale, and will designate the Being of a possible way of Being-in-the-world. This term has been chosen not because Dasein happens to be proximally and to a large extent ‘practical’ and economic, but because the Being of Dasein itself [SZ:57] is to be made visible as care. This expression too is to be taken as an ontological structural concept. (See Chapter 6 of this Division.) It has nothing to do with ‘tribulation’, ‘melancholy’, or the ‘cares of life’, though ontically one can come across these in every Dasein. These – like their opposites, ‘gaiety’ and ‘freedom from care’ – are ontically possible only because Dasein, when understood ontologically, is care. Because Being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein, its Being towards the world [Sein zur Welt] is essentially concern. BTMR §12

If we now ask what shows itself in the phenomenal findings about knowing, we must keep in mind that knowing is grounded beforehand in a Being-already-alongside-the-world, which is essentially constitutive for Dasein’s Being. Proximally, this Being-already-alongside is not just a fixed staring at something that is purely present-at-hand. Being-in-the-world, as concern, is fascinated by the world with which it is concerned. If knowing is to be possible as a way of determining the nature of the present-at-hand by observing it, then there must first be a deficiency in our having-to-do with the world concernfully. When concern holds back [Sichenthalten] from any kind of producing, manipulating, and the like, it puts itself into what is now the sole remaining mode of Being-in, the mode of just tarrying alongside... . [das Nur-noch-verweilen bei ...] This kind of Being towards the world is one which lets us encounter entities within-the-world purely in the way the look (eidos), just that; on the basis of this kind of Being, and as a mode of it, looking explicitly at what we encounter is possible. Looking at something in this way is sometimes a definite way of taking up a direction towards something – of setting our sights towards what is present-at-hand. It takes over a ‘view-point’ in advance from the entity which it encounters. Such looking-at enters the mode of dwelling autonomously alongside entities within-the-world. In this kind of ‘dwelling’ as a holding-oneself-back from any manipulation or utilization, the perception of the present-at-hand is consummated. Perception is consummated when one addresses oneself to something as something and discusses it as such. This amounts to interpretation in the broadest sense; and on the basis of such interpretation, perception becomes an act of making determinate. What is thus perceived and made determinate can be expressed in propositions, and can be retained and preserved as what has thus been asserted. This perceptive retention of an assertion about something is itself a way of Being-in-the-world; it is not to be Interpreted as a ‘procedure’ by which a subject provides itself with representations [Vorstellungen] of something which remain stored up ‘inside’ as having been thus appropriated, and with regard to which the question of how they ‘agree’ with actuality can occasionally arise. [SZ:62] BTMR §13

A glance at previous ontology shows that if one fails to see Being-in-the-world as a state of Dasein, the phenomenon of worldhood likewise gets passed over. One tries instead to Interpret the world in terms of the Being of those entities which are present-at-hand within-the-world but which are by no means proximally discovered – namely, in terms of Nature. If one understands Nature ontologico-categorially, one finds that Nature is a limiting case of the Being of possible entities within-the-world. Only in some definite mode of its own Being-in-the-world can Dasein discover entities as Nature. This manner of knowing them has the character of depriving the world of its worldhood in a definite way. ‘Nature’, as the categorial aggregate of those structures of Being which a definite entity encountered within-the-world may possess, can never make worldhood intelligible. But even the phenomenon of ‘Nature’, as it is conceived, for instance, in romanticism, can be grasped ontologically only in terms of the concept of the world – that is to say, in terms of the analytic of Dasein. BTMR §14

The work produced refers not only to the “towards-which” of its usability and the “whereof” of which it consists: under simple craft conditions it also has an assignment to the person who is to use it or wear it. The work is cut to his figure; he ‘is’ there along with it as the work emerges. Even when goods are produced by the dozen, this constitutive assignment is by no means lacking; it is merely indefinite, and points to the random, the average. Thus along with the work, we encounter not only entities ready-to-hand but also entities with Dasein’s kind of Being – entities for which, in their concern, the product becomes ready-to-hand; and together with these we encounter the world in which wearers and users live, which is at the same time ours. Any work with which one concerns oneself is ready-to-hand not only in the domestic world of the workshop but also in the public world. Along with the public world, the environing Nature [die Umweltnatur] is discovered and is accessible to everyone. In roads, streets, bridges, buildings, our concern discovers Nature as having some definite direction. A covered railway platform takes account of bad weather; an installation for public lighting takes account of the darkness, or rather of specific changes in the presence or absence of daylight – the [SZ:71] BTMR §15

‘position of the sun’. In a clock, account is taken of some definite constellation in the world-system. When we look at the clock, we tacitly make use of the ‘sun’s position’, in accordance with which the measurement of time gets regulated in the official astronomical manner. When we make use of the clock-equipment, which is proximally and inconspicuously ready-to-hand, the environing Nature is ready-to-hand along with it. Our concernful absorption in whatever work-world lies closest to us, has a function of discovering; and it is essential to this function that, depending upon the way in which we are absorbed, those entities within-the-world which are brought along [beigebrachte] in the work and with it (that is to say, in the assignments or references which are constitutive for it) remain discoverable in varying degrees of explicitness and with a varying circumspective penetration. BTMR §15

In our provisional Interpretation of that structure of Being which belongs to the ready-to-hand (to ‘equipment’), the phenomenon of reference or assignment became visible; but we merely gave an indication of it, and in so sketchy a form that we at once stressed the necessity of uncovering it with regard to its ontological origin. It became plain, moreover, that assignments and referential totalities could in some sense become constitutive for worldhood itself. Hitherto we have seen the world lit up only in and for certain definite ways in which we concern ourselves environmentally with the ready-to-hand, and indeed it has been lit up only with the readiness-to-hand of that concern. So the further we proceed in understanding the Being of entities within-the-world, the broader and firmer becomes the phenomenal basis on which the world-phenomenon may be laid bare. [SZ:77] BTMR §17

As an example of a sign we have chosen one which we shall use again in a later analysis, though in another regard. Motor cars are sometimes fitted up with an adjustable red arrow, whose position indicates the direction the vehicle will take – at an intersection, for instance. The position of the arrow is controlled by the driver. This sign is an item of ‘equipment which is ready-to-hand for the driver in his concern with driving, and not for him alone: those who are not travelling with him – and they in particular – also make use of it, either by giving way on the proper side or by stopping. This sign is ready-to-hand within-the-world in the whole equipment-context of vehicles and traffic regulations. It is equipment for indicating, and as equipment, it is constituted by reference or assignment. It has the character of the “in-order-to”, its own definite serviceability; it is for indicating. This indicating which the sign performs can be taken as a kind of ‘referring’. But here we must notice that this ‘referring’ as indicating is not the ontological structure of the sign as equipment. BTMR §17

Instead, ‘referring’ as indicating is grounded in the Being-structure of equipment, in serviceability for... . But an entity may have serviceability without thereby becoming a sign. As equipment, a ‘hammer’ too is constituted by a serviceability, but this does not make it a sign. Indicating, as a ‘reference’, is a way in which the “towards-which” of a serviceability becomes ontically concrete; it determines an item of equipment as for this “towards-which” [und bestimmt ein Zeug zu diesem]. On the other hand, the kind of reference we get in ‘serviceability-for’, is an ontologico-categorial attribute of equipment as equipment. That the “towards-which” of serviceability should acquire its concreteness in indicating, is an accident of its equipment-constitution as such. In this example of a sign, the difference between the reference of serviceability and the reference of indicating becomes visible in a rough and ready fashion. These are so far from coinciding that only when they are united does the concreteness of a definite kind of equipment become possible. Now it is certain that indicating differs in principle from reference as a constitutive state of equipment; it is just as incontestable that the sign in its turn is related in a peculiar and even distinctive way to the kind of Being which belongs to whatever equipmental totality may be ready-to-hand in the environment, and to its worldly character. In our concernful [SZ:79] dealings, equipment for indicating [Zeig-zeug] gets used in a very special way. But simply to establish this Fact is ontologically insufficient. The basis and the meaning of this special status must be clarified. BTMR §17

The peculiar character of signs as equipment becomes ‘especially clear in ‘establishing a sign’ [“Zeichenstiftung”]. This activity is performed in a circumspective fore-sight [Vorsicht] out of which it arises, and which requires that it be possible for one’s particular environment to announce itself for circumspection at any time by means of something ready-to-hand, and that this possibility should itself be ready-to-hand. But the Being of what is most closely ready-to-hand within-the-world possesses the character of holding-itself-in and not emerging, which we have described above. Accordingly our circumspective dealings in the environment require some equipment ready-to-hand which in its character as equipment takes over the ‘work’ of letting something ready-to-hand become conspicuous. So when such equipment (signs) gets produced, its conspicuousness must be kept in mind. But even when signs are thus conspicuous, one does not let them be present-at-hand at random; they get ‘set up’ [“angebracht”] in a definite way with a view towards easy accessibility. BTMR §17

In establishing a sign, however, one does not necessarily have to produce equipment which is not yet ready-to-hand at all. Signs also arise when one takes as a sign [Zum-Zeichen-nehmen] something that is ready-to-hand already. In this mode, signs “get established” in a sense which is even more primordial. In indicating, a ready-to-hand equipment totality, and even the environment in general, can be provided with an availability which is circumspectively oriented; and not only this: establishing a sign can, above all, reveal. What gets taken as a sign becomes accessible only through its readiness-to-hand. If, for instance, the south wind ‘is accepted’ [“gilt”] by the farmer as a sign of rain, then this ‘acceptance’ [“Geltung”] – or the ‘value’ with which the entity is ‘invested’ – is not a sort of bonus over and above what is already present-at-hand in itself – viz, the flow of air in a definite geographical direction. The south wind may be meteorologically accessible as something which just occurs; but it is never present-at-hand proximally in such a way as this, only occasionally taking over the function of a warning signal. On the contrary, only by the circumspection with which one takes account of things in farming, is the south wind discovered in its Being. [SZ:81] BTMR §17

[SZ:82] The foregoing Interpretation of the sign should merely provide phenomenal support for our characterization of references or assignments. The relation between sign and reference is threefold. 1. Indicating, as a way whereby the “towards-which” of a serviceability can become concrete, is founded upon the equipment-structure as such, upon the “in-order-to” (assignment). 2. The indicating which the sign does is an equipmental character of something ready-to-hand, and as such it belongs to a totality of equipment, to a context of assignments or references. 3. The sign is not only ready-to-hand with other equipment, but in its readiness-to-hand the environment becomes in each case explicitly accessible for circumspection. A sign is something onticalty ready-to-hand, which functions both as this definite equipment and as something indicative of [was ... anzeigt] the ontological structure of readiness-to-hand, of referential totalities, and of worldhood. Here is rooted the special status of the sign as something ready-to-hand in that environment with which we’ concern ourselves circumspectively. Thus the reference or the assignment itself cannot be conceived as a sign if it is to serve ontologically as the foundation upon which signs are based. Reference is not an ontical characteristic of something ready-to-hand, when it is rather that by which readiness-to-hand itself is constituted. [SZ:83] BTMR §17

To determine the nature of the res corporea ontologically, we must explicate the substance of this entity as a substance – that is, its substantiality. What makes up the authentic Being-in-itself (An-ihm-selbstsein] of the res corporea? How is it at all possible to grasp a substance as such, that is, to grasp its substantiality? “Et quidem ex quolibet attributo substantia cognoscitur; sed una tamen est cuiusque substantiae praecipua proprietas, quae ipsius naturam essentiamque constituit, et ad quam aliae omnes referuntur.” Substances become accessible in their ‘attributes’, and every substance has some distinctive property from which the essence of the substantiality of that definite substance can be read off. Which property is this in the case of the res corporea? “Nempe extensio in longum, latum et profundum, substantiae corporeae naturam constituit.” Extension – namely, in length, breadth, and thickness – makes up the real Being of that corporeal substance which we call the ‘world’. What gives the extensio this distinctive status? “Nam omne aliud quod corpori tribui potest, extensionem praesupponit ...” Extension is a state-of-Being constitutive for the entity we are talking about; it is that which must already ‘be’ before any other ways in which Being is determined, so that these can ‘be’ what they are. Extension must be ‘assigned’ [“zugewiescn”] primarily to the corporeal Thing. The ‘world’s”extension and substantiality (which itself is characterized by extension) are accordingly demonstrated by showing how all the other characteristics which this substance definitely possesses (especially divisio, figura, motus), can be conceived only as modi of extensio, while, on the other hand, extensio sine figura vel motu remains quite intelligible. BTMR §19

Matter may have such definite characteristics as hardness, weight, and colour; (durities, pondus, color); but these can all be taken away from it, and it still remains what it is. These do not go to make up its real Being; and in so far as they are, they turn out to be modes of extensio. Descartes tries to show this in detail with regard to ‘hardness’: “Nam, quantum ad duritiem, nihil aliud de illa sensus nobis indicat, quam partes durorum corporum resistere molui manuum nostrarum, cum in illas incurrant. Si enim, quotiescunque manus nostrae versus aliquam pattern moventur, corpora omnia ibi existentia recederent eadem celeritate qua illae accedunt, nullam unquam duritiem sentiremus. Nec vllo modo potest intelligi, corpora quae sic recederent, idcirco naturam corporis esse amissura; nee proinde ipsa in duritie consistit.” Hardness is experienced when one feels one’s way by touch [Tasten]. What does the sense of touch ‘tell’ us about it? The parts of the hard Thing ‘resist’ a movement of the hand, such as an attempt to push it away. If, however, hard bodies, those which do not give way, should change their locations with the same velocity as that of the hand which ‘strikes at’ them, nothing would ever get touched [ Berühren], and hardness would not be experienced and would accordingly never be. But it is quite incomprehensible that bodies which give way with such velocity should thus forfeit any of their corporeal Being. If they retain this even under a change in velocity which makes it impossible for anything like ‘hardness’ to be, then hardness does not belong to the Being of entities of this sort. “Eademque ratione ostendi potest, et pondus, et colorem, et alias omnes eiusmodi qualitates, quae in materia corporea sentiuntur, ex ea tolli posse, ipsa integra remanente: unde sequitur, a nulla ex illis eius naturam dependere.” Thus what makes up the Being of the res corporea is the extensio: that which is omnimodo dieisibile, figurabile et mobile (that which can change itself by being divided, shaped, or moved in any way), that which is capax mutationum – that which maintains itself (remanet) through all these changes. In any corporeal Thing the real entity is what is suited for thus remaining constant [stdndigen Verbleib], so much so, indeed that this is how the substantiality of such a substance gets characterized. [SZ:92] BTMR §19

Descartes ‘not only evades the ontological question of substantiality altogether; he also emphasizes explicitly that substance as such – that is to say, its substantiality – is in and for itself inaccessible from the outset [vorgängig]. “ Verumtamen non potest substantia primum animadverti ex hoc solo, [SZ:94] quod sit res existens, quia hoc solum per se nos non afficit ...”. ‘Being’, itself does not ‘affect’ us, and therefore cannot be perceived. ‘Being is not a Real predicate,’ says Kant, who is merely repeating Descartes’ principle. Thus the possibility of a pure problematic of Being gets renounced in principle, and a way is sought for arriving at those definite characteristics of substance which we have designated above. Because ‘Being’ is not in fact accessible as an entity, it is expressed through attributes – definite characteristics of the entities under consideration, characteristics which. themselves are. Being is not expressed through just any such characteristics, but rather through those satisfying in the purest manner that meaning of “Being” and “substantiality”, which has still been tacitly presupposed. To the substantia finita as res corporea, what must primarily be ‘assigned’ [“Zuweisung”] is the extensio. “Quin et facilius intelligimus substantiam extensam, vel substantiam cogitantem, quam substantiam solam, omisso eo quod cogitet vel sit extensa”; for substantiality is detachable ratione tantum; it is not detachable realiter, nor can we come across it in the way in which we come across those entities themselves which are substantially. BTMR §20

In our exposition of the problem of worldhood (Section 14), we suggested the importance of obtaining proper access to this phenomenon. So in criticizing the Cartesian point of departure, we must ask which kind of Being that belongs to Dasein we should fix upon as giving us an appropriate way of access to those entities with whose Being as extensio Descartes equates the Being of the ‘world’. The only genuine access to them lies in knowing [ Erkennen), intellectio, in the sense of the kind of knowledge [ Erkenntnis] we get in mathematics and physics. Mathematical knowledge is regarded by Descartes as the one manner of apprehending entities which can always give assurance that their Being has been securely grasped. If anything measures up in its own kind of Being to the Being that is accessible in mathematical knowledge, then it is in the authentic sense. Such entities are those which always are what they are. Accordingly, that which can be shown to have the character of something that constantly remains (as remanens capax mutationum), makes up the real Being of those entities of the world which get experienced. That which enduringly remains, really is. This is the sort of thing which mathematics knows. That which is accessible in an entity through mathematics, makes up its Being. Thus the Being of the ‘world’ is, as it were, dictated to it in terms of a definite idea of Being which lies veiled in the concept of substantiality, [SZ:96] and in terms of the idea of a knowledge by which such entities are cognized. The kind of Being which belongs to entities within-the-world is something which they themselves might have been permitted to present; but Descartes does not let them do so. Instead he prescribes for the world its ‘real’ Being, as it were, on the basis of an idea of Being whose source has not been unveiled and which has not been demonstrated in its own right – an idea in which Being is equated with constant presence-at-hand. Thus his ontology of the world is not primarily determined by his leaning towards mathematics, a science which he chances to esteem very highly, but rather by his ontological orientation in principle towards Being as constant presence-at-hand, which mathematical knowledge. is exceptionally well suited to grasp. In this way Descartes explicitly switches over philosophically from the development of traditional ontology to modern mathematical physics and its transcendental foundations. BTMR §21

Descartes knows very well that entities do not proximally show themselves in their real Being. What is ‘proximally’ given is this waxen Thing which is coloured, flavoured, hard, and cold in definite ways, and which gives off its own special sound when struck. But this is not of any importance ontologically, nor, in general, is anything which is given through the senses. “Satis erit, si advertamus sensuum fiercefitiones non referri, nisi ad istam corporis humani cum mente coniunctionem, et nobis quidem ordinarie exhibere, quid ad illam externa corpora prodesse possint aut nocere ...” The senses do not enable us to cognize any entity in its Being; they merely serve to announce the ways in which ‘external’ Things within-the-world are useful or harmful for human creatures encumbered with bodies. “... non ... nos docere, qualia in seipsis existant”; they tell us nothing about entities in their Being. “Quod agentes, percipiemus naturam materiae, sive corporis in universum spectati, non consistere in eo quod sit res dura, vel ponderosa, vel colorata, [SZ:97] vel alio aliquo modo sensus afficiens : sed tantum in eo quod sit res extensa in longtim, latum et proftindum.” BTMR §21

Hardness gets taken as resistance. But neither hardness nor resistance is understood in a phenomenal sense, as something experienced in itself whose nature can be determined in such an experience. For Descartes, resistance amounts to no more than not yielding place – that is, not undergoing any change of location. So if a Thing resists, this means that it stays in a definite location relatively to some other Thing which is changing its location, or that it is changing its own location with a velocity which permits the other Thing to ‘catch up’ with it. But when the experience of hardness is Interpreted this way, the kind of Being which belongs to sensory perception is obliterated, and so is any possibility that the entities encountered in such perception should be grasped in their Being. Descartes takes the kind of Being which belongs to the perception of something, and translates it into the only kind he knows: the perception of something becomes a definite way of Being-present-at-hand-side-byside of two res extensae which are present-at-hand; the way in which their movements are related is itself a mode of that extensio by which the presence-at-hand of the corporeal Thing is primarily characterized. Of course no behaviour in which one feels one’s way by touch [eines tastenden Verhaltens] can be ‘completed’ unless what can thus be felt [des Betastbaren] has ‘closeness’ of a very special kind. But this does not mean that touching [ Berührung] and the hardness which makes itself known in touching consist ontologically in different velocities of two corporeal Things. Hardness and resistance do not show themselves at all unless an entity has the kind of Being which Dasein – or at least something living – possesses. BTMR §21

Thus Descartes’ discussion of possible kinds of access to entities within-the-world is dominated by an idea of Being which has been gathered from a definite realm of these entities themselves. [SZ:98] BTMR §21

One might retort, however, that even if in point of fact both the problem of the world and the Being of the entities encountered environmentally as closest to us remain concealed, Descartes has still laid the basis for characterizing ontologically that entity within-the-world upon which, in its very Being, every other entity is founded – material Nature. This would be the fundamental stratum upon which all the other strata of actuality within-the-world are built up. The extended Thing as such would serve, in the first instance, as the ground for those definite characters which show themselves, to be sure, as qualities, but which ‘at bottom’ are quantitative modifications ‘of the modes of the extensio itself. These qualities, which are themselves reducible, would provide the footing for such specific qualities as. “beautiful”, “ugly”, “in keeping”, “not in [SZ:99] keeping,” “useful”, “useless”. If one is oriented primarily by Thinghood, these latter qualities must be taken as non-quantifiable value-predicates by which what is in the first instance just a material Thing, gets stamped as something good. But with this stratification, we come to those entities which we have characterized ontologically as equipment ready-to-hand The Cartesian analysis of the ‘world’ would thus enable us for the first time to build up securely the structure of what is proximally ready-to-hand; all it takes is to round out the Thing of Nature until it becomes a full-fledged Thing of use, and this is easily done. BTMR §21

But if we recall that spatiality is manifestly one of the constituents of entities within-the-world, then in the end the Cartesian analysis of the ‘world’ can still be ‘rescued’. When Descartes was so radical as to set up the extensio as the praesuppositum for every definite characteristic of the res. corporea, he prepared the way for the understanding of something a priori whose content Kant was to establish with greater penetration. Within certain limits the analysis of the extensio remains independent of his neglecting to provide an explicit interpretation for the Being of extended entities. There is some phenomenal justification for regarding the extensio as a basic characteristic of the ‘world’, even if by recourse to this neither the spatiality of the world nor that of the entities we encounter in our environment (a spatiality which is proximally discovered) nor even that of Dasein itself, can be conceived ontologically. BTMR §21

Suppose I step into a room which is familiar to me but dark, and which has been rearranged [umgeräumt] during my absence so that everything which used to be at my right is now at my left. If I am to orient myself the ‘mere feeling of the difference’ between my two sides will be of no help at all as long as I fail to apprehend some definite object. ‘whose position’, as Kant remarks casually, ‘I have in mind’. But what does this signify except that whenever this happens I necessarily orient myself both in and from my being already alongside a world which is ‘familiar’? The equipment-context of a world must have been presented to Dasein. That I am already in a world is no less constitutive for the possibility of orientation than is the feeling for right and left. While this state of Dasein’s Being is an obvious one, we are not thereby justified in suppressing the ontologically constitutive role which it plays. Even Kant does not suppress it, any more than any other Interpretation of Dasein. Yet the fact that this is a state of which we constantly make use, does not exempt us from providing a suitable ontological explication, but rather demands one. The psychological Interpretation according to which the “I” has something ‘in the memory’ [“im Gedächtnis”] is at bottom a way of alluding to the existentially constitutive state of Being-in-the-world. Since Kant fails to see this structure, he also fails to recognize all the interconnections which the Constitution of any possible orientation implies. Directedness with regard to right and left is based upon the essential directionality of Dasein in general, and this directionality in turn is essentially co-determined by Being-in-the-world. Even Kant, of course, has not taken orientation as a theme for Interpretation. He merely wants to show that every orientation requires a ‘subjective principle’. Here ‘subjective’ is meant to signify that this principle is apriori. Nevertheless, the apriori character of directedness with regard to right and left is based upon the ‘subjective’ a priori of Being-in-the-world, Which has nothing to do with any determinate character restricted beforehand to a worldless subject. [SZ:110] BTMR §23

In this context of an existential analytic of factical Dasein, the question arises whether giving the “I” in the way we have mentioned discloses Dasein in its everydayness, if it discloses Dasein at all. Is it then obvious a priori that access to Dasein must be gained only by mere reflective awareness of the “I” of actions? What if this kind of ‘giving-itself’ on the part of Dasein should lead our existential analytic astray and do so, indeed, in a manner grounded in the Being of Dasein itself? Perhaps when Dasein addresses itself in the way which is closest to itself, it always says “I am this entity”, and in the long run says this loudest when it is ‘not’ this entity. Dasein is in each case mine, and this is its constitution; but what if this should be the very reason why, proximally and for the most part, Dasein is not itself? What if the aforementioned approach, starting with the givenness of the “I” to Dasein itself, and with a rather patent selfinterpretation of Dasein, should lead the existential analytic, as it were, into a pitfall? If that which is accessible by mere “giving” can be determined, there is presumably an ontological horizon for determining it; but what if this horizon should remain in principle undetermined? It may well be that it is always ontically correct to say of this entity that ‘I’ am it. Yet the ontological analytic which makes use of such assertions must make certain reservations about them in principle. The word ‘I’ is to be [SZ:116] understood only in the sense of a non-committal formal indicator, indicating something which may perhaps reveal itself as its ‘opposite’ in some particular phenomenal context of Being. In that case, the ‘not-I’ is by no means tantamount to an entity which essentially lacks ‘I-hood’ [“Ichheit”], but is rather a definite kind of Being which the ‘I’ itself possesses, such as having lost itself [Selbstverlorenheit]. BTMR §25

But does this mean that there are no clues whatever for answering the question of the “who” by way of existential analysis? Certainly not. Of the ways in which we formally indicated the constitution of Dasein’s Being in Sections 9 and 12 above, the one we have been discussing does not, of course, function so well as such a clue as does the one according to which Dasein’s ‘Essence’ is grounded in its existence. If the ‘I’ is an Essential characteristic of Dasein, then it is one which must be Interpreted existentially. In that case the “Who?” is to be answered only by exhibiting phenomenally a definite kind of Being which Dasein possesses. If in each case Dasein is its Self only in existing, then the constancy of the Self no less than the [SZ:117] possibility of its ‘failure to stand by itself’ requires that we formulate the question existentially and ontologically as the sole appropriate way of access to its problematic. BTMR §25

But the fact that ‘empathy’ is not a primordial existential phenomenon, any more than is knowing in general, does not mean that there is nothing problematical about it. The special hermeneutic of empathy will have to show how Being-with-one-another and Dasein’s knowing of itself are led astray and obstructed by the various possibilities of Being which Dasein itself possesses, so that a genuine ‘understanding’ gets suppressed, and Dasein takes refuge in substitutes; the possibility of understanding the stranger correctly presupposes such a hermeneutic as its positive existential condition. Our analysis has shown that Being-with is an existential constituent of Being-in-the-world. Dasein-with has proved to be a kind of Being which entities encountered within-the-world have as their own. So far as Dasein is at all, it has Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being. This cannot be conceived as a summative result of the occurrence of several ‘subjects’. Even to come across a number of ‘subjects’ [einer Anzahl von “Subjekten”] becomes possible only if the Others who are concerned proximally in their Dasein-with are treated merely as ‘numerals’ [“Nummer”]. Such a number of ‘subjects’ gets discovered only by a definite Being-with-and-towards-one-another. This ‘inconsiderate’ Being-with ‘reckons’ [“rechnet”] with the Others without seriously ‘counting on them’ [“auf sie zählt”], or without even wanting to ‘have anything to do’ with them. BTMR §26

But this distantiality which belongs to Being-with, is such that Dasein, as everyday Being-with-one-another, stands in subjection [Botmässigkeit] to Others. It itself is not; its Being has been taken away by the Others. Dasein’s everyday possibilities of Being are for the Others to dispose of as they please. These Others, moreover, are not definite Others. On the contrary, any Other can represent them. What is decisive is just that inconspicuous domination by Others which has already been taken over unawares from Dasein as Being-with. One belongs to the Others oneself and enhances their power. ‘The Others’ whom one thus designates in order to cover up the fact of one’s belonging to them essentially oneself, are those who proximally and for the most part ‘are there’ in everyday Being-with-one-another. The “who” is not this one, not that one, not oneself [man selbst], not some people [einige], and not the sum of them all. The ‘who’ is the neuter, the “they” [das Man]. BTMR §27

We have shown earlier how in the environment which lies closest to us, the public ‘environment’ already is ready-to-hand and is also a matter of concern [mitbesorgt]. In utilizing public means of transport and in making use of information services such as the newspaper, every Other is like the next. This Being-with-one-another dissolves one’s own Dasein completely into the kind of Being of ‘the Others’, in such a way, indeed, that the Others, as distinguishable and explicit, vanish more and more. In this inconspicuousness and unascertainability, the real dictatorship of the “they” is unfolded. We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they [man] take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about literature and art as they see and judge; likewise we shrink back from the ‘great mass’ as they shrink back; we find ‘shocking’ what they find shocking. The “they”, which is nothing definite, and which all are, though not as the sum, prescribes the kind of Being of everydayness. [SZ:127] BTMR §27

Possibility, as an existentiale, does not signify a free-floating potentialityfor-Being in the sense of the ‘liberty of indifference’ (libertas indifferentiae). In every case Dasein, as essentially having a state-of-mind, has already got itself into definite possibilities. As the potentiality-for-Being which is is, it has let such possibilities pass by; it is constantly waiving the possibilities of its Being, or else it seizes upon them and makes mistakes. But this means that Dasein is Being-possible which has been delivered over to itself – thrown possibility through and through. Dasein is the possibility of Being-free for its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. Its Being-possible is transparent to itself in different possible ways and degrees. BTMR §31

The ready-to-hand is always understood in terms of a totality of involvements. This totality need not be grasped explicitly by a thematic interpretation. Even if it has undergone such an interpretation, it recedes into an understanding which does not stand out from the background. And this is the very mode in which it is the essential foundation for everyday circumspective interpretation. In every case this interpretation is grounded in something we have in advance – in a fore-having. As the appropriation of understanding, the interpretation operates in Being towards a totality of involvements which is already understood – a Being which understands. When something is understood but is still veiled, it becomes unveiled by an act of appropriation, and this is always done under the guidance of a point of view, which fixes that with regard to which what is understood is to be interpreted. In every case interpretation is grounded in something we see in advance – in a fore-sight. This fore-sight ‘takes the first cut’ out of what has been taken into our fore-having, and it does so with a view to a definite way in which this can be interpreted. Anything understood which is held in our fore-having and towards which we set our sights ‘foresightedly’, becomes conceptualizable through the interpretation. In such an interpretation, the way in which the entity we are interpreting is to be conceived can be drawn from the entity itself, or the interpretation can force the entity into concepts to which it is opposed in its manner of Being. In either case, the interpretation has already decided for a definite way of conceiving it, either with finality or with reservations; it is grounded in something we grasp in advance – in a fore-conception. BTMR §32

But if we see this circle as a vicious one and look out for ways of avoiding it, even if we just ‘sense’ it as an inevitable imperfection, then the act of understanding has been misunderstood from the ground up. The assimilation of understanding and interpretation to a definite ideal of knowledge is not the issue here. Such an ideal is itself only a subspecies of understanding – a subspecies which has strayed into the legitimate task of grasping the present-at-hand in its essential unintelligibility [Unverständlichkeit]. If the basic conditions which make interpretation possible are to be fulfilled, this must [SZ:153] rather be done by not failing to recognize beforehand the essential conditions under which it can be performed. What is decisive is not to get out of the circle but to come into it in the right way. This circle of understanding is not an orbit in which any random kind of knowledge may move; it is the expression of the existential fore-structure of Dasein itself. It is not to be reduced to the level of a vicious circle, or even of a circle which is merely tolerated. In the circle is hidden a positive possibility of the most primordial kind of knowing. To be sure, we genuinely take hold of this possibility only when, in our interpretation, we have understood that our first, last, and constant task is never to allow our fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception to be presented to us by fancies and popular conceptions, but rather to make the scientific theme secure by working out these fore-structures in terms of the things themselves. Because understanding, in accordance with its existential meaning, is Dasein’s own potentiality-for-Being, the ontological presuppositions of historiological knowledge transcend in principle the idea of rigour held in the most exact sciences. Mathematics is not more rigorous than historiology, but only narrower, because the existential foundations relevant for it lie within a narrower range. BTMR §32

2. “Assertion” means no less than “predication”. We ‘assert’ a ‘predicate’ of a ‘subject’, and the ‘subject’ is given a definite character [bestimmt] by the ‘predicate’. In this signification of “assertion”, that which is put forward in the assertion [Das Ausgesagte] is not the predicate, but ‘the hammer itself’. On the other hand, that which does the asserting [Das Aussagende] (in other words, that which gives something a definite character) lies in the ‘too heavy’. That which is put forward in the assertion in the second signification of “assertion” (that which is given a definite character, as such) has undergone a narrowing of content as compared with what is put forward in the assertion in the first signification [SZ:155] of this term. Every predication is what it is, only as a pointing-out. The second signification of “assertion” has its foundation in the first. Within this pointing-out, the elements which are Articulated in predication – the subject and predicate – arise. It is not by giving something a definite character that we first discover that which shows itself – the hammer – as such; but when we give it such a character, our seeing gets restricted to it in the first instance, so that by this explicit restriction of our view, that which is already manifest may be made explicitly manifest in its definite character. In giving something a definite character, we must, in the first instance, take a step back when confronted with that which is already manifest – the hammer that is too heavy. In ‘setting down the subject’, we dim entities down to focus in ‘that hammer there’, so that by thus dimming them down we may let that which is manifest be seen in its own definite character as a character that can be determined. Setting down the subject, setting down the predicate, and setting down the two together, are thoroughly ‘apophantical’ in the strict sense of the word. BTMR §33

3.”Assertion” means “communication” [Mitteilung], speaking forth [Heraussage]. As communication, it is directly related to “assertion” in the first and second significations. It is letting someone see with us what we have pointed out by way of giving it a definite character. Letting someone see with us shares with [teilt ... mit] the Other that entity which has been pointed out in its definite character. That which is ‘shared’ is our Being towards what has been pointed out – a Being in which we see it in common. One must keep in mind that this Being-towards is Being-in-the-world, and that from out of this very world what has been pointed out gets encountered. Any assertion, as a communication understood in this existential manner, must have been expressed. As something communicated, that which has been put forward in the assertion is something that Others can ‘share’ with the person making the assertion, even though the entity which he has pointed out and to which he has given a definite character is not close enough for them to grasp and see it. That which is put forward in the assertion is something which can be passed along in ‘further retelling’. There is a widening of the range of that mutual sharing which sees. But at the same time, what has been pointed out may become veiled again in this further retelling, although even the kind of knowing which arises in such hearsay (whether knowledge that something is the case [Wissen] or merely an acquaintance with something [Kennen]) always has the entity itself in view and does not ‘give assent’ to some ‘valid meaning’ which has been passed around. Even hearsay is a Being-in-the-world, and a Being towards what is heard. BTMR §33

The entity which is held in our fore-having – for instance, the hammer – is proximally ready-to-hand as equipment. If this entity becomes the ‘object’ of an assertion, then as soon as we begin this assertion, there is already a change-over in the fore-having. Something ready-to-hand with which we have to do or perform something, turns into something ‘about which’ the assertion that points it out is made. Our fore-sight is aimed at something present-at-hand in what is ready-to-hand. Both by and for this way of looking at it [Hin-sicht], the ready-to-hand becomes veiled as ready-to-hand. Within this discovering of presence-at-hand, which is at the same time a covering-up of read mess-to-hand, something present-at-hand which we encounter is given a definite character in its Being-presentat-hand-in-such-and-such-a-manner. Only now are we given any access to properties or the like. When an assertion has given a definite character to something present-at-hand, it says something about it as a “what”; and this “what” is drawn from that which is present-at-hand as such. The as-structure of interpretation has undergone a modification. In its function of appropriating what is understood, the ‘as’ no longer reaches out into a totality of involvements. As regards its possibilities for Articulating reference-relations, it has been cut off from that significance which, as such, constitutes environmentality. The ‘as’ gets pushed back into the [SZ:158] uniform plane of that which is merely present-at-hand. It dwindles to the structure of just letting one see what is present-at-hand, and letting one see it in a definite way. This levelling of the primordial ‘as’ of circumspective interpretation to the “as” with which presence-at-hand is given a definite character is the specialty of assertion. Only so does it obtain the possibility of exhibiting something in such a way that we just look at it. BTMR §33

Discoursing or talking is the way in which we articulate ‘significantly’ the intelligibility of Being-in-the-world. Being-with belongs to Being-in-the-world, which in every case maintains itself in some definite way of concernful Being-with-one-another. Such Being-with-one-another is discursive as assenting or refusing, as demanding or warning, as pronouncing, consulting, or interceding, as ‘making assertions’, and as talking in the way of ‘giving a talk?’. Talking is talk about something. That which the discourse is about [das Worüber der Rede] does not necessarily or even for the most part serve as the theme for an assertion in [SZ:162] which one gives something a definite character. Even a command is given about something; a wish is about something. And so is intercession. What the discourse is about is a structural item that it necessarily possesses; for discourse helps to constitute the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, and in its own structure it is modelled upon this basic state of Dasein. What is talked about [das Beredete] in talk is always ‘talked to’ [“angeredet”] in a definite regard and within certain limits. In any talk or discourse, there is something said-in-the-talk as such [ein Geredetes as solches] – something said as such [das ... Gesagte als solches] whenever one wishes, asks, or expresses oneself about something. In this “something said”, discourse communicates. BTMR §34

In discourse the intelligibility of Being-in-the-world (an intelligibility which goes with a state-of-mind) is articulated according to significations; and discourse is this articulation. The items constitutive for discourse are: what the discourse is about (what is talked about); what is said-in-the-talk, as such; the communication; and the making-known. These are not properties which can just be raked up empirically from language. They are existential characteristics rooted in the state of Dasein’s Being, and it is they that first make anything like language ontologically possible. In the factical linguistic form of any definite case of discourse, some of these items may be lacking, or may remain unnoticed. The fact that they often do not receive ‘verbal’ expression, is merely an index of some definite kind of discourse which, in so far as it is discourse, must in every case lie within the totality of the structures we have mentioned. [SZ:163] BTMR §34

In the first instance what is required is that the disclosedness of the “they” – that is, the everyday kind of Being of discourse, sight, and interpretation – should be made visible in certain definite phenomena. In relation to these phenomena, it may not be superfluous to remark that our own Interpretation is purely ontological in its aims, and is far removed from any moralizing critique of everyday Dasein, and from the aspirations of a ‘philosophy of culture’. BTMR §34

Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity characterize the way in which, in an everyday manner, Dasein is its ‘there’ – the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world. As definite existential characteristics, these are not present-at-hand in Dasein, but help to make up its Being. In these, and in the way they are interconnected in their Being, there is revealed a basic kind of Being which belongs to everydayness; we call this the “falling” of Dasein. BTMR §38

In falling, Dasein itself as factical Being-in-the-world, is something from which it has already fallen away. And it has not fallen into some entity which it comes upon for the first time in the course of its Being, or even one which it has not come upon at all; it has fallen into the world, which itself belongs to its Being. Falling is a definite existential characteristic of Dasein itself. It makes no assertion about Dasein as something presentat-hand, or about present-at-hand relations to entities from which Dasein ‘is descended’ or with which Dasein has subsequently wound up in some sort of commercium. BTMR §38

Dasein’s falling into the “they” and the ‘world’ of its concern, is what we have called a ‘fleeing’ in the face of itself. But one is not necessarily fleeing whenever one shrinks back in the face of something or turns away from it. Shrinking back in the face of what fear discloses – in the face of something threatening – is founded upon fear; and this shrinking back has the character of fleeing. Our Interpretation of fear as a state-of-mind has shown that in each case that in the face of which we fear is a detrimental entity within-the-world which comes from some definite region but is close by and is bringing itself close, and yet might stay away. In falling, Dasein turns away from itself. That in the face of which it thus shrinks back must, in any case, be an entity with the character of threatening; yet this entity has the same kind of Being as the one that shrinks back: it is Dasein itself. That in the face of which it thus shrinks back cannot be taken as something ‘fearsome’, for anything ‘fearsome’ is always encountered as an entity within-the-world. The only threatening which can be ‘fearsome’ and which gets discovered in fear, always comes from entities within-the-world. [SZ:186] BTMR §40

To understand this talk about Dasein’s fleeing in the face of itself in falling, we must recall that Being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein. That in the face of which one has anxiety [das Wovor der Angst] is Being-in-the-world as such. What is the difference phenomenally between that in the face of which anxiety is anxious [sich ängstet] and that in the face of which fear is afraid? That in the face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within-the-world. Thus it is essentially incapable of having an involvement. This threatening does not have the character of a definite detrimentality which reaches what is threatened, and which reaches it with definite regard to a special factical potentiality-for-Being. That in the face of which one is anxious is completely indefinite. Not only does this indefiniteness leave factically undecided which entity within-the-world is threatening us, but it also tells us that entities within-the-world are not ‘relevant’ at all. Nothing which is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand within the world functions as that in the face of which anxiety is anxious. Here the totality of involvements of the ready-to-hand and the presentat-hand discovered within-the-world, is, as such, of no consequence; it collapses into itself; the world has the character of completely lacking significance. In anxiety one does not encounter this thing or that thing which, as something threatening, must have an involvement. BTMR §40

Accordingly, when something threatening brings itself close, anxiety does not ‘see’ any definite ‘here’ or ‘yonder’ from which it comes. That in the face of which one has anxiety is characterized by the fact that what threatens is nowhere. Anxiety ‘does not know’ what that in the face of which it is anxious is. ‘Nowhere’, however, does not signify nothing: this is where any region lies, and there too lies any disclosedness of the world for essentially spatial Being-in. Therefore that which threatens cannot bring itself close from a definite direction within what is close by; it is already ‘there’, and yet nowhere; it is so close that it is oppressive and stifles one’s breath, and yet it is nowhere. BTMR §40

Anxiety is not only anxiety in the face of something, but, as a state-of-mind, it is also anxiety about something. That which anxiety is profoundly anxious [sich abängstet] about is not a definite kind of Being for Dasein or a definite possibility for it. Indeed the threat itself is indefinite, and therefore cannot penetrate threateningly to this or that factically concrete potentiality-for-Being. That which anxiety is anxious about is Being-in-the-world itself. In anxiety what is environmentally ready-to-hand sinks away, and so, in general, do entities within-the-world. The ‘world’ can offer nothing more, and neither can the Dasein-with of Others. Anxiety thus takes away from Dasein the possibility of understanding itself, as it falls, in terms of the ‘world’ and the way things have been publicly interpreted. Anxiety throws Dasein back upon that which it is anxious about – its authentic potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. Anxiety individualizes Dasein for its ownmost Being-in-the-world, which as something that understands, projects itself essentially upon possibilities. Therefore, with that which it is anxious about, anxiety discloses Dasein as Being-possible, and indeed as the only kind of thing which it can be of its own accord as something individualized in individualization [vereinzeltes in der Vereinzelung]. [SZ:188] BTMR §40

That very potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which Dasein is, has Being-in-the-world as its kind of Being. Thus it implies ontologically a relation to entities within-the-world. Care is always concern and solicitude, even if only privatively. In willing, an entity which is understood – that is, one which has been projected upon its possibility – gets seized upon, either as something with which one may concern oneself, or as something which is to be brought into its Being through solicitude. Hence, to any willing there belongs something willed, which has already made itself definite in terms of a “for-the-sake-of-which”. If willing is to be possible ontologically, the following items are constitutive for it: (1) the prior disclosedness of the “for-the-sake-of-which” in general (Being-ahead-of-itself); (2) the disclosedness of something with which one can concern oneself (the world as the “wherein” of Being-already); (3) Dasein’s projection of itself understandingly upon a potentiality-for-Being towards a possibility of the entity ‘willed’. In the phenomenon of willing, the underlying totality of care shows through. BTMR §41

Thus not only the analytic of Dasein but the working-out of the question of the meaning of Being in general must be turned away from a one-sided orientation with regard to Being in the sense of Reality. We must demonstrate that Reality is not only one kind of Being among others, but that ontologically it has a definite connection in its foundations with Dasein, the world, and readiness-to-hand. To demonstrate this we must discuss in principle the problem of Reality, its conditions and its limits. BTMR §43

The ‘scandal of philosophy’ is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. Such expectations, aims, and demands arise from an ontologically inadequate way of starting with something of such a character that independently of it and ‘outside’ of it a ‘world’ is to be proved as present-at-hand. It is not that the proofs are inadequate, but that the kind of Being of the entity which does the proving and makes requests for proofs has not been made definite enough. This is why a demonstration that two things which are present-at-hand are necessarily present-at-hand together, can give rise to the illusion that something has been proved, or even can be proved, about Dasein as Being-in-the-world. If Dasein is understood correctly, it defies such proofs, because, in its Being, it already is what subsequent proofs deem necessary to demonstrate for it. BTMR §43

It is still possible that one may give the problematic of Reality priority over any orientation in terms of ‘standpoints’ by maintaining the thesis that every subject is what it is only for an Object, and vice versa. But in this formal approach the terms thus correlated – like the correlation itself – remain ontologically indefinite. At the bottom, however, the whole correlation necessarily gets thought of as ‘somehow’ being, and must therefore be thought of with regard to some definite idea of Being. Of course, if the existential-ontological basis has been made secure beforehand by exhibiting Being-in-the-world, then this correlation is one that we can know later as a formalized relation, ontologically undifferentiated. BTMR §43

2. To Dasein’s state of Being belongs thrownness; indeed it is constitutive for Dasein’s disclosedness. In thrownness is revealed that in each case Dasein, as my Dasein and this Dasein, is already in a definite world and alongside a definite range of definite entities within-the-world. Disclosedness is essentially factical. BTMR §44

3. To Dasein’s state of Being belongs projection – disclosive Being towards its potentiality-for-Being. As something that understands, Dasein can understand itself in terms of the ‘world’ and Others or in terms of its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The possibility just mentioned means that Dasein discloses itself to itself in and as its ownmost potentiality-for Being. This authentic disclosedncss shows the phenomenon of the most primordial truth in the mode of authenticity. The most primordial, and indeed the most authentic, disclosedness in which Dasein, as a potentiality-for-Being, can be, is the truth of existence. This becomes existentially and ontologically definite only in connection with the analysis of Dasein’s authenticity. BTMR §44

Within the horizon of the traditional Interpretation of the phenomenon of truth, our insight into these principles will not be complete until it can be shown: (1) that truth, understood as agreement, originates from disclosedness by way of definite modification; (2) that the kind of Being which belongs to disclosedness itself is such that its derivative modification first comes into view and leads the way for the theoretical explication of the structure of truth. BTMR §44

Thus arises the task of putting Dasein as a whole into our fore-having. This signifies, however, that we must first of all raise the question of this entity’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. As long as Dasein is, there is in every case something still outstanding, which Dasein can be and will be. But to that which is thus outstanding, the ‘end’ itself belongs. The ‘end’ [SZ:232] of Being-in-the-world is death. This end, which belongs to the potentiality-for-Being – that is to say, to existence – limits and determines in every case whatever totality is possible for Dasein. If, however, Dasein’s Being-at-an-end in death, and therewith its Being-a-whole, are to be included in the discussion of its possibly Being-a-whole, and if this is to be done in a way which is appropriate to the phenomena, then we must have obtained an ontologically adequate conception of death – that is to say an existential conception of it. But as something of the character of Dasein, death is only in an existentiell Being towards death [Sein zum Tode]. The existential structure of such Being proves to be the ontologically constitutive state of Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. Thus the whole existing Dasein allows itself to be brought into our existential fore-having. But can Dasein also exist authentically as a whole? How is the authenticity of existence to be determined at all, if not with regard to authentic existing? Where do we get our criterion for this? Manifestly, Dasein itself must, in its Being, present us with the possibility and the manner of its authentic existence, unless such existence is something that can be imposed upon it ontically, or ontologically fabricated. But an authentic potentiality-for-Being is attested by the conscience. And conscience, as a phenomenon of Dasein, demands, like death, a genuinely existential Interpretation. Such an Interpretation leads to the insight that Dasein has an authentic potentiality-for-Being in that it wants to have a conscience. But this is an existentiell possibility which tends, from the very meaning of its Being, to be made definite in an existentiell way by Being-towards-death. BTMR §45

Indisputably, the fact that one Dasein can be represented by another belongs to its possibilities of Being in Being-with-one-another in the world. In everyday concern, constant and manifold use is made of such representability. Whenever we go anywhere or have anything to contribute, we can be represented by someone within the range of that ‘environment’ with which we are most closely concerned. The great multiplicity of ways of Being-in-the-world in which one person can be represented by another, not only extends to the more refined modes of publicly being with one another, but is likewise germane to those possibilities of concern which are restricted within definite ranges, and which are cut to the measure of one’s occupation, one’s social status, or one’s age. But the very meaning of such representation is such that it is always a representation ‘in’ [“in” und “bei”] something – that is to say, in concerning oneself with something. But proximally and for the most part everyday Dasein understands itself in terms of that with which it is customarily concerned. ‘One is’ what one does. In relation to this sort of Being (the everyday manner in which we join with one another in absorption in the ‘world’ of our concern) representability is not only quite possible but is even constitutive for our being with one another. Here one Dasein can and must, within certain limits, ‘be’ another Dasein. [SZ:240] BTMR §47

However, this possibility of representing breaks down completely if the issue is one of representing that possibility-of-Being which makes up Dasein’s coming to an end, and which, as such, gives to it its wholeness. No one can take the Other’s dying away from him. Of course someone can ‘go to his death for another’. But ‘that always means to sacrifice oneself for the Other ‘in some definite affair’. Such “dying for” can never signify that the Other has thus had his death taken away in even the slightest degree. Dying is something that every Dasein itself must take upon itself at the time. By its very essence, death is in every case mine, in so far as it ‘is’ at all. And indeed death signifies a peculiar possibility-of-Being in which the very Being of one’s own Dasein is an issue. In dying, it is shown that mineness and existence are ontologically constitutive for death. Dying is not an event; it is a phenomenon to be understood existentially; and it is to be understood in a distinctive sense which must be still more closely delimited. BTMR §47

Within the framework of this investigation, our ontological characterization of the end and totality can be only provisional. To perform this task adequately, we-must not only set forth the formal structure of end in general and of totality in general; we must likewise disentangle the structural variations which are possible for them in different realms – that is to say, deformalized variations which have been put into relationship respectively with definite kinds of entities as ‘subject-matter’, and which have had their character Determined in terms of the Being of these entities. This task, in turn, presupposes that a sufficiently unequivocal and positive Interpretation shall have been given for the kinds of Being which require that the aggregate of entities be divided into such realms. But if we are to understand these ways of Being, we need a clarified idea of Being in general. The task of carrying out in an appropriate way the ontological analysis of end and totality breaks down not only because the theme is so far-reaching, but because there is a difficulty in principle: to master this task successfully, we must presuppose that precisely what we are seeking in this investigation – the meaning of Being in general – is something which we have found already and with which we are quite familiar. BTMR §48

In the following considerations, the ‘variations’ in which we are chiefly interested are those of end and totality; these are ways in which Dasein gets a definite character ontologically, and as such they should lead to a primordial Interpretation of this entity. Keeping constantly in view the existential constitution of Dasein already set forth, we must try to decide how inappropriate to Dasein ontologically are those conceptions of end and totality which first thrust themselves to the fore, no matter how categorially indefinite they may remain. The rejection [Zurückweisung] of such concepts must be developed into a positive assignment [Zuweisung] of them to their specific realms. In this way our understanding of end and totality in their variant forms as existentialia will be strengthened, and this [SZ:242] will guarantee the possibility of an ontological Interpretation of death. BTMR §48

But temptation, tranquillization, and alienation are distinguishing marks of the kind of Being called “falling”. As falling, everyday Being-towards-death is a constant fleeing in the face of death. Being-towards-the-end has the mode of evasion in the face of it – giving new explanations for it, understanding it inauthentically, and concealing it. Factically one’s own Dasein is always dying already; that is to say, it is in a Being-towards-its-end. And it hides this Fact from itself by recoining “death” as just a “case of death” in Others – an everyday occurrence which, if need be, gives us the assurance still more plainly that ‘oneself’ is still ‘living’. But in thus falling and fleeing in the face of death, Dasein’s everydayness attests that the very “they” itself already has the definite character of Being-towards-death, even when it is not explicitly engaged in ‘thinking about death’. Even in average everydayness, this ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped, is constantly an issue for Dasein. This is the case when its concern is merely in the mode of an untroubled indifferencetowards the uttermost possibility of existence. BTMR §51

One says, “Death certainly comes, but not right away”. With this ‘but ...’, the “they” denies that death is certain. ‘Not right away’ is not a purely negative assertion, but a way in which the “they” interprets itself. With this interpretation, the “they” refers itself to that which is proximally accessible to Dasein and amenable to its concern. Everydayness forces its way into the urgency of concern, and divests itself of the fetters of a weary ‘inactive thinking about death’. Death is deferred to ‘sometime later’, and this is done by invoking the so-called ‘general opinion’ [“allgemeine Ermessen”]. Thus the “they” covers up what is peculiar in death’s certainty – that it is possible at any moment. Along with ihe certainty of death goes the indefiniteness of its “when”. Everyday Being’towards-death evades this indefiniteness by conferring definiteness upon it. But such a procedure cannot signify calculating when the demise is due to arrive. In the face of definiteness such as this,’ Dasein would sooner flee. Everyday concern makes definite for itself the indefiniteness of certain. death by interposing before it those urgencies and possibilities which can be taken in at a glance, and which belong to the everyday matters that are closest to us. BTMR §52

Holding death for true (death is just one’s own) shows another kind of certainty, and is more primordial than any certainty which relates to entities encountered within-the-world, or to formal objects; for it is certain of Being-in-the-world. As such, holding death for true does not demand just one definite kind of behaviour in Dasein, but demands Dasein itself in the full authenticity of its existence. In anticipation Dasein can first make certain of its ownmost Being in its totality – a totality which is not to be outstripped. Therefore the evidential character which belongs to the immediate givenness of Experiences, of the “I”, or of consciousness, must necessarily lag behind the certainty which anticipation includes. Yet this is not because the way in which these are grasped would not be a rigorous one, but because in principle such a way of grasping them cannot hold for true (disclosed) something which at bottom it insists upon ‘having there’ as true: namely, Dasein itself, which I myself am, and which, as a potentiality-for-Being, I can be authentically only by anticipation. BTMR §53

Through disclosedness, that entity which we call “Dasein” is in the possibility of being its “there”. With its world, it is there for itself, and indeed – proximally and for the most part – in such a way that it has disclosed to itself its potentiality-for-Being in terms of the ‘world’ of its concern. Dasein exists as a potentiality-for-Being which has, in each case, already abandoned itself to definite possibilities. And it has abandoned itself to these possibilities because it is an entity which has been thrown, and an entity whose thrownness gets disclosed more or less plainly and impressively by its having a mood. To any state-of-mind or mood, understanding belongs equiprimordially. In this way Dasein ‘knows’ what it is itself capable of [woran es mit ihm selbst ist], inasmuch as it has either projected itself upon possibilities of its own or has been so absorbed in the “they” that it has let such possibilities be presented to it by the way in which the “they” has publicly interpreted things. The presenting of these possibilities, however, is made possible existentially through the fact that Dasein, as a Being-with which understands, can listen to Others. Losing itself in the publicness and the idle talk of the “they”, it fails to hear [überhört] its own Self in listening to the’ they-self. If Dasein is to be able to get brought back from this lostness of failing to hear itself, and if this is to be done through itself, then it must first be able to find itself – to find [SZ:271] itself as something which has failed to hear itself, and which fails to hear in that it listens away to the “they”. This listening-away must get broken off; in other words, the possibility of another kind of hearing which will interrupt it, must be given by Dasein itself. The possibility of its thus getting broken off lies in its being appealed to without mediation. Dasein fails to hear itself, and listens away to the “they”; and this listening-away gets broken by the call if that call, in accordance with its character as such, arouses another kind of hearing, which, in relationship to the hearing that is lost, has a character in every way opposite. If in this lost hearing, one has been fascinated with the ‘hubbub’ of the manifold ambiguity which idle talk possesses in its everyday ‘newness’, then the call must do its calling without any hubbub and unambiguously, leaving no foothold for curiosity. That which, by calling in this manner, gives us to understand, is the conscience. BTMR §55

To any discourse there belongs that which is talked about in it. Discourse gives information about something, and does so in some definite regard. From what is thus talked about, it draws whatever it is saying as this particular discourse – what is said in the talk as such. In discourse as communication, this becomes accessible to the Dasein-with of Others, for the most part by way of uttering it in language. BTMR §56

Conscience summons Dasein’s Self from its lostness in the “they”. The Self to which the appeal is made remains indefinite and empty in its “what”. When Dasein interprets itself in terms of that with which it concerns itself, the call passes over what Dasein, proximally and for the most part, understands itself a s. And yet the Self has been reached, unequivocally and unmistakably. Not only is the call meant for him to whom the appeal is made ‘without regard for persons’, but even the caller maintains itself in conspicuous indefiniteness. If the caller is asked about its name, status, origin, or repute, it not only refuses to answer, but does not even leave the slightest possibility of one’s making it into something with which one can be familiar when one’s understanding of Dasein has a ‘worldly’ orientation. On the other hand, it by no means disguises itself in the call. That which calls the call, simply holds itself aloof from any way’of becoming well-known, and this belongs to its phenomenal character. To let itself be drawn into getting considered and talked about, goes against its kind of Being. The peculiar indefiniteness of the caller and the impossibility of making more definite what this caller is, are not just nothing; they are distinctive for it in a positive way. They make known to us that the caller is solely absorbed in summoning us to something, that it is heard only as such, and furthermore that it will not let itself be coaxed. But if so, is it not quite appropriate to the phenomenon to leave unasked the question of what the caller is? Yes indeed, when it comes to listening to the factical call of conscience in an existentiell way, but not when it comes to analysing existentially the facticity of the calling and the existentiality of the hearing. [SZ:275] BTMR §57

But what the conscience attests becomes completely definite only when we have delimited plainly enough the character of the hearing which genuinely corresponds to the calling. The authentic understanding which ‘follows’ the call is not a mere addition which attaches itself to the phenomenon of conscience by a process Which may or may not be forthcoming. Only from an understanding of the appeal and together with such an understanding does the full Experience of conscience let itself be grasped. If in each case the caller and he to whom the appeal is made are at the same time one’s own Dasein themselves, then in any failure to hear the call or any incorrect hearing of oneself, there lies a definite kind of Dasein’s Being. A free-floating call from which ‘nothing ensues’ is an’ impossible fiction when seen existentially. With regard to Dasein, ‘that nothing ensues’ signifies something positive. BTMR §57

Dasein’s Being is care. It comprises in itself facticity (thrownness), existence (projection), and falling. As being, Dasein is something that has been thrown; it has been brought into its “there”, but not of its own accord. As being, it has taken the definite form of a potentiality-for-Being which has heard itself and has devoted itself to itself, but not as itself. As existent, it never comes back behind its thrownness in such a way that it might first release this ‘that-it-is-and-has-to-be’ from its Being-its-Self and lead it into the “there”. Thrownness, however, does not lie behind it as some event which has happened to Dasein, which has factually befallen and fallen loose from Dasein again; on the contrary, as long as Dasein is, Dasein, as care, is constantly its ‘that-it-is’. To this entity it has been delivered over, and as such it can exist solely as the entity which it is; and as this entity to which it has been thus delivered over, it is, in its existing, the basis of its potentiality-for-Being. Although it has not laid that basis itself, it reposes in the weight of it, which is made manifest to it as a burden by Dasein’s mood. BTMR §58

In this ordinary interpretation there are four objections which might be brought up against our Interpretation of conscience as the summons of care to Being-guilty: (1) that the function of conscience is essentially critical; (2) that conscience always speaks in a way that is relative to some definite deed which has been performed or willed; (3) that when the ‘voice’ is experienced, it is never so radically related to Dasein’s Being; (4) that our Interpretation takes no account of the basic forms of the phenomenon – ‘evil’ conscience and ‘good’, that which ‘reproves’ and that which ‘warns’. BTMR §59

Thus the further objection that the existential Interpretation overlooks the fact that the call of conscience always relates itself to some definite deed which has been either ‘actualized’ or willed, also loses its force. BTMR §59

Resoluteness is a distinctive mode of Dasein’s disclosedness. In an earlier passage, however, we have Interpreted disclosedness existentially as the primordial truth, Such truth is primarily not a quality of ‘judgment’ nor of any definite way of behaving, but something essentially constitutive for Being-in-the-world as such. Truth must be conceived as a fundamental existentiale. In our ontological clarification of the proposition that ‘Dasein is in the truth’ we have called attention to the primordial disclosedness of this entity as the truth of existence; and for the delimitation of its character we have referred to the analysis of Dasein’s authenticity. BTMR §60

In resoluteness we have now arrived at that truth of Dasein which is most primordial because it is authentic. Whenever a “there” is disclosed, its whole Being-in-the-world – that is to say, the world, Being-in, and the Self which, as an ‘I am’, this entity is – is disclosed with equal primordiality. Whenever the world is disclosed, entities within-the-world have been discovered already. The discoveredness of the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand is based on the disclosedness of the world for if the current totality of involvements is to be freed, this requires that significance be understood beforehand. In understanding significance, concernful Dasein submits itself circumspectively to what it encounters as ready-to-hand. Any discovering of a totality of involvements goes back to a “for-the-sake-of-which”; and on the understanding of such a “for-the-sake-of-which” is based in turn the understanding of significance as the disclosedness of the current world. In seeking shelter, sustenance, livelihood, we do so “for the sake of” constant possibilities of Dasein which are very close to it; upon these the entity for which its own Being is an issue, has already projected itself. Thrown into its ‘there’, every Dasein has been factically submitted to a definite ‘world’ – its ‘world’. At the same time those factical projections which are closest to it, have been guided by its concernful lostness in the “they”. To this lostness, one’s own Dasein can appeal, and this appeal can be understood in the way of resoluteness. But in that case this authentic disclosedness modifies with equal primordiality both the way in which the ‘world’ is discovered (and this is founded upon that disclosedness) and the way in which the Dasein-with of Others is disclosed. The ‘world’ which is ready-to-hand does not become another one ‘in its content’, nor does the circle of Others get exchanged for a new one; but both one’s Being towards the ready-to-hand understandingly and concernfully, and one’s solicitous Being with Others, are now given a definite character in terms of their ownmost potentiality-for-Being-their-Selves. [SZ:298] BTMR §60

Resoluteness, by its ontological essence, is always the resoluteness of some factical Dasein at a particular time. The essence of Dasein as an entity is its existence. Resolutcness ‘exists’ only as a resolution [Entschluss] which understandingly projects itself. But on what basis does Dasein disclose itself in resoluteness? On what is it to resolve? Only the resolution itself can give the answer. One would completely misunderstand the phenomenon of resoluteness if one should want to suppose that this consists simply in taking up possibilities which have been proposed and recommended, and seizing hold of them. The resolution is precisely the disclosive projection and determination of what is factically possible at the time. To resoluteness, the indefiniteness characteristic of every potentiality-for-Being into which Dasein has been factically thrown, is something that necessarily belongs. Only in a resolution is resoluteness sure of itself. The existentiell indefiniteness of resoluteness never makes itself definite except in a resolution; yet it has, all the same, its existential definiteness. BTMR §60

What one resolves upon in resoluteness has been prescribed ontologically in the existentiality of Dasein in general as a potentiality-for-Being in the manner of concernful solicitude. As care, however, Dasein has been Determined by facticity and falling. Disclosed in its ‘there’, it maintains itself both in truth and in untruth with equal primordiality. This ‘really’ holds in particular for resoluteness as authentic truth. Resoluteness appropriates untruth authentically. Dasein is already in irresoluteness [Unentschlossenheit], and soon, perhaps, will be in it again. The term “irresoluteness’ merely expresses that phenomenon which we have Interpreted as a Being-surrendered to the way in which things have been prevalently interpreted by the “they”. Dasein, as a they-self, gets ‘lived’ by the common-sense ambiguity of that publicness in which nobody resolves upon anything but which has always made its decision. “Resoluteness” signifies letting oneself be summoned out of one’s lostness in the “they”. The irresoluteness of the “they” remains dominant notwithstanding, but it cannot impugn resolute existence. In the counterconcept to irresoluteness, as resoluteness as existentially understood, we do not have in mind any ontico-psychical characteristic in the sense of Being-burdened with inhibitions. Even resolutions remain dependent upon [SZ:299] the “they” and its world. The understanding of this is one of the things that a resolution discloses, inasmuch as resoluteness is what first gives authentic transparency to Dasein. In resoluteness the issue for Dasein is its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which, as something thrown, can project itself only upon definite factical possibilities. Resolution does not withdraw itself from ‘actuality’, but discovers first what is factically possible; and it does so by seizing upon it in whatever way is possible for it as its ownmost potentiality-for-Being in the “they”. The existential attributes of any possible resolute Dasein include the items constitutive for an existential phenomenon which we call a “Situation” and which we have hitherto passed over. BTMR §60

Is there not, however, a definite ontical way of taking authentic existence, a factical ideal of Dasein, underlying our ontological Interpretation of Dasein’s existence? That is so indeed. But not only is this Fact one which must not be denied and which we are forced to grant; it must also be conceived in its positive necessity, in terms of the object which we have taken as the theme of our investigation. Philosophy will never seek to deny its ‘presuppositions’, but neither may it simply admit them. It conceives them, and it unfolds with more and more penetration both the presuppositions themselves and that for which they are presuppositions. The methodological considerations now demanded of us will have this very function. BTMR §62

In its anticipatory resoluteness, Dasein has now been made phenomenally visible with regard to its possible authenticity and totality. The hermencutical Situation which was previously inadequate for interpreting the meaning of the Being of care, now has the required primordiality. Dasein has been put into that which we have in advance, and this has been done primordially – that is to say, this has been done with regard to its authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole; the idea of existence, which guides us as that which we see in advance, has been made definite by the clarification of our ownmost potentiality-for-Being; and, now that we have concretely worked out the structure of Dasein’s Being, its peculiar ontological character has become so plain as compared with everything present-at-hand, that Dasein’s existentiality has been grasped in advance [SZ:311] with sufficient Articulation to give sure guidance for working out the existentialia conceptually. BTMR §63

The interpretation of the Self belongs to Dasein’s Being. In the circumspective-concernful discovering of the ‘world’, concern gets sighted too. Dasein always understands itself factically in definite existentiell possibilities, even if its projects stem only from the common sense of the “they”. Whether explicitly or not, whether appropriately or not, existence is somehow understood too. There are some things which every ontical understanding ‘includes’, even if these are only pre-ontological – that is to say, not conceived theoretically or thematically. Every ontologically explicit question about Dasein’s Being has had the way already prepared for it by the kind of Being which Dasein has. BTMR §63

Yet even in this formal idea of existence, which is not binding upon us in an existentiell way, there already lurks a definite though unpretentious ontological ‘content’, which – like the idea of Reality, which has been distinguished from this – ‘presupposes’ an idea of Being in general. Only within the horizon of this idea of Being can the distinction between existence and Reality be accomplished. Surely, in both of them what we have in view is Being. BTMR §63

We have indeed already shown, in analysing the structure of understanding in general, that what gets censured inappropriately as a ‘circle’, belongs to the essence and to the distinctive character of understanding as such. In spite of this, if the problematic of fundamental ontology is to have its hermencutical Situation clarified, our investigation must now come back explicitly to this ‘circular argument’. When it is objected that the existential Interpretation is ‘circular’, it is said that we have ‘presupposed’ the idea of existence and of Being in general, and that Dasein gets Interpreted ‘accordingly’, so that the idea of Being may be obtained from it. But what does ‘presupposition’ signify? In positing the idea of existence, do we also posit some proposition from which we deduce further propositions about the Being of Dasein, in accordance with formal rules of consistency? Or does this pre-supposing have the character of an understanding projection, in such a manner indeed that the Interpretation by which such an understanding gets developed, will let that which is to be interpreted put itself into words for the very first time, so that it may decide of its own accord whether, as the entity which it is, it has that state of Being for which it has been disclosed in the projection with regard to its formal aspects? Is [SZ:315] there any other way at all by which an entity can put itself into words with regard to its Being? We cannot ever ‘avoid’ a ‘circular’ proof in the existential analytic, because such an analytic does not do any proving at all by the rules of the ‘logic of consistency’. What common sense wishes to eliminate in avoiding the ‘circle’, on the supposition that it is measuring up to the loftiest rigour of scientific investigation, is nothing less than the basic structure of care. Because it is primordially constituted by care, any Dasein is already ahead of itself. As being, it has in every case already projected itself upon definite possibilities of its existence; and in such existentiell projections it has, in a pre-ontological manner, also projected something like existence and Being. Like all research, the research which wants to develop and conceptualize that kind of Being which belongs to existence, is itself a kind of Being which disclosive Dasein possesses; can such research be denied this projecting which is essential to Dasein? BTMR §63

For Kant, however, these representations are the ‘empirical’, which is ‘accompanied’ by the “I” – the appearances to which the “I” ‘clings’. Kant nowhere shows the kind of Being of this ‘clinging’ and ‘accompanying’. At bottom, however, their kind of Being is understood as the constant Being-present-at-hand of the “I” along with its representations. Kant has indeed avoided cutting the “I” adrift from thinking; but he has done so without starting with the ‘I think’ itself in its full essential content as an ‘I think something’, and above all, without seeing what is ontologically ‘presupposed’ in taking the ‘I think something’ as a basic characteristic of the Self. For even the ‘I think something’ is not definite enough ontologically as a starting-point, because the ‘something’ remains indefinite. If by this “something” we understand an entity within-the-world, then it tacitly implies that the world has been presupposed; and this very phenomenon of the world co-determines the state of Being of the “I”, if indeed it is to be possible for the “I” to be something like an ‘I think something’. In saying “I”, I have in view the entity which in each case I am as an ‘Iam-in-a-world’. Kant did not see the phenomenon of the world, and was consistent enough to keep the ‘representations’ apart from the a priori content of the ‘I think’. But as a consequence the “I” was again forced back to an isolated subject, accompanying representations in a way which is ontologically quite indefinite. BTMR §64

Coming back to itself futurally, resoluteness brings itself into the Situation by making present. The character of “having been” arises from the future, and in such a way that the future which “has been” (or better, which “is in the process of having been”) releases from itself the Present. This phenomenon has the unity of a future which makes present in the process of having been; we designate it as “temporality”. Only in so far as Dasein has the definite character of temporality, is the authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole of anticipatory resoluteness, as we have described it, made possible for Dasein itself. Temporality reveals itself as the meaning of authentic care. BTMR §65

The future, the character of having been, and the Present, show the phenomenal characteristics of the ‘towards-oneself’, the ‘back-to’, and the ‘letting-oneself-be-encountered-by’. The phenomena of, the “towards ...”, the “to ...”, and the “alongside ...”, make temporality manifest as the ekstatikon pure and simple. Temporality is the primordial ‘outside-of-itself’ in and for itself. We therefore call the phenomena of the future, the character of having been, and the Present, the “ecstases” of temporality. Temporality is not, prior to this, an entity which first emerges from itself; its essence is a process of temporalizing in the unity of the ecstases. What is characteristic of the ‘time’ which is accessible to the ordinary understanding, consists, among other things, precisely in the fact that it is a pure sequence of “nows”, without beginning and without end, in which the ecstatical character of primordial temporality has been levelled off. But this very levelling off, in accordance with its existential meaning, is grounded in the possibility of a definite kind of temporalizing, in conformity with which temporality temporalizes as inauthentic the kind of ‘time’ we have just mentioned. If, therefore, we demonstrate that the ‘time’ which is accessible to Dasein’s common sense is not primordial, but arises rather from authentic temporality, then, in accordance with the principle, “a potiori fit denominatio”, we are justified in designating as “primordial time” the temporality which we have now laid bare. [SZ:329] BTMR §65

With the term “understanding” we have in mind a fundamental existentiale, which is neither a definite species of cognition distinguished, let us say, from explaining and conceiving, nor any cognition at all in the sense of grasping something thematically. Understanding constitutes rather the Being of the “there” in such a way that, on the basis of such understanding, a Dasein can, in existing, develop the different possibilities of sight, of looking around [Sichumsehens], and of just looking. In all explanation one uncovers understandingly that which one cannot understand; and all explanation is thus rooted in Dasein’s primary understanding. [SZ:336] BTMR §68

How is the temporality of anxiety related to that of fear? We have called the phenomenon of anxiety a basic state-of-mind. Anxiety brings Dasein face to face with its ownmost Being-thrown and reveals the uncanniness of everyday familiar Being-in-the-world. Anxiety, like fear, has its character formally determined by something in the face of which one is anxious and something about which one is anxious. But our analysis has shown that these two phenomena coincide. This does not mean that their structural characters are melted away into one another, as if anxiety were anxious neither in the face of anything nor about anything. Their coinciding means rather that the entity by which both these structures are filled in [das sie erfüllende Seiende] is the same – namely Dasein. In particular, that in the face of which one has anxiety is not encountered as something definite with which one can concern oneself; the threatening does not come from what is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand, but rather from the fact that neither of these ‘says’ anything any longer. Environmental entities no longer have any involvement. The world in which I exist has sunk into insignificance; and the world which is thus disclosed is one in which entities can be freed only in the character of having no involvement. Anxiety is anxious in the face of the “nothing” of the world; but this does not mean that in anxiety we experience something like the absence of what is present-at-hand within-the-world. The present-at-hand must be encountered in just such a way that it does not have any involvement whatsoever, but can show itself in an empty mercilessness. This implies, however, that our concernful awaiting finds nothing in terms of which it might be able to understand itself; it clutches at the “nothing” of the world; but when our understanding has come up against the world, it is brought to Being-in-the-world as such through anxiety. Being-in-the-world, however, is both what anxiety is anxious in-the-face-of and what it is anxious about. To be anxious in-the-face-of ... does not have the character of an expecting or of any kind of awaiting. That in-the-face-of which one has anxiety is indeed already ‘there’ – namely, Dasein itself. In that case, does not anxiety get constituted by a future? Certainly; but not by the inauthentic future of awaiting. [SZ:343] BTMR §68

Curiosity is a distinctive tendency of Dasein’s Being, in accordance with which Dasein concerns itself with a potentiality-for-seeing. Like the concept of sight, ‘seeing’ will not be restricted to awareness through ‘the eyes of the body’. Awareness in the broader sense lets what is ready-to-hand and what is present-at-hand be encountered ‘bodily’ in themselves with regard to the way they look. Letting them be thus encountered is grounded in a Present. This Present gives us in general the ecstatical horizon within which entities can have bodily presence. Curiosity, however, does not make present the present-at-hand in order to tarry alongside it and understand it; it seeks to see only in order to see and to have seen. As this making-present which gets entangled in itself, curiosity has an ecstatical unity with a corresponding future and a corresponding having been. The craving for the new is of course a way of proceeding towards something not yet seen, but in such a manner that the making-present seeks to extricate itself from awaiting. Curiosity is futural in a way which is altogether inauthentic, and in such a manner, moreover, that it does not await a possibility, but, in its craving, just desires such a possibility as something that is actual. Curiosity gets constituted by a making-present which is not held on to, but which, in merely making present,’ thereby seeks constantly to run away from the awaiting in which it is nevertheless ‘held’, though not held on to. The Present ‘arises or leaps away’ from the awaiting which belongs to it, and it does so in the sense [SZ:347] of running away from it, as we have just emphasized. But the making-present which ‘leaps away’ in curiosity is so little devoted to the ‘thing’ it is curious about, that when it obtains sight of anything it already looks away to what is coming next. The making-present which ‘arises or leaps away’ from the awaiting of a definite possibility which one has taken hold of, makes possible ontologically that not-tarrying which is distinctive of curiosity. The making-present does not ‘leap away’ from the awaiting in such a manner, as it were, that it detaches itself from that awaiting and abandons it to itself (if we understand this ontically). This ‘leaping-away’ is rather an ecstatical modification of awaiting, and of such a kind that the awaiting leaps after the making-present. The awaiting gives itself up, as it were; nor does it any longer let any inauthentic possibilities of concern come towards it from that with which it concerns itself, unless these are possibilities only for a making-present which is not held on to. When the awaiting is ecstatically modified by the making-present which leaps away, so that it becomes an awaiting which leaps after, this modification is the existential-temporal condition for the possibility of distraction. BTMR §68

The more inauthentically the Present is – that is, the more making-present comes towards ‘itself’ – the more it flees in the face of a definite potentiality-for-Being and closes it off; but in that case, all the less can the future come back to the entity which has been thrown. In the ‘leaping-away’ of the Present, one also forgets increasingly. The fact that curiosity always holds by what is coming next, and has forgotten what has gone before, is not a result that ensues only from curiosity, but is the ontological condition for curiosity itself. BTMR §68

When the “there” has been completely disclosed, its disclosedness is constituted by understanding, state-of-mind, and falling; and this disclosedness becomes Articulated by discourse. Thus discourse does not temporalize itself primarily in any definite ecstasis. Factically, however, discourse expresses itself for the most part in language, and speaks proximally in the way of addressing itself to the ‘environment’ by talking about things concernfully; because of this, making-present has, of course, a privileged constitutive function. BTMR §68

How are we to obtain the right point of view for analysing the temporality of concern? We have called concernful Being alongside the ‘world’ our “dealings in and with the environment”. As phenomena which are examples of Being alongside, we have chosen the using, manipulation, and producing of the ready-to-hand, and the deficient and undifferentiated modes of these; that is, we have chosen ways of Being alongside what belongs to one’s everyday needs. In.this kind of concern Dasein’s authentic existence too maintains itself, even when for such existence this concern is ‘a matter of indifference’. The ready-to-hand things with which we concern ourselves are not the causes of our concern, as if this were to arise only by the effects of entities within-the-world. Being alongside the ready-to-hand cannot be explained ontically in terms of the ready-to-hand itself, nor can the ready-to-hand be derived contrariwise from this kind of Being. But neither are concern, as a kind of Being which belongs to Dasein, and that with which we concern ourselves, as something ready-to-hand within-the-world, just present-at-hand together. All the same, a ‘connection’ subsists between them. That which is dealt with, if rightly understood, sheds light upon concernful dealings themselves. And furthermore, if we miss the phenomenal structure of what is dealt with, then we fail to recognize the existential constitution of dealing. Of course we have already made an essential gain for the analysis of those entities which we encounter as closest to us, if their specific character as equipment does not get passed over. But we must understand further that concernful dealings never dwell with any individual item of equipment. Our using and manipulating of any definite item of equipment still remains oriented towards some equipmental context. If, for instance, we are searching for some equipment which we have ‘misplaced’, then what we have in mind is not merely what we are searching for, or even primarily this; nor do we have it in mind in an isolated ‘act’; but the range of the equipmental totality has already been discovered beforehand. Whenever we ‘go to work’ and seize hold of something, we do not push out from the “nothing” and come upon some item of equipment which has been presented to us in isolation; in laying hold of an item of equipment, we come back to it from whatever work-world has already been disclosed. BTMR §69

The scientific projection of any entities which we have somehow encountered already lets their kind of Being be understood explicitly and in such a manner that it thus becomes manifest what ways are possible for the pure discovery of entities within-the-world. The Articulation of the understanding of Being, the delimitation of an area of subject-matter (a delimitation guided by this understanding), and the sketching-out of the way of conceiving which is appropriate to such entities – all these belong to the totality of this projecting; and this totality is what we call “thematizing”. Its aim is to free the entities we encounter within-the-world, and to free them in such a way that they can ‘throw themselves against’ a pure discovering – that is, that they can become “Objects”. Thematizing Objectifies. It does not first ‘posit’ the entities, but frees them so that one can interrogate them and determine their character ‘Objectively’. Being which Objectifies and which is alongside the present-at-hand within-the-world, is characterized by a distinctive kind of making-present. This making-present is distinguished from the Present of circumspection in that – above all – the kind of discovering which belongs to the science in question awaits solely the discoveredness of the present-at-hand. This awaiting of discoveredness has its existentiell basis in a resoluteness by which Dasein projects itself towards its potentiality-for-Being in the ‘truth’. This projection is possible because Being-in-the-truth makes up a definite way in which Dasein may exist. We shall not trace further how science has its source in authentic existence. It is enough now if we understand that the thematizing of entities within-the-world presupposes Being-in-the-world as the basic state of Dasein, and if we understand how it does so. BTMR §69

We have given an Interpretation of some structures which are essential to Dasein’s state-of-Being, and we have done so before exhibiting temporality, but with the aim of leading up to this. Our analysis of the temporality of concern has shown that these structures must be taken back into temporality existentially. At the very start of our analytic we did not choose as our theme any definite and distinctive possibility of Dasein’s existence; our analytic was oriented rather by the average way of existing, which has nothing conspicuous about it. We called that kind of Being in which Dasein maintains itself proximally and for the most part “everdayness’” BTMR §71

”Everydayness” manifestly stands for that way of existing in which Dasein maintains itself ‘every day’ [“alle Tage”]. And yet this ‘every day’ does not signify the sum of those ‘days’ which have been allotted to Dasein in its ‘lifetime’. Though this ‘every day’ is not to be understood calendrically, there is still an overtone of some such temporal character in the signification of the ‘everyday’ [“Alltag”]. But what we have primarily in mind in the expression “everydayness” is a definite “how” of existence by which Dasein is dominated through and through for life’ [“zeitlebens”]. In our analyses we have often used the expression ‘proximally and for the most part’. ‘Proximally’ signifies the way in which Dasein is ‘manifest’ in the “with-one-another” of publicness, even if ‘at bottom’ everydayness is precisely something which, in an existentiell manner, it has ‘surmounted’. ‘For the most part’ signifies the way in which Dasein shows itself for Everyman, not always, but ‘as a rule’. BTMR §71

If we are to cast light on historicality itself in terms of temporality, and primordially in terms of temporality that is authentic, then it is essential to this task that we can carry it out only by construing it phenomenologically. The existential-ontological constitution of historicality has been covered up by the way Dasein’s history is ordinarily interpreted; we must get hold of it in spite of all this. The existential way of construing historicality has its definite supports in the ordinary understanding of Dasein, and is guided by those existential structures at which we have hitherto arrived. [SZ:376] BTMR §72

Manifestly these ‘Things’ have altered. The gear has become fragile or worm-eaten ‘in the course of time’. But that specific character of the past which makes it something historical, does not lie in this transience, which continues even during the Being-present-at-hand of the equipment in the museum. What, then, is past in this equipment? What were these ‘Things’ which today they are no longer? They are still definite items of equipment for use; but they are out of use. Suppose, however, that they were still in use today, like many a household heirloom; would they then be not yet historical? All the same, whether they are in use or out of use, they are no longer, what they were. What is ‘past’? Nothing else than that world within which they belonged to a context of equipment and were encountered as ready-to-hand and used by a concernful Dasein who was-in-the-world. That world is no longer. But what was formerly within-the-world with respect to that world is still present-at-hand. As equipment belonging to a world, that which is now still present-at-hand can belong nevertheless to the ‘past’. But what do we signify by saying of a world that it is no longer? A world is only in the manner of existing Dasein, which factically is as Being-in-the-world. BTMR §73

If Dasein, by anticipation, lets death become powerful in itself, then, as free for death, Dasein understands itself in its own superior power, the power of its finite freedom, so that in this freedom, which ‘is’ only in its having chosen to make such a choice, it can take over the powerlessness of abandonment to its having done so, and can thus come to have a clear vision for the accidents of the Situation that has been disclosed. But if fateful Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, exists essentially in Being-with Others, its historizing is a co-historizing and is determinative for it as destiny [Geschick]. This is how we designate the historizing of the community, of a people. Destiny is not something that puts itself together out of individual fates, any more than Being-with-one-another can be conceived as the occurring together of several Subjects. Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our Being with one another in the same world and in our resoluteness for definite possibilities. Only in communicating and in struggling does the power of destiny become free. Dasein’s fateful destiny in and with its ‘generation’ goes to make up the full authentic historizing of Dasein. BTMR §74

Resoluteness constitutes the loyalty of existence to its own Self. As resoluteness which is ready for anxiety, this loyalty is at the same time a possible way of revering the sole authority which a free existing can have – of revering the repeatable possibilities of existence. Resoluteness would be misunderstood ontologically if one were to suppose that it would be actual as ‘Experience’ only as long as the ‘act’ of resolving ‘lasts’. In resoluteness lies the existentiell constancy which, by its very essence, has already anticipated [vorweggenommen] every possible moment of vision that may arise from it. As fate, resoluteness is freedom to give up some definite resolution, and to give it up in accordance with the demands of some possible Situation or other. The steadiness of existence is not interrupted thereby but confirmed in the moment of vision. This steadiness is not first formed either through or by the adjoining of ‘moments’ one to another; but these arise from the temporality of that repetition which is futurally in the process-of-having-been – a temporality which has already been stretched along. BTMR §75

Remains, monuments, and records that are still present-at-hand, are possible ‘material’ for the concrete disclosure of the Dasein which has-been-there. Such things can turn into historiological material only because, in accordance with their own kind of Being, they have a world-historical character. And they become such material only when they have been understood in advance with regard to their within-the-world-ness. The world that has already been projected is given a definite character by way of an Interpretation of the world-historical material we have ‘received’. Our going back to ‘the past’ does not first get its start from the acquisition, sifting, and securing of such material; these activities presuppose historical Being towards the Dasein that has-been-there – that is to say, they presuppose the historicality of the historian’s existence. This is the existential foundation for historiology as a science, even for its most trivial and ‘mechanical’ procedures. BTMR §76

Every ‘then’, however, is, as such, a ‘then, when ...’; every ‘on that former occasion’ is an ‘on that former occasion, when ...’; every ‘now’ is a ‘now that ...’. The ‘now’, the ‘then’, and the ‘on that former occasion’ thus have a seemingly obvious relational structure which we call “datability” [Datierbarkeit]. Whether this dating is factically done with respect to a ‘date’ on the calendar, must still be completely disregarded. Evenwithout ‘dates’ of this sort, the ‘now’, the ‘then’, and the ‘on that former occasion’ have been dated more or less definitely. And even if the dating is not made more definite, this does not mean that the structure of datability is missing or that it is just a matter of chance. BTMR §79

The disclosedness of the natural clock belongs to the Dasein which exists as thrown and falling; and in this disclosedness factical Dasein has at the same time already given a distinctive public character to the time with which it concerns itself. As time-reckoning is perfected and the use of clocks becomes more refined, this making-public gets enhanced and strengthened. We shall not give here a historiological presentation of the historical evolution of time-reckoning and the use of clocks, with all its possible variations. We must rather ask in an existential-ontological way what mode of the temporalizing of Dasein’s temporality becomes manifest in the direction which the development of time-reckoning and clock-using has taken. When this question is answered, there must arise a more primordial understanding of the fact that the measurement of time – and this means also the explicit making-public of time as an object of concerns – is grounded in the temporality of Dasein, and indeed in’ a quite definite temporalizing of that temporality. BTMR §80

Thus the term “phenomenology” is quite different in its meaning from expressions such as “theology” and the like. Those terms designate the objects of their respective sciences according to the subject-matter which they comprise at the time [in ihrer jeweiligen Sachhaltigkeit]. ‘Phenomenology’ neither designates the object of its researches, nor characterizes the subject-matter thus comprised. The word merely informs us of the “how” with which what is to be treated in this science gets exhibited and handled. To have a science ‘of’ phenomena means to grasp its objects in such a way that everything about them which is up for discussion must be treated by exhibiting it directly and demonstrating it directly. The expression ‘descriptive phenomenology’, which is at bottom tautological, has the same meaning. Here “description” does not signify such a procedure as we find, let us say, in botanical morphology; the term has rather the sense of a prohibition – the avoidance of characterizing anything without such demonstration.” The character of this description itself, the specific meaning of the logos, can be established first of all in terms of the ‘thinghood’ [“Sachheit”] of what is to be ‘described’ – that is to say, of what is to be given scientific definiteness as we encounter it phenomenally. The signification of “phenomenon”, as conceived both formally and in the ordinary manner, is such that any exhibiting of an entity as it shows itself in itself, may be called “phenomenology” with formal justification. [SZ:35] BTMR §7

What do we mean when we say that a sign “indicates”? We can answer this only by determining what kind of dealing is appropriate with equipment for indicating. And we must do this in such a way that the readiness-to-hand of that equipment can be genuinely grasped. What is the appropriate way of having-to-do with signs? Going back to our example of the arrow, we must say that the kind of behaving (Being) which corresponds to the sign we encounter, is either to ‘give way’ or to ‘stand still’ vis-à-vis the car with the arrow. Giving way, as taking a direction, belongs essentially to Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. Dasein is always somehow directed [ausgerichtet] and on its way; standing and waiting are only limiting cases of this directional ‘on-its-way’. The sign addresses itself to a Being-in-the-world which is specifically ‘spatial’. The sign is not authentically ‘grasped’ [“erfasst”] if we just stare at it and identify it as an indicator-Thing which occurs. Even if we turn our glance in the direction which the arrow indicates, and look at something present-at-hand in the region indicated, even then the sign is not authentically encountered. Such a sign addresses itself to the circumspection of our concernful dealings, and it does so in such a way that the circumspection which goes along with it, following where it points, brings into an explicit ‘survey’ whatever aroundness the environment may have at the time. This circumspective survey does not grasp the ready-to-hand; what it achieves is rather an orientation within our environment. There is also another way in which we can experience equipment: we may encounter the arrow simply as equipment which belongs to the car. We can do this without discovering what character it specifically has as equipment: what the arrow is to indicate and how it is to do so, may remain completely undetermined; yet what we are encountering is not a mere Thing. The experiencing of a Thing requires a definiteness of its own [ihre eigene Bestimmtheit], and must be contrasted with coming across a manifold of equipment, which may often be quite indefinite, even when one comes across it as especially close. BTMR §17

De-severing does not necessarily imply any explicit estimation of the fatness of something ready-to-hand in relation to Dasein. Above all, remoteness never gets taken as a distance. If farness is to be estimated, this is done relatively to deseverances in which everyday Dasein maintains itself. Though these estimates may be imprecise and variable if we try to compute them, in the everydayness of Dasein they have their own definiteness which is thoroughly intelligible. We say that to go over yonder is “a good walk”, “a stone’s throw”, or ‘as long as it takes to smoke a pipe’. These measures express not only that they are not intended to ‘measure’ anything but also that the remoteness here estimated belongs to some entity to which one goes with concernful circumspection. But even when we avail ourselves of a fixed measure and say ‘it is half an hour to the house’, this measure must be taken as an estimate. ‘Half an hour’ is not-thirty minutes, but a duration [Dauer] which has no ‘length’ at all in the sense of a quantitative stretch. Such a duration is always interpreted in terms of well-accustomed everyday ways in which we ‘make provision’ [“Besorgungen”]. Remotenesses are estimated proximally by circumspection, even when one is quite familiar with ‘officially’ calculated measures. Since what is de-severed in such estimates is ready-to-hand, it retains its character as specifically within-the-world. This even implies that the pathways we take towards desevered entities in the course of our dealings will vary in their length from day to day. What is ready-to-hand in the environment is certainly not present-at-hand for an eternal observer exempt from Dasein: but it is encountered in Dasein’s circumspectively concernful everydayness. As Dasein goes along its ways, it does not measure off a stretch of space as a corporeal Thing which is present-at-hand; it does not ‘devour the kilometres’; bringing-close or de-severance is always a kind of concernful Being towards what is brought close and de-severed. A pathway which is long ‘Objectively’ can be much shorter than one which is ‘Objectively’ shorter still but which is perhaps ‘hard going’ and comes [SZ:106] before us as interminably long. Yet only in thus ‘coming before us is the current world authentically ready-to-hand. The Objective distances of Things present-at-hand do not coincide with the remoteness and closeness of what is ready-to-hand within-the-world. Though we may know these distances exactly, this knowledge still remains blind; it does not have the function of discovering the environment circumspectively and bringing it close; this knowledge is used only in and for a concernful Being which does not measure stretches – a Being towards the world that ‘matters’ to one [... Sein zu der einen “angehenden” Welt]. BTMR §23

The very ‘emptiness’ and ‘generality’ which obtrude themselves ontically in existential structures, have an ontological definiteness and fulness of their own. Thus Dasein’s whole constitution itself is not simple in its unity, but shows a structural articulation; in the existential conception of care, this articulation becomes expressed. BTMR §42

So we need not resort to powers with a character other than that of Dasein; indeed, recourse to these is so far from clarifying the uncanniness of the call that instead it annihilates it. In the end, does not the reason why ‘explanations’ of the conscience have gone off the track, lie in the fact that we have not looked long enough to establish our phenomenal findings as to the call, and that Dasein has been presupposed as having some kind of ontological definiteness or indefiniteness, whichever it may . chance? Why should we look to alien powers for information before we have made sure that in starting our analysis we have not given too low an assessment of Dasein’s Being, regarding it as an innocuous subject endowed with personal consciousness, somehow or other occurring? BTMR §57

In indicating the formal aspects of the idea of existence we have been guided by the understanding-of-Being which lies in Dasein itself. Without any ontological transparency, it has nevertheless been revealed that in every case I am myself the entity which we call Dasein, and that I am so as a potentiality-for-Being for which to be this entity is an issue. Dasein understands itself as Being-in-the-world, even if it does so without adequate ontological definiteness. Being thus, it encounters entities which have the kind of Being of what is ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. No matter how far removed from an ontological concept the distinction between existence and Reality may be, no matter even if Dasein proximally understands existence as Reality, Dasein is not just present-at-hand but has already understood itself, however mythical or magical the interpretation which it gives may be. For otherwise, Dasein would never ‘live’ in a myth and would not be concerned with magic in ritual and cult. The idea of existence which we have posited gives us an outline of the formal structure of the understanding of Dasein and does so in a way which is not binding from an existentiell point of view. BTMR §63

2. It has been maintained secondly that the concept of ‘Being’ is indefinable. This is deduced from its supreme universality, and rightly so, if definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam. ‘Being’ cannot indeed be conceived as an entity; enti non additur aliqua natura: nor can it acquire such a character as to have the term “entity” applied to it. “Being” cannot be derived from higher concepts by DEFINITION, nor can it be presented through lower ones. But does this imply that ‘Being’ no longer offers a problem? Not at all. We can infer only that ‘Being’ cannot have the character of an entity. Thus we cannot apply to Being the concept of ‘DEFINITION’ as presented in traditional logic, which itself has its foundations in ancient ontology and which, within certain limits, provides a justifiable way of characterizing “entities”. The indefinability of Being does not eliminate the question of its meaning; it demands that we look that question in the face. [SZ:4] BTMR §1

Not only that. On the basis of the Greeks’ initial contributions towards an Interpretation of Being, a dogma has been developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect. It is said that ‘Being’ is the most universal and the emptiest of concepts. As such it resists every attempt at DEFINITION. Nor does this most universal and hence indefinable concept require any DEFINITION, for everyone uses it constantly and already understands what he means by it. In this way, that which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method. BTMR §1

In Plato and Aristotle the concept of the logos has many competing significations, with no basic signification ‘positively taking the lead. In fact, however, this is only a semblance, which will maintain itself as long as our Interpretation is unable to grasp the basic signification properly in its primary content. If we say that the basic signification of logos is “discourse”, then this word-for-word translation will not be validated. until we have determined what is meant by “discourse” itself. The real signification of “discourse”, which is obvious enough, gets constantly covered up by the later history of the word logos, and especially by the numerous and arbitrary Interpretations which subsequent philosophy has provided. logos gets ‘translated’ (and this means that it is always getting interpreted) as “reason”, “judgment”, “concept”, “DEFINITION”, “ground”, or “relationship”. But how can ‘discourse’ be so susceptible of modification that logos can signify all the things we have listed, and in good scholarly usage? Even if logos is understood in the sense of “assertion”, but of “assertion” as ‘judgment’, this seemingly legitimate translation may still miss the fundamental signification, especially if “judgment” is conceived in a sense taken over from some contemporary ‘theory of judgment’. logos does not mean “judgment”, and it certainly does not mean this [SZ:32] primarily – if one understands by “judgment” a way of ‘binding’ something with, something else, or the ‘taking of a stand’ (whether by acceptance or by rejection). BTMR §7

The two sources which are relevant for the traditional anthropology – the Greek DEFINITION and the clue which theology has provided – indicate that over and above the attempt to determine the essence of ‘man’ as an entity, the question of his Being has remained forgotten, and that this Being is rather conceived as something obvious or ‘self-evident’ in the sense of the Being-present-at-hand of other created Things. These two clues become intertwined in the anthropology of modern times, where the res cogitans, consciousness, and the interconnectedness of Experience serve as the point of departure for methodical study. But since even the cogitationes are either left ontologically undetermined, or get tacitly assumed as something ‘self-evidently’ ‘given’ whose ‘Being’ is not to be questioned, the decisive ontological foundations of anthropological problematics remain undetermined. BTMR §10

Even if it were feasible to give an ontological DEFINITION of “Being-in” primarily in terms of a Being-in-the-world which knows, it would still be our first task to show that knowing has the phenomenal character of a Being which is in and towards the world. If one reflects upon this relationship of Being, an entity called “Nature” is given proximally as that which becomes known. Knowing, as such, is not to be met in this entity. If knowing ‘is’ at all, it belongs solely to those entities which know. But even in those entities, human-Things, knowing is not present-at-hand. In any case, it is not externally ascertainable as, let us say, bodily properties are. Now, inasmuch as knowing belongs to these entities and is not some external characteristic, it must be ‘inside’. Now the more unequivocally one maintains that knowing is proximally and really ‘inside’ and indeed has by no means the same kind of Being as entities which are both physical and psychical, the less one presupposes when one believes that one is making headway in the question of the essence of knowledge and in the clarification of the relationship between subject and Object. For only then can the problem arise of how this knowing subject comes out of its inner ‘sphere’ into one which is ‘other and external’, of how knowing can have any object at all, and of how one must think of the object itself so that eventually the subject knows it without needing to venture a leap into another sphere. But in any of the numerous varieties which this approach may take, the question of the kind of Being which belongs to this knowing subject is left entirely unasked, though whenever its knowing gets handled, its way of Being is already included tacitly in one’s theme. Of course we are sometimes assured that we are certainly not to think of the subject’s “inside” [Innen] and its ‘inner sphere’ as a sort of ‘box’ or ‘cabinet’. But when one asks for the positive signification of this ‘inside’ of immanence in which knowing is proximally enclosed, or when one inquires how this ‘Being inside’ [“Innenseins”] which knowing possesses has its own character of Being grounded in the kind of Being which belongs to the subject, then silence reigns. And no matter how this inner sphere may get interpreted, if one does no more than ask how knowing makes its way ‘out of’ it and achieves ‘transcendence’, it becomes evident that the knowing which presents such enigmas will remain problematical unless one has previously clarified, how it is and what it is. [SZ:61] BTMR §13

Descartes sees the extensio as basically definitive ontologically for the world. In so far as extension is one of the constituents of spatiality (according to Descartes it is even identical with it), while in some sense spatiality remains constitutive for the world, a discussion of the Cartesian ontology of the ‘world’ will provide us likewise with a negative support for a positive explication of the spatiality of the environment and of Dasein itself. With regard to Descartes’ ontology there are three topics which we shall treat: 1. the DEFINITION of the ‘world’ as res extensa (Section 19); 2. the foundations of this ontological DEFINITION (Section 20); 3. a hermeneutical discussion of the Cartesian ontology of the ‘world’ (Section 21). The considerations which follow will not have been grounded in full detail until the ‘cogito sum’ has been phenomenologically destroyed. (See Part Two, Division 2.) BTMR §18

§19. The DEFINITION of the ‘World’ as res extensa. BTMR §19

§20. Foundations of the Ontological DEFINITION of the ‘World’ BTMR §20

The idea of Being as permanent presence-at-hand not only gives Descartes a motive for identifying entities within-the-world with the world in general, and for providing so extreme a DEFINITION of their Being; it also keeps him from bringing Dasein’s ways of behaving into view’ in a manner which is ontologically appropriate. But thus the road is completely blocked to seeing the founded character of all sensory and intellective awareness, and to understanding these as possibilities of Being-in-the-world. On the contrary, he takes the Being of ‘Dasein’ (to whose basic constitution Being-in-the-world belongs) in the very same way as he takes the Being of the res extensa – namely, as substance. BTMR §21

The answer to the question of who Dasein is, is one that was seemingly given in Section 9, where we indicated formally the basic characteristics of Dasein. Dasein is an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each case mine. This DEFINITION indicates an ontologically constitutive state, but it does no more than indicate it. At the same time this tells us ontically (though in a rough and ready fashion) that in each case an “I” – not Others – is this entity. The question of the “who” answers itself in terms of the “I” itself, the ‘subject’, the ‘Self’. The “who” is what maintains itself as something identical throughout changes in its Experiences and ways of behaviour, and which relates itself to this changing multiplicity in so doing. Ontologically we understand it as something which is in each case already constantly present-at-hand, both in and for a closed realm, and which lies at the basis, in a very special sense, as the subjectum. As something selfsame in ‘manifold otherness, it has the character of the Self. Even if one rejects the “soul substance” and the Thinghood of consciousness, or denies that a person is an object, ontologically one is still positing something whose Being retains the meaning of present-at-hand, whether it does so explicitly or not. Substantiality is the ontological clue for determining which entity is to provide the answer to the question of the “who”. Dasein is tacitly conceived in advance as something presentat-hand. This meaning of Being is always implicated in any case where the Being of Dasein has been left indefinite. Yet presence-at-hand is the kind of Being which belongs to entities whose character is not that of Dasein. [SZ:115] BTMR §25

That which fear fears about is that very entity which is afraidDasein. Only an entity for which in its Being this very Being is an issue, can be afraid. Fearing discloses this entity as endangered and abandoned to itself. Fear always reveals Dasein in the Being of its “there”, even if it does so in varying degrees of explicitness. If we fear about our house and home, this cannot be cited as an instance contrary to the above DEFINITION of what we fear about; for as Being-in-the-world, Dasein is in every case concernful Being-alongside. Proximally and for the most part, Dasein is in terms of what it is concerned with. When this is endangered, Being-alongside is threatened. Fear discloses Dasein predominantly in a privative way. It bewilders us and makes us ‘lose our heads’. Fear closes off our endangered Being-in, and yet at the same time lets us see it, so that when the fear has subsided, Dasein must first find its way about again. BTMR §30

Attempts to grasp the ‘essence of language’ have always taken their orientation from one or another of these items; and the clues to their conceptions of language have been the ideas of ‘expression’, of ‘symbolic form’, of communication as ‘assertion’, of the ‘making-known’ of experiences, of the ‘patterning’ of life. Even if one were to put these various fragmentary DEFINITIONS together in syncretistic fashion, nothing would be achieved in the way of a fully adequate DEFINITION of “language”. We would still have to do what is decisive here – to work out in advance the ontologico-existential whole of the structure of discourse on the basis of the analytic of Dasein. BTMR §34

But now that falling has been exhibited, have we not set forth a phenomenon which speaks directly against the DEFINITION we have used in indicating the formal idea of existence? Can Dasein be conceived as an entity for which, in its Being, its potentiality-for-Being is an issue, if this entity, in its very everydayness, has lost itself, and, in falling, ‘lives’ away from itself? But falling into the world would be phenomenal ‘evidence’ against the existentiality of Dasein only if Dasein were regarded as an isolated “I” or subject, as a self-point from which it moves away. In that case, the world would be an Object. Falling into the world would then have to be re-Interpreted ontologically as Being-present-at-hand in the manner of an entity within-the-world. If, however, we keep in mind that Dasein’s Being is in the state of Being-in-the-world, as we have already pointed out, then it becomes manifest that falling, as a kind of Being of this Being-in, affords us rather the most elemental evidence for Dasein’s existentiality. In failing, nothing other than our potentiality-for-Being-in world is the issue, even if in the mode of inauthenticity. Dasein can fall only because Being-in-the-world understandingly with a state-of-mind is an issue for it. On the other hand, authentic existence is not something which floats above falling everydayness; existentially, it is only a modified way in which such everydayness is seized upon. BTMR §38

Like every ontological analysis, the ontological Interpretation of Dasein as care, with whatever we may gain from such an Interpretation, lies far from what is accessible to the pre-ontological understanding of Being or even to our ontical acquaintance with entities. It’is not surprising that when the common understanding has regard to that with which it has only ontical familiarity, that which is known ontologically seems rather strange to it. In spite of this, even the ontical approach with which we have tried to Interpret Dasein ontologically as care, may appear farfetched and theoretically contrived, to say nothing of the act of violence one might discern in our setting aside the confirmed traditional DEFINITION of “man”. Accordingly our existential Interpretation of Dasein as care requires pre-ontological confirmation. This lies in demonstrating that no sooner has Dasein expressed anything about itself to itself, than it has already interpreted itself as care (cura), even though it has done so only pre-ontologically. [SZ:183] BTMR §39

In our foregoing Interpretations, which have finally led to exhibiting care as the Being of Dasein, everything depended on our arriving at the right ontological foundations for that entity which in each case we ourselves are, and which we call ‘man’. To do this it was necessary from the outset to change the direction of our analysis from the approach presented by the traditional DEFINITION of “man” – an approach which has not been clarified ontologically and is in principle questionable. In comparison with this DEFINITION, the existential-ontological Interpretation may seem strange, especially if ‘care’ is understood just ontically as ‘worry’ or ‘grief’ [als “Besorgnis” und “Bekümmernis”]. Accordingly we shall now cite a document which is pre-ontological in character, even though its demonstrative force is ‘merely historical’. [SZ:197] BTMR §42

Aristotle says that the pathemata tes psyches ton pragmaton homoiomata – that the soul’s ‘Experiences’, its noemata (‘representations’), are likenings of Things. This assertion, which is by no means proposed as an explicit DEFINITION of the essence of truth, has also given occasion for developing the later formulation of the essence of truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei. Thomas Aquinas, who refers this DEFINITION to Avicenna (who, in turn, has taken it over from Isaac Israeli’s tenth-century ‘ Book of DEFINITIONS’) also uses for “adaequatio” (likening) the terms “correspondentia” (“correspondence”) and “convenientia” (“coming together”). BTMR §44

The neo-Kantian epistemology of the nineteenth century often characterized this DEFINITION of “truth” as an expression of a methodologically retarded naïve realism, and declared it to be irreconcilable with any formulation of this question which has undergone Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’. But Kant too adhered to this conception of truth, so much so that he did not even bring it up for discussion; this has been overlooked, though Brentano has already called our attention to it. ‘The old and celebrated question with which it was supposed that one might drive the logicians into a corner is this: “what is truth?” The explanation of the name of truth – namely, that it is the agreement of knowledge with its object – will here be granted and presupposed ...’ . BTMR §44

What in general does one have in view when one uses the term ‘agreement’? The agreement of something with something has the formal character of a relation of something to something. Every agreement, and therefore ‘truth’ as well, is a relation. But not every relation is an agreement. A sign points at what is indicated. Such indicating is a relation, but not an agreement of the sign with what is indicated. Yet manifestly not every agreement is a convenientia of the kind that is fixed upon in the DEFINITION of “truth”. The number “6” agrees with “16 minus 10”. These numbers agree; they are equal with regard to the question of “how much?” Equality is one way of agreeing. Its structure is such that something like a ‘with-regard-to’ belongs to it. In the adaequatio something gets related; what is that with regard to which it agrees? In clarifying the ‘truth-relation’ we must notice also what is peculiar to the terms of this relation. With regard to what do intellectus and res agree? In their kind of Being and their essential content do they give us anything at all with [SZ:216] regard to which they can agree? If it is impossible for intellectus and res to be equal because they are not of the same species, are they then perhaps similar? But knowledge is still supposed to ‘give’ the thing just as it is. This ‘agreement’ has the Relational character of the ‘just as’ [“So – Wie”]. In what way is this relation possible ‘as a relation between intellectus and res? From these questions it becomes plain that to clarify the structure of truth it is not enough simply to presuppose this relational totality, but we must go back and inquire into, the context of Being which provides the support for this totality as such. BTMR §44

We have now given a phenomenal demonstration of what we set forth earlier as to logos and aletheia in, so to speak, a dogmatic Interpretation. In proposing our ‘DEFINITION’ of “truth” we have not shaken off the tradition, but we have appropriated it primordially; and we shall have done so all the more if we succeed in demonstrating that the idea of agreement is one to which theory had to come on the basis of the primordial phenomenon of truth, and if we can show how this came about. BTMR §44

Moreover, the ‘DEFINITION’ of “truth” as “uncoveredness” and as “Being-uncovering”, is not a mere explanation of a word. Among those ways in which Dasein comports itself there are some which we are accustomed in the first instance to call ‘true’; from the analysis of these our DEFINITION emerges. BTMR §44

On the other hand, the analysis cannot keep clinging to an idea of death which has been devised accidentally and at random. We can restrain this arbitrariness only by giving beforehand an ontological characterization of the kind of Being in which the ‘end’ enters into Dasein’s average everydayness. To do so, we must fully envisage those structures of everydayness which we have earlier set forth. The fact that in an existential analysis of death, existentiell possibilities of Being-towards-death are consonant with it, is implied by the essence of all ontological investigation. All the more explicitly must the existential DEFINITION of concepts be unaccompanied by any existcntiell commitments, especially with relation to death, in which Dasein’s character as possibility lets itself be revealed most precisely. The existential problematic aims only at setting forth the ontological structure of Dasein’s Being-towards-the-end. BTMR §49

In the structure of thrownness, as in that of projection, there lies essentially a nullity. This nullity is the basis for the possibility of inauthentic Dasein in its falling; and as falling, every inauthentic Dasein factically is. Care itself, in its very essence, is permeated with nullity through and through. Thus “care” – Dasein’s Being – means, as thrown projection, Being-the-basis of a nullity (and this Being-the-basis is itself null). This means that Dasein as such is guilty, if our formally existential DEFINITION of “guilt” as “Being-the-basis of a nullity” is indeed correct. BTMR §58

§61. A Preliminag Sketch of the Methodological Step from the DEFINITION of Dasein’s Authentic Being-a-whole to the Laying-bare of Temporality as a Phenomenon BTMR §61

Through the unity of the items which are constitutive for careexistentiality, facticity, and fallenness – it has become possible to give the first ontological DEFINITION for the totality of Dasein’s structural whole.’ We have given an existential formula for the structure of care as “aheadof-itself – Being-already-in (a world) as Being-alongside (entities encountered within-the-world)”. We have seen that the care-structure does not first arise from a coupling together, but is articulated all the sarne. In assessing this ontological result, we have had to estimate how well it [SZ:317] satisfies the requirements for a primordial Interpretation of Dasein. The upshot of these considerations has been that neither the whole of Dasein nor its authentic potentiality-for-Being has ever been made a theme. The structure of care, however, seems to be precisely where the attempt to grasp the whole of Dasein as a phenomenon has foundered. The “ahead-of-itself” presented itself as a “not-yet”. But when the “ahead-of-itself” which had been characterized as something still outstanding, was considered in genuinely existential manner, it revealed itself as Being-towards-the-end – something which, in the depths of its Being, every Dasein is. We made it plain at the same time that in the call of conscience care summons Dasein towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. When we came to understand in a primordial manner how this appeal is understood, we saw that the understanding of it manifests itself as anticipatory resoluteness, which includes an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole – a potentiality of Dasein. Thus the care-structure does not speak against the possibility of Being-a-whole but is the condition for the possibility of such an existentiell potentiality-for-Being. In the course of these analyses, it became plain that the existential phenomena of death, conscience, and guilt are anchored in the phenomenon of care. The totality of the structural whole has become even more richly articulated; and because of this, the existential question of the unity of this totality has become still more urgent. BTMR §64

If we are to bring back into our phenomenological purview the phenomena at which we have arrived in our preparatory analysis, an allusion to the stages through which we have passed must be sufficient. Our DEFINITION of “care” emerged from our analysis of the disclosedness which constitutes the Being of the ‘there’. The clarification of this phenomenon signified that we must give a provisional Interpretation of Being-in-the-world – the basic state of Dasein. Our investigation set out to describe Being-in-the-world, so that from the beginning we could secure an adequate phenomenological horizon as opposed to those inappropriate and mostly inexplicit ways in which the, nature of Dasein has been determined beforehand ontologically. Being-in-the-world was first characterized with regard to the phenomenon of the world. And in our explication this was done by characterizing ontico-ontologically what is ready-to-hand and present-at-hand ‘in’ the environment, and then bringing within-the-world-ness into relief, so that by this the phenomenon of worldhood in general could be made visible. But understanding belongs essentially to disclosedness; and the structure of worldhood, significance, turned out to be bound up with that upon which understanding projects itself – namely that potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which Dasein exists. BTMR §67

[SZ:421] Ever since Aristotle all discussions of the concept of time have clung in principle to the Aristotelian DEFINITION; that is, in taking time as their theme, they have taken it as it shows itself in circumspective concern. Time is what is ‘counted’; that is to say, it is what is expressed and what we have in view, even if unthematically, when the travelling pointer (or the shadow) is made present. When one makes present that which is moved in its movement, one says ‘now here, now here, and so on’. The “nows” are what get counted. And these show themselves ‘in every “now”’ as “nows” which will ‘forthwith be no-longer-now’ and “nows” which have ‘just been not-yet-now’. The world-time which is ‘sighted’ in this manner in the use of clocks, we call the “now-time” [Jetzt-Zeit]. BTMR §81

Conscience is the call of care from the uncanniness of Being-in-the-world – the call which summons Dasein to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-guilty. And corresponding to this call, wanting-to-have-a-conscience has emerged as the way in which the appeal is understood. These two DEFINITIONS cannot be brought into harmony at once with the ordinary interpretation of conscience. Indeed they seem to be in direct conflict with it. We call this interpretation of conscience the “ordinary” one [Vulgär] because in characterizing this phenomenon and describing its’ ‘function’, it sticks to what “they” know as the conscience, and how “they” follow it or fail to follow it. BTMR §59

And how about what we have had in advance in our hermeneutical Situation hitherto? How about its fore-having? When and how has our existential analysis received any assurance that by starting with everydayness, it has forced the whole of Dasein – this entity from its ‘beginning’ to its ‘end’ – into the phenomenological view which gives us our theme? We have indeed contended that care is the totality of the structural whole of Dasein’s constitution. But have we not at the very outset of our Interpretation renounced the possibility of bringing Dasein into view as a whole? Everydayness is precisely that Being which is ‘between’ birth and death. And if existence is definitive for Dasein’s Being and if its essence is consituated in part by potentiality-for-Being, then, as long as Dasein exists, it must in each case, as such a potentiality, not yet be something. Any entity whose Essence is made up of existence, is essentially opposed to the possibility of our getting it in our grasp as an entity which is a whole. Not only has the hermeneutical Situation hitherto given us no assurance of ‘having’ the whole entity: one may even question whether “having” the whole entity is attainable at all, and whether a primordial ontological Interpretation of Dasein will not founder on the kind of Being which belongs to the very entity we have taken as our theme. BTMR §45

Submitted on 03.03.2022 00:45
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