death

Death (Tod  ), 104, 198, 233-234, 237-241 (§ 47), 240fn (and dying) 242, 245fn (as dying), 246-249 (§ 49), 249-252 (§ 50), 302, 306-308, 311, 317, 329, 345, 372-374, 382-387, 390, 424-245; being toward, 234-267, 301-302, 305-307, 309-310, 329, 337, 344, 3348-349, 373-374, 386, 390; freedom toward (for), 266, 384-385. See also anticipation; being toward the end; die, dying (BT)

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Regions are not   first formed by things which are present-at-hand   together; they always are ready-to-hand already in individual places. Places themselves either get allotted to the ready-to-hand in the circumspection of concern, or we come across them. Thus anything constantly ready-to-hand of which circumspective Being-in-the-world takes account beforehand, has its place. The “where” of its readiness-to-hand is put,to account as a matter for concern, and oriented towards the rest of what is ready-to-hand. Thus the sun, whose light and warmth are in everyday use, has its own places – sunrise, midday, sunset, midnight; these are discovered in circumspection and treated distinctively in terms of changes in the usability of what the sun bestows. Here we have something which is ready-to-hand with uniform constancy, although it keeps changing; its places become accentuated ‘indicators’ of the regions which lie in them. These celestial regions, which need not have any geographical meaning as yet, provide the “whither” beforehand for every special way of giving form to the regions which places can occupy. The house has its sunny side and its shady side; the way it is divided up into ‘rooms’ [“Räume”] is oriented towards these, and so is the ‘arrangement’ [“Einrichtung  ”] within them, according to their character as equipment. Churches and graves, for instance, are laid out according to the rising and the setting of the sun – the regions of life and DEATH, which are determinative for Dasein   itself with regard to its ownmost possibilities of Being in the world. Dasein, in its very Being, has this Being as an issue; and its concern discovers beforehand those regions in which some involvement is decisive. This discovery of regions beforehand is co-determined [mitbestimint] by ,the totality of involvements for which the ready-to-hand, as something encountered, is freed. [SZ  :104] BTMR §22

‘Once when ‘Care’ was crossing a river, she saw some clay; she thoughtfully took up a piece and began to shape it. While she was meditating on what she had made, Jupiter came by. ‘Care’ asked him to give it spirit, and this he gladly granted. But when she wanted her name to be bestowed upon it, he forbade this, and demanded that it be given his name instead. While ‘Care’ and Jupiter were disputing, Earth arose and desired that her own name be conferred on the creature, since she had furnished it with part of her body. They asked Saturn to be their arbiter, and he made the following decision, which seemed a just one: ‘Since you, Jupiter, have given its spirit, you shall receive that spirit at its DEATH; and since you, Earth, have given its body, you shall receive its body. But since ‘Care’ first shaped this creature, she shall possess it as long as it lives. And because there is now a dispute among you as to its name, let it be called ‘homo’, for it is made out of humus (earth).’ BTMR §42

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

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

We cannot cross out the ‘ahead-of-itself’ as an essential item in the structure of care. But how sound are the conclusions which we have drawn from this? Has not the impossibility of getting the whole of Dasein into our grasp been inferred by an argument which is merely formal  ? Or have we not at bottom inadvertently posited that Dasein is something presentat-hand, ahead of which something that is not yet present-at-hand is constantly shoving itself? Have we, in our argument, taken “Being-not-yet” and the ‘ahead’ in a sense that is genuinely existential? Has our talk of the ‘end’ and ‘totality’ been phenomenally appropriate to Dasein? Has the expression ‘DEATH’ had a biological signification or one that is existential-ontological, or indeed any signification that has been ade. quately and surely delimited? Have we indeed exhausted all the possibilities for making Dasein accessible in its wholeness? [SZ:237] BTMR §46

We must answer these questions before the problem of Dasein’s totality can be dismissed as nugatory [nichtiges]. This question – both the existentiell question of whether a potentiality-for-Being-a-whole is possible, and the existential question of the state-of-Being of ‘end’ and ‘totality’ – is one in which there lurks the task of giving a positive   analysis for some phenomena of existence which up till now have been left aside. In the centre of these considerations we have the task of characterizing ontologically Dasein’s Being-at-an-end and of achieving an existential conception of DEATH. The investigations relating to these topics are divided up as follows: the possibility of experiencing the DEATH of Others, and the possibility of getting a whole Dasein into our grasp (Section 47); that which is still outstanding, the end, and totality (Section 48); how the existential analysis of DEATH is distinguished from other possible Interpretations of this phenomenon (Section 49); a preliminary sketch of the existential-ontological structure of DEATH (Section 50); Being-towards-DEATH and the everydayness of Dasein (Section 51); everyday Being-towards-DEATH, and the full existential conception of DEATH (Section 52); an existential projection of an authentic Being-towards-DEATH (Section 53). BTMR §46

§47. The Possibility of Experiencing the DEATH of Others, and the Possibility of Getting a Whole Dasein into our Grasp BTMR §47

When Dasein reaches its wholeness in DEATH, it simultaneously loses the Being of its “there”. By its transition to no-longer-Dasein [Nichtmehrdasein], it gets lifted right out of the possibility of experiencing this transition and of understanding it as something experienced. Surely this sort of thing is denied to any particular Dasein in relation to itself. But this makes the DEATH of Others more impressive. In this way a termination [Beendigung  ] of Dasein becomes ‘Objectively’ accessible. Dasein can thus gain an experience of DEATH, all the more so because Dasein is essentially Being with Others. In that case, the fact that DEATH has been thus ‘Objectively’ given must make possible an ontological delimitation of Dasein’s totality. BTMR §47

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

The greater the phenomenal appropriateness with which we take the no-longer-Dasein of the deceased, the more plainly is it shown that in such Being-with the dead, the authentic Being-come-to-an-end [Zuendegekommensein] of the deceased is precisely the sort of thing which we do not experience. DEATH does indeed reveal itself as a loss, but a loss such as is experienced by those who remain. In suffering this loss, however, we have no way of access to the loss-of-Being as such which the dying man ‘suffers’. The dying of Others is not something which we experience in a genuine sense; at most we are always just ‘there alongside’. BTMR §47

[SZ:239] And even if, by thus Being there alongside, it were possible and feasible for us to make plain to ourselves ‘psychologically’ the dying of Others, this would by no means let us grasp the way-to-be which we would then have in mind – namely, coming-to-an-end. We are asking about the ontological meaning of the dying of the person   who dies, as a possibilityof-Being which belongs to his Being. We are not asking about the way in which the deceased has Dasein-with or is still-a-Dasein [Nochdaseins] with those who are left behind. If DEATH as experienced in Others is what we are enjoined to take as the theme for our analysis of Dasein’s end and totality, this cannot give us, either ontically or ontologically, what it presumes to give. 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

So once again the attempt to make Dasein’s Being-a-whole accessible in a way that is appropriate to the phenomena, has broken down. But our deliberations have not been negative in their outcome; they have been oriented by the phenomena, even if only rather roughly. We have indicated that DEATH is an existential phenomenon. Our investigation is thus forced into a purely existential orientation to the Dasein which is in every case one’s own. The only remaining possibility for the analysis of DEATH as dying, is either to form a purely existential conception of this phenomenon, or else to forgo any ontological understanding of it. BTMR §47

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

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

We may formulate in three theses the discussion of DEATH up to this point: 1. there belongs to Dasein, as long as it is, a “not-yet” which it will be – that which is constantly still outstanding; 2. the coming-to-its-end of what-is-not-yet-at-an-end (in which what is still outstanding is liquidated as regards its Being) has the character of no-longer-Dasein; 3. coming-to-an-end implies a mode of Being in which the particular Dasein simply cannot be represented by someone else. BTMR §48

In Dasein there is undeniably a constant ‘lack of totality’ which finds an end with DEATH. This “not-yet” ‘belongs’ to Dasein as long as it is; this is how things stand   phenomenally. Is this to be Interpreted as still outstanding? With relation to what entities do we talk about that which is still outstanding? When we use this expression we have in view that which indeed ‘belongs’ to an entity, but is still missing. Outstanding, as a way of being missing, is grounded upon a belonging-to. For instance, the remainder yet to be received when a debt is to be balanced off, is still outstanding. That which is still outstanding is not yet at one’s disposal. When the ‘debt’ gets paid off, that which is still outstanding gets liquidated; this signifies that the money ‘comes in’, or, in other words, that the remainder comes successively along. By this procedure the “not-yet” gets filled up, as it were, until the sum that is owed is “all together”. Therefore, to be still outstanding means that what belongs together is not yet all together. Ontologically, this implies the un-readiness-to-hand of those portions which have yet to be contributed. These portions have the same kind of Being as those which are ready-to-hand already; and the latter, for their part, do not have their kind of Being modified by having the remainder come in. Whatever “lack-of-togetherness” remains [Das bestehende Unzusammen] gets “paid off’ by a cumulative piecing-together. Entities for which anything is still outstanding have the kind of Being of something ready-to-hand. The togetherness [Das Zusammen  ] is characterized as a “sum”, and so is that lack-of-togetherness which is founded upon it. BTMR §48

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

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

Ending does not necessarily mean fulfilling oneself. It thus becomes more urgent to ask in what sense, if any, DEATH must be conceived as the ending of Dasein. BTMR §48

By none of these modes of ending can DEATH be suitably characterized as the “end” of Dasein. If dying, as Being-at-an-end, were understood in’ the sense of an ending of the kind we have discussed, then Dasein would thereby be treated as something present-at-hand or ready-to-hand. In DEATH, Dasein has not been fulfilled nor has it simply disappeared; it has not become finished nor is it wholly at one’s disposal as something ready-to-hand. BTMR §48

On the contrary, just as Dasein is already its “not-yet”, and is its “not-yet” constantly as long as it is, it is already its end too. The “ending” which we have in view when we speak of DEATH, does not signify Dasein’s Being-at-an-end [Zu-Ende  -sein], but a Being-towards-the-end [Sein zum   Ende] of this entity. DEATH is a way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it is. “As soon as man comes to life, he is at once old enough to die.’ BTMR §48

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

If we are to carry out a positive Interpretation of DEATH and its character as an end, by way of existential analysis, we must take as our clue the basic state of Dasein at which we have already arrived – phenomenon of care. BTMR §48

§49. How the Existential Analysis of DEATH is Distinguished from Other Possible Interpretations of this Phenomenon BTMR §49

The unequivocal character of our ontological Interpretation of DEATH must first be strengthened by our bringing explicitly to mind what such an Interpretation can not inquire about, and what it would be vain to expect it to give us any information   or instructions about. BTMR §49

DEATH, in the widest sense, is a phenomenon of life. Life must be understood as a kind of Being to which there belongs a Being-in-the-world. Only if this kind of Being is oriented in a privative way to Dasein, can we fix its character ontologically. Even Dasein may be considered purely as life. When the question is formulated from the viewpoint of biology and physiology, Dasein moves into that domain of Being which we know as the world of animals and plants. In this field, we can obtain data and statistics about the longevity of plants, animals and men, and we do this by ascertaining them ontically. Connections between longevity, propagation, and growth may be recognized. The ‘kinds’ of DEATH, the causes, ‘contrivances’ and ways in which it makes its entry, can be explored. BTMR §49

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

The existential Interpretation of DEATH takes precedence over any biology and ontology of life. But it is also the foundation for any investigation of DEATH which is biographical or historiological, ethnological or psychological. In any ‘typology’ of ‘dying’, as a characterization of the conditions under which a demise is ‘Experienced’ and of the ways in which it is ‘Experienced’, the concept of DEATH is already presupposed. Moreover, a psychology of ‘dying’ gives information about the ‘living’ of the person who is ‘dying’, rather than about dying itself. This simply reflects the fact that when Dasein dies – and even when it dies authentically – it does not have to do so with an Experience of its factical dernising, or in such an Experience. Likewise the ways in which DEATH is taken among primitive peoples, and their ways of comporting themselves towards it in magic and cult, illuminate primarily the understanding of Dasein; but the Interpretation of this understanding already requires an existential analytic and a corresponding conception of DEATH. 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

Finally, what might be discussed under the topic of a ‘metaphysic of DEATH’ lies outside the domain of an existential analysis of DEATH. Questions of how and when DEATH ‘came into the world’, what ‘meaning’ it can have and is to have as an evil and affliction in the aggregate of entitiesthese are questions which necessarily presuppose an understanding not only of the character of Being which belongs to DEATH, but of the ontology of the aggregate of entities as a whole, and especially of the ontological clarification of evil and negativity in general. BTMR §49

Methodologically, the existential analysis is superordinate to the questions of a biology, psychology, theodicy, or theology of DEATH. Taken ontically, the results of the analysis show the peculiar formality and emptiness of any ontological characterization. However, that must not blind us to the rich and complicated structure of the phenomenon. If Dasein in general never becomes accessible as something present-at-hand, because Being-possible belongs in its own way to Dasein’s kind of Being, even less may we expect that we can simply read off the ontological structure of DEATH, if DEATH is indeed a distinctive possibility of Dasein. BTMR §49

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

[SZ:249] §50. Preliminay Sketch of the Existential-ontological Structure of DEATH BTMR §50

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

We must, in the first instance, make plain in a preliminary sketch how Dasein’s existence, facticity, and falling reveal themselves in the phenomenon of DEATH. BTMR §50

The Interpretation in which the “not-yet – and with it even the uttermost “not-yet”, the end of Dasein – was taken in the sense of something still outstanding, has been rejected as inappropriate in that it included the ontological perversion of making Dasein something present-at-hand. Being-at-an-end implies existentially Being-towards-the-end. The uttermost “not-yet” has the character of something towards which Dasein comports itself. The end is impending [stelit … bevor] for Dasein. DEATH is not something not yet present-at-hand, nor is it that which is ultimately still outstanding but which has been reduced to a minimum. DEATH is something that stands before us – something impending. BTMR §50

However, there is much that can impend for Dasein as Being-in-the-world. The character of impendence is not distinctive of DEATH. On the contrary, this Interpretation could even lead us to suppose that DEATH must be understood in the sense of some impending event encountered environmentally. For instance, a storm, the remodelling of the house, or the arrival of a friend, may be impending; and these are entities which are respectively present-at-hand, ready-to-hand, and there-with-us. The DEATH which impends does not have this kind of Being. BTMR §50

DEATH is a possibility-of-Being which Dasein itself has to take over in every case. With DEATH, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. This is a possibility in which the issue is nothing less than Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. Its DEATH is the possibility of no-longer being-able-to-be-there. If Dasein stands before itself as this possibility, it has been fully assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. When it stands before itself in this way, all its relations to any other Dasein have been undone. This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the uttermost one. BTMR §50

As potentiality-for-Being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility of DEATH. DEATH is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus DEATH reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped [unüberholbare]. As such, DEATH is something distinctively impending. Its existential possibility is based on the fact that Dasein is essentially disclosed to itself, and disclosed, indeed, as ahead-of-itself. This item in the structure of care has its most primordial concretion in Being-towards-DEATH. As a phenomonon, Being-towards-the-end [SZ:251] becomes plainer as Being towards that distinctive possibility of Dasein which we have characterized. BTMR §50

This ownmost possibility, however, non-relational and not to be outstripped, is not one which Dasein procures for itself subsequently and occasionally in the course of its Being. On the contrary, if Dasein exists, it has already been thrown into this possibility. Dasein does not, proximally and for the most part, have any explicit or even any theoretical knowledge of the fact that it has been delivered over to its DEATH, and that DEATH thus belongs to Being-in-the-world. Thrownness into DEATH reveals itself to Dasein in a more primordial and impressive manner in that state-of-mind which we have called “anxiety”. Anxiety in the face of DEATH is anxiety ‘in the face of’ that potentiality-for-Being which is one’s ownmost, nonrelational, and not to be outstripped. That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world itself. That about which one has this anxiety is simply Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being. Anxiety in the face of DEATH must not be confused with fear in the face of one’s demise. This anxiety is not an accidental or random mood of ‘weakness’ in some individual; but, as a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, it amounts to the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end. Thus the existential conception of “dying” is made clear as thrown Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped. Precision is gained by distinguishing this from pure disappearance, and also from merely perishing, and finally from the ‘Experiencing’ of a demise. BTMR §50

Being-towards-the-end does not first arise through some attitude which occasionally emerges, nor does it arise as such an attitude; it belongs essentially to Dasein’s thrownness, which reveals itself in a state-of-mind (mood) in one way or another. The factical ‘knowledge’ or ‘ignorance’ which prevails in any Dasein as to its ownmost Being-towards-the-end, is only the expression of the existentiell possibility that there are different ways of maintaining oneself in this Being. Factically, there are many who, proximally and for the most part, do not know about DEATH; but this must not be passed off as a ground for proving that Being-towards-DEATH does not belong to Dasein ‘universally’. It only proves that proximally and for the most part Dasein covers up its ownmost Being-towards-DEATH, fleeing in the face of it. Factically, Dasein is dying as long as it exists, but proximally and for the most part, it does so by way of falling. For factical existing is not only generally and without further differentiation a thrown potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world, but it has always likewise been absorbed in the ‘world’ of its concern. In this falling Being alongside, fleeing from [SZ:252] uncanniness announces itself; and this means now, a fleeing in the face of one’s ownmost Being-towards-DEATH. Existence, facticity, and falling characterize Being-towards-the-end, and are therefore constitutive for the existential conception of DEATH. As regards its ontological possibility, dying is grounded in care. BTMR §50

In setting forth average everyday Being-towards-DEATH, we must take our orientation from those structures of everydayness at which we have earlier arrived. In Being-towards-DEATH, Dasein comports itself towards itself as a distinctive potentiality-for-Being. But the Self of everydayness is the “they”. The “they” is constituted by the way things have been publicly interpreted, which expresses itself in idle talk. Idle talk must accordingly make manifest the way in which everyday Dasein interprets for itself its Being-towards-DEATH. The foundation of any interpretation is an act of understanding, which is always accompanied by a state-of-mind, or, in other words, which has a mood. So we must ask how Being-towards-DEATH is disclosed by the kind of understanding which, with its state-of-mind, lurks in the idle talk of the “they”. How does the “they” comport itself understandingly towards that ownmost possibility of Dasein, which is non-relational and is not to be outstripped? What state-of-mind discloses to the “they” that it has been delivered over to DEATH, and in what way? BTMR §51

In the publicness with which we are with one another in our everyday manner, DEATH is ‘known’ as a mishap which is constantly occurring – as a ‘case of DEATH?’. Someone or other ‘dies’, be he neighbour or stranger [SZ:253] [Nächste oder Fernerstehende]. People who are no acquaintances of ours are ‘dying’ daily and hourly. ‘DEATH’ is encountered as a well-known event occurring within-the-world. As such it remains in the inconspicuousness characteristic of what is encountered in an everyday fashion. The “they” has already stowed away [gesichert] an interpretation for this event. It talks of it in a ‘fugitive’ manner, either expressly or else in a way which is mostly inhibited, as if to say, “One of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has nothing to do with us.” BTMR §51

The analysis of the phrase ‘one dies’ reveals unambiguously the kind of Being which belongs to everyday Being-towards-DEATH. In such a way of talking, DEATH is understood as an indefinite something which, above all, must duly arrive from somewhere or other, but which is proximally not yet present-at-hand for oneself, and is therefore no threat. The expression ‘one dies’ spreads abroad the opinion   that what gets reached, as it were, by DEATH, is the “they”. In Dasein’s public way of interpreting, it is said that ‘one dies’, because everyone else and oneself can talk himself into saying that “in no case is it I myself”, for this “one” is the “nobody”. ‘Dying’ is levelled off to an occurrence which reaches Dasein, to be sure, but belongs to nobody in particular. If idle talk is always ambiguous, so is this manner of talking about DEATH. Dying, which is essentially mine in such a way that no one can be my representative, is perverted into an event of public occurrence which the “they” encounters. In the way of talking which we have characterized, DEATH is spoken of as a ‘case’ which is constantly occurring. DEATH gets passed off as always something ‘actual’; its character as a possibility gets concealed, and so are the other two items that belong to it – the fact that it is non-relational and that it is not to be outstripped. By such ambiguity, Dasein puts itself in the position of losing itself in the “they,” as regards a distinctive potentiality-for-Being which belongs to Dasein’s owninost Self. The “they” gives its approval, and aggravates the temptation to cover up from oneself one’s ownmost Being-towards-DEATH. This evasive concealment in the face of DEATH dominates everydayness so stubbornly that, in Being with one another, the ‘neighbours’ often still keep talking the ‘dying person’ into the belief that he will escape DEATH and soon return to the tranquillized everydayness of the world of his concern. Such ‘solicitude’ is meant to ‘console’ him. It insists upon bringing him back into Dasein, while in addition it helps him to keep his ownmost non-relational possibility-of-Being completely concealed. In this manner the “they” provides [besorgt  ] a constant tranquillizalion about DEATH. At bottom, however, this is a tranquillization not only for him who is ‘dying’ but just as much for those who ‘console’ him. And even in the case of a demise, the public is still not to have its own tranquillity upset by such an event, or be disturbed in the carefreeness with which it concerns itself. Indeed the dying of Others is seen often enough as a social inconvenience, if not even a downright tactlessness, against which the public is to be guarded. BTMR §51

[SZ:254] But along with this tranquillization, which forces Dasein away from its DEATH, the “they” at the same time puts itself in the right and makes itself respectable by tacitly regulating the way in which one has to comport oneself towards DEATH. It is already a matter of public acceptance that ‘thinking about DEATH’ is a cowardly fear, a sign of insecurity on the part of Dasein, and a sombre way of fleeing from the world. The “they” does not permit us the courage anxiety in the face of DEATH. The dominance of the manner in which things have been publicly interpreted by the “they”, has already decided what state-of-mind is to determine our attitude towards DEATH. In anxiety in the face of DEATH, Dasein is brought face to face with itself as delivered over to that possibility which is not to be outstripped. The “they” concerns itself with transforming this anxiety into fear in the face of an oncoming event. In addition, the anxiety which has been made ambiguous as fear, is passed off as a weakness with which no self-assured Dasein may have any acquaintance. What is ‘fitting’ [Was sich … “gehört”] according to the unuttered decree of the “they”, is indifferent tranquillity as to the ‘fact’ that one dies. The cultivation of such a ‘superior’ indifference alienates Dasein from its ownmost nonrelational potentiality-for-Being. BTMR §51

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

[SZ:255] In setting forth everyday Being-towards-DEATH, however, we are at the same time enjoined to try to secure a full existential conception of Being-towards-the-end, by a more penetrating Interpretation in which falling Being-towards-DEATH is taken as an evasion in the face of DEATH. That in the face of which one flees has been made visible in a way which is phenomenally adequate. Against this it must be possible to project phenomenologically the way in which evasive Dasein itself understands its DEATH. BTMR §51

§52. Everyday Being-towards-the-end, and the. Full Existential Conception of DEATH BTMR §52

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

In explicating everyday Being-towards-DEATH we have clung to the idle talk of the “they” to the effect that “one dies too, sometime, but not right away.” All that we have Interpreted thus far is the ‘one dies’ as such. In the ‘sometime, but not right away’, everydayness concedes something like a certainty of DEATH. Nobody doubts that one dies. On the other hand, this ‘not doubting’ need not imply that kind of Being-certain which corresponds to the way DEATH – in the sense of the distinctive possibility characterized above – enters into Dasein. Everydayness confines itself to conceding the ‘certainty’ of DEATH in this ambiguous manner just in order to weaken that certainty by covering up dying still more and to alleviate its own thrownness into DEATH. [SZ:256] BTMR §52

By its very meaning, this evasive concealment in the face of DEATH can not be authentically ‘certain’ of DEATH, and yet it is certain of it. What are we to say about the ‘certainty of DEATH? BTMR §52

The adequacy of holding-for-true is measured according to the truth-claim to which it belongs. Such a claim gets its justification from the kind of Being of the entity to be disclosed, and from the direction of the disclosure. The kind of truth, and along with it, the certainty, varies with the way entities differ, and accords with the guiding tendency and extent of the disclosure. Our present considerations will be restricted to an analysis of Being-certain with regard to DEATH; and this Being-certain will in the end present us with a distinctive certainty of Dasein. BTMR §52

For the most part, everyday Dasein covers up the owninost possibility of its Being – that possibility which is non-relational and not to be outstripped. This factical tendency to cover up confirms our thesis   that Dasein, as factical, is in the ‘untruth’. Therefore the certainty which belongs to such a covering-up of Being-towards-DEATH must be an inappropriate way of holding-for-true, and not, for instance, an uncertainty in the sense of a doubting. In inappropriate certainty, that of which one is certain is held   covered up. If ‘one’ understands DEATH as an event which one encounters in one’s environment, then the certainty which is related to such events does not pertain to Being-towards-the-end. [SZ:257] BTMR §52

They say, “It is certain that ‘DEATH’ is coming.’ They say it, and the “they” overlooks the fact that in order to be able to be certain of DEATH, Dasein itself must in every case be certain of its ownmost nonrelational potentiality-for-Being. They say, “DEATH is certain”; and in saying so, they implant in Dasein the illusion   that it is itself certain of its DEATH. And what is the ground of everyday Being-certain? Manifestly, it is not just mutual persuasion. Yet the ‘dying’ of Others is something that one experiences daily. DEATH is an undeniable ‘fact of experience’. BTMR §52

The way in which everyday Being-towards-DEATH understands the certainty which is thus grounded, betrays itself when it tries to ‘think’ about DEATH, even when it does so with critical fore-sight – that is to say, in an appropriate manner. So far as one knows, all men ‘die’. DEATH is probable in the highest degree for every man, yet it is not ‘unconditionally’ certain. Taken strictly, a certainty which is ‘only’ empirical may be attributed to DEATH. Such certainty necessarily falls short of the highest certainty, the apodictic, which we reach in certain domains of theoretical knowledge. BTMR §52

In this ‘critical’ determination of the certainty of DEATH, and of its impendence, what is manifested in the first instance is, once again, a failure to recognize Dasein’s kind of Being and the Being-towards-DEATH which belongs to Dasein – a failure that is characteristic of everydayness. The fact that demise, as an event which occurs, is ‘only’ empirically certain, is in no way decisive as to the certainty of DEATH. Cases of DEATH may be the factical occasion for Dasein’s first paying attention to DEATH at all. So long, however, as Dasein remains in the empirical certainty which we have mentioned, DEATH, in the way that it ‘is’, is something of which Dasein can by no means become certain. Even though, in the publicness of the “they”, Dasein seems to ‘talk’ only of this ‘empirical’ certainty of DEATH, nevertheless at bottom Dasein does not exclusively or primarily stick to those cases of DEATH which merely occur. In evading its DEATH, even everyday Being-towards-the-end is indeed certain of its DEATH in another way than it might itself like to have true on purely theoretical considerations. This ‘other way’ is what everydayness for the most part veils from itself. Everydayness does not dare to let itself become transparent in such a manner. We have already characterized the everyday state-of-mind which consists in an air of superiority with regard to the certain ‘fact’ of DEATH – a superiority which is ‘anxiously’ concerned while seemingly free from anxiety. In’ this state-of-mind, everydayness acknowledges a ‘higher’ certainty than one which is only empirical. One knows about the certainty of DEATH, and yet ‘is’ not authentically certain of one’s own. The falling everydayness of Dasein is acquainted with DEATH’s certainty, and yet evades Being-certain. But in the light of what it evades, this very evasion attests phenomenally that DEATH must be conceived as one’s owrimost possibility, non-relational, not to be outstripped, and – above all – certain. [SZ:258] BTMR §52

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

But when this indefiniteness has been covered up, the certainty has been covered up too. Thus DEATH’s ownmost character as a possibility gets veiled – a possibility which is certain and at the same time indefinite – that is to say, possible at any moment. 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

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

Meanwhile, it remains questionable whether this problem has been as yet adequately worked out. Being-towards-DEATH is grounded in care. Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, has in every case already been delivered over to its DEATH. In being towards its DEATH, Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly, as long as it has not yet come to its demise. When we say that Dasein is factically dying, we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-DEATH Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another. Our everyday falling evasion in the face of DEATH is an inauthentic Being-towards-DEATH. But inauthenticity is based on the possibility of authenticity. Inauthenticity characterizes a kind of Being into which Dasein can divert itself and has for the most part always diverted itself; but Dasein does not necessarily and constantly have to divert itself into this kind of Being. Because Dasein exists, it determines its own character as the kind of entity it is, and it does so in every case in terms of a possibility which it itself is and which it understands. BTMR §52

The existential conception of DEATH has been established; and therewith we have also established what it is that an authentic Being-towards-the-end should be able to comport itself towards. We have also characterized inauthentic Being-towards-DEATH, and thus we have prescribed in’ a negative way [prohibitiv] how it is possible for authentic Being-towards-DEATH not to be. It is with these positive and prohibitive instructions that the existential edifice of an authentic Being-towards-DEATH must let itself be projected. BTMR §53

Dasein is constituted by disclosedness – that is, by an understanding with a state-of-mind. Authentic Being-towards-DEATH can not evade its ownmost non-relational possibility, or cover up this possibility by thus fleeing from it, or give a new explanation for it to accord with the common sense of the “they”. In our existential projection of an authentic Being-towards-DEATH, therefore, we must set forth those items in such a Being which are constitutive for it as an understanding of DEATH – and as such an understanding in the sense of Being towards this possibility without either fleeing it or covering it up. BTMR §53

Manifestly Being-towards-DEATH, which is now in question, cannot have the character of concernfully Being out to get itself actualized. For one thing, DEATH as possible is not something possible which is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand, but a possibility of Dasein’s Being. So to concern oneself with actualizing what is thus possible would have to signify, “bringing about one’s demise”. But if this were done, Dasein would deprive itself of the very ground for an existing Being-towards-DEATH. BTMR §53

Thus, if by “Being towards DEATH” we do not have in view an ‘actualizing’ of DEATH, neither can we mean “dwelling upon the end in its possibility”. This is the way one comports oneself when one ‘thinks about DEATH’, pondering over when and how this possibility may perhaps be actualized. Of course such brooding over DEATH does not fully take away from it its character as a possibility. Indeed, it always gets brooded over as something that is coming; but in such brooding we weaken it by calculating how we are to have it at our disposal. As something possible, it is to show as little as possible of its possibility. On the other hand, if Being-towards-DEATH has to disclose understandingly the possibility which we have characterized, and if it is to disclose it as a possibility, then in such Being-towards-DEATH this possibility must not be weakened: it must be understood as a possibility, it must be cultivated as a possibility, and we must put up with it as a possibility, in the way we comport ourselves towards it. BTMR §53

[SZ:262] But Being towards this possibility, as Being-towards-DEATH, is so to comport ourselves towards DEATH that in this Being, and for it, DEATH. reveals itself as a possibility. Our terminology for such Being towards this possibility is “anticipation” of this possibility. But in this way of behaving does there not lurk a coming-close to the possible, and when one is close to the possible, does not its actualization emerge? In this kind of coming close, however, one does not tend towards concernfully making available something actual; but as one comes closer understandingly, the possibility of the possible just becomes ‘greater’. The closest closeness which one may have in Being towards DEATH as a possibility, is as far as possible from anything actual. The more unveiledly this possibility gets understood, the more purely does the understanding penetrate into it as the possibility of the impossibility of any existence at all. DEATH, as possibility, gives Dasein nothing to be ‘actualized’, nothing which Dasein, as actual, could itself be. It is the possibility of the impossibility of every way of comporting oneself towards anything, of every way of existing. In the anticipation of this possibility it becomes ‘greater and greater’; that is to say, the possibility reveals itself to be such that it knows no measure at all, no more or less, but signifies the possibility of the measureless impossibility of existence. In accordance with its essence, this possibility offers no support for becoming intent on something, ‘picturing’ to oneself the actuality which is possible, and so forgetting its possibility. Being-towards-DEATH, as anticipation of possibility, is what first makes this possibility possible, and sets it free as possibility. BTMR §53

Being-towards-DEATH is the anticipation of a potentiality-for-Being of that entity whose kind of Being is anticipation itself. In the anticipatory revealing of this potentiality-for-Being, Dasein discloses itself to itself as regards its uttermost possibility. But to project itself on its ownmost potentiality-for-Being means to be able to understand itself in the Being of the entity so revealed – namely, to exist. Anticipation turns out to be the possibility of understanding one’s ownmost and uttermost potentialityfor-Being – that is to say, the possibility of authentic existence. The ontological constitution of such existence must be made visible by setting forth the concrete structure of anticipation of DEATH. How are we to delimit this structure phenomenally? Manifestly, we must do so by determining those characteristics which must belong to an anticipatory disclosure so that it can become the pure understanding of that ownmost possibility which is non-relational and not to be outstripped – which is certain and, as such, indefinite. It must be noted that understanding does not primarily mean just gazing at a meaning, but rather understanding oneself in that potentiality-for-Being which reveals itself in projection. BTMR §53

[SZ:263] DEATH is Dasein’s ownmost possibility. Being towards this possibility discloses to Dasein its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, in which its very Being is the issue. Here it can become manifest to Dasein that in this distinctive possibility of its own self, it has been wrenched away from the “they”. This means that in anticipation any Dasein can have wrenched itself away from the “they” already. But when one understands that this is something which Dasein ‘can’ have done, this only reveals its factical lostness in the everydayness of the they-self. BTMR §53

The ownmost possibility is non-relational. Anticipation allows Dasein to understand that that potentiality-for-being in which its ownmost Being is an issue, must be taken over by Dasein alone. DEATH does not just ‘belong’ to one’s own Dasein in an undifferentiated way; DEATH lays claim to it as an individual Dasein. The non-relational character of DEATH, as understood in anticipation, individualizes Dasein down to itself. This individualizing is a way in which the ‘there’ is disclosed for existence. It makes manifest that all Being-alongside the things with which we concern ourselves, and all Being-with Others, will fail us when our ownmost potentiality-for-Being is the issue. Dasein can be authentically itself only if it makes this possible for itself of its own accord. But if concern and solicitude fail us, this does not signify at all that these ways of Dasein have been cut off from its authentically Being-its-Self. As structures essential to Dasein’s constitution, these have a share in conditioning the possibility of any existence whatsoever. Dasein is authentically itself only to the extent that, as concernful Being-alongside and solicitous Being-with, it projects itself upon its ownmost potentiality-for-Being rather than upon the possibility of the they-self. The entity which anticipates its non-relational possibility, is thus forced by that very anticipation into the possibility of taking over from itself its ownmost Being, and doing so of its own accord. [SZ:264] BTMR §53

The ownmost, non-relational possibility is not to be outstripped. Being towards this possibility enables Dasein to understand that giving itself up impends for it as the uttermost possibility of its existence. Anticipation, however, unlike inauthentic Being-towards-DEATH, does not evade the fact that DEATH is not to be outstripped; instead, anticipation frees itself for accepting this. When, by anticipation, one becomes free for one’s own DEATH, one is liberated from one’s lostness in those possibilities which may accidentally thrust themselves upon one; and one is liberated in such a way that for the first time one can authentically understand and choose among the factical possibilities lying ahead of that possibility which is not to be outstripped. Anticipation discloses to existence that its uttermost possibility lies in giving itself up, and thus it shatters all one’s tenaciousness to whatever existence one has reached. In anticipation, Dasein guards itself against falling back behind itself, or behind the potentialityfor-Being which it has understood. It guards itself against ‘becoming too old for its victories’ (Nietzsche  ). Free for its ownmost possibilities, which are determined by the end and so are understood as finite [endliche], Dasein dispels the danger that it may, by its own finite understanding of existence, fail to recognize that it is getting outstripped by the existence-possibilities of Others, or rather that it may explain these possibilities wrongly and force them back upon its own, so that it may divest itself of its ownmost factical existence. As the non-relational possibility, DEATH individualizes – but only in such a manner that, as the possibility which is not to be outstripped, it makes Dasein, as Being-with, have some understanding of the potentiality-for-Being of Others. Since anticipation of the possibility which is not to be outstripped discloses also all the possibilities which lie ahead of that possibility, this anticipation includes the possibility of taking the whole of Dasein in advance [Vorwegnehmens] in an existentiell manner; that is to say, it includes the possibility of existing as a whole potentialityfor-Being. BTMR §53

The ownmost, non-relational possibility, which is not to be outstripped, is certain. The way to be certain of it is determined by the kind of truth which corresponds to it (disclosedness). The certain possibility of DEATH, however, discloses Dasein as a possibility, but does so only in such a way that, in anticipating this possibility, Dasein makes this possibility possible for itself as its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The possibility is disclosed because it is made possible in anticipation. To maintain oneself in this truth – that is, to be certain of what has been disclosed – demands all the more that one should anticipate. We cannot compute the certainty of DEATH by ascertaining how many cases of DEATH we encounter. This certainty is by no means of the kind which maintains itself in the truth of the present-at-hand. When something present-at-hand has been uncovered, it is encountered most purely if we just look at the entity and let it be encountered in itself. Dasein must first have lost itself in the factual circumstances [Sachverhalte] (this can be one of care’s own tasks and possibilities) if it is to obtain the pure objectivity – that is to say, the indifference – of apodictic evidence. If Being-certain in relation to DEATH does not have this character, this does not mean that it is of a lower grade, but that it does not belong at all to the graded order of the kinds of evidence we can have about the present-at-hand. [SZ:265] BTMR §53

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

The ownmost possibility, which is non-relational, not to be outstripped, and certain, is indefinite as regards its certainty. How does anticipation disclose this characteristic of Dasein’s distinctive possibility? How does the anticipatory understanding project itself upon a potentiality-for-Being which is certain and which is constantly possible in such a way that the “when” in which the utter impossibility of existence becomes possible remains constantly indefinite? In anticipating [zum] the indefinite certainty of DEATH, Dasein opens itself to a constant threat arising out of its own “there”. In this very threat Being-towards-the-end must maintain itself. So little can it tone this down that it must rather cultivate the indefiniteness of the certainty. How is it existentially possible for this constant threat to be genuinely disclosed? All understanding is accompanied by a state-of-mind. Dasein’s mood brings it face to face with the thrownness of its ‘that it is there’. But the state-of-mind which can hold open the utter and constant threat to itself arising from Dasein’s ownmost individualized Being, is anxiety. In this state-of-mind, Dasein finds itself face to face with the “nothing” of the possible impossibility of its existence. Anxiety is anxious about the potentiality-for-Being of the entity so destined [des so bestimmten Seienden  ), and in this way it discloses the uttermost possibility. Anticipation utterly individualizes Dasein, and allows it, in this individualization of itself, to become certain of the totality of its potentiality-for-Being. For this reason, anxiety as a basic state-of-mind belongs to such a self-understanding of Dasein on the basis of Dasein itself. Being-towards-DEATH is essentially anxiety. This is attested unmistakably, though ‘only’ indirectly, by Being-towards-DEATH as we have described it, [SZ:266] when it perverts anxiety into cowardly fear and, in surmounting this fear, only makes known its own cowardliness in the face of anxiety. BTMR §53

We may now summarize our characterization of authentic Being-towards-DEATH as we have projected it existentially: anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the they-self, and brings it face to face with the possibility of being itself, primarily unsupported by concernful solicitude, but of being itself, rather, in an impassionedfreedom towards DEATH – a freedom which has been released from the Illusions of the “they”, and which is factical, certain of itself, and anxious. BTMR §53

The question of Dasein’s authentic Being-a-whole and of its existential constitution still hangs in mid-air. It can be put on a phenomenal basis which will stand the test only if it can cling to a possible authenticity of its Being which is attested by Dasein itself. If we succeed in uncovering that attestation phenomenologically, together with what it attests, then the problem will arise anew as to whether the anticipation of [zum] DEATH, which we have hitherto projected only in its ontological possibility, has an essential connection with that authentic potentiality-for-Being which has beenattested. BTMR §53

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

An authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole on the part of Dasein has been projected existentially. By analysing this phenomenon, we have revealed that authentic Being-towards-DEATH is anticipation. Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being, in its existentiell attestation, has been exhibited, and at the same time existentially Interpreted, as resoluteness. How are these two phenomena of anticipation and resoluteness to be brought together? Has not our ontological projection of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole led us into a dimension of Dasein which lies far from the phenomenon of resoluteness? What can DEATH and the ‘concrete Situation’ of taking action have in common? In attempting to bring resoluteness and anticipation forcibly together, are we not seduced into an intolerable and quite unphenomenological construction, for which we can no longer claim that it has the character of an ontological projection, based upon the phenomena? [SZ:302] BTMR §61

Any superficial binding together of the two phenomena is excluded. There still remains one way out, and this is the only possible method: namely, to take as our point of departure the phenomenon of resoluteness, as attested in its existentiell possibility, and to ask: “Does resoluteness, in its ownmost existentiell tendency of Being, point forward to anticipatory resoluteness as its ownmost authentic possibility?” What if resoluteness, in accordance with its own meaning, should bring itself into its authenticity only when it projects itself not upon any random possibilities which just-lie closest, but upon that uttermost possibility which lies ahead of every factical potentiality-for-Being of Dasein, and, as such, enters more or less undisguiscdly into every potentiality-for-Being of which Dasein factically takes hold? What if it is only in the anticipation of [zum] DEATH that resoluteness, as Dasein’s authentic truth, has reached the authentic certainty which belongs to it? What, if it is only in the anticipation if DEATH that all the factical ‘anticipatoriness’ of resolving would be authentically understood – in other words, that it would be caught up with in an existentiell way? BTMR §61

We have characterized resoluteness as a way of reticently projecting oneself upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, and exacting anxiety of oneself. Being-guilty belongs to Dasein’s Being, and signifies the null Being-the-basis of a nullity. The ‘Guilty!’ which belongs to the Being of Dasein is something that can be neither augmented nor diminished. It comes before any quantification, if the latter has any meaning at all. Moreover, Dasein is essentially guilty – not just guilty on some occasions, and on other occasions not. Wanting-to-have-a-conscience resolves upon this Being-guilty. To project oneself upon this Being-guilty, which Dasein is as long as it is, belongs to the very meaning of resoluteness. The existentiell way of taking over this ‘guilt’ in resoluteness, is therefore authentically accomplished only when that resoluteness, in its disclosure of Dasein, has become so transparent that Being-guilty is understood as something constant. But this understanding is made possible only in so far as Dasein discloses to itself its potentiality-for-Being, and discloses it ‘right to its end’. Existentially, however, Dasein’s “Being-at-an-end” implies Being-towards-the-end. As Being-towards-the-end which understands – that is to say, as anticipation of DEATH – resoluteness becomes authentically what it can be. Resoluteness does not just ‘have’ a connection with anticipation, as with something other than itself. It harbours in itself authentic Being-towards-DEATH, as the possible existentiell modality of its own authenticity. This ‘connection’ must be elucidated phenomenally. BTMR §62

When Dasein is resolute, it takes over authentically in its existence the fact that it is the null basis of its own nullity. We have conceived DEATH existentially as what we have characterized as the possibility of the impossibility of existence – that is to say, as the utter nullity of Dasein. DEATH is not “added on” to Dasein at its ‘end’; but Dasein, as care, is the thrown (that is, null) basis for its DEATH. The nullity by which Dasein’s Being is dominated primordially through and through, is revealed to Dasein itself in authentic Being-towards-DEATH. Only on the basis of Dasein’s whole Being does anticipation make Being-guilty manifest. Care harbours in itself both DEATH and guilt equiprimordially. Only in anticipatory resoluteness is the potentiality-for-Being-guilty understood authentically and wholly – that is to say, primordially. BTMR §62

When the call of conscience is understood, lostness in the “they” is revealed. Resoluteness brings Dasein back to its ownmost potentialityfor-Being-its-Self. When one has an understanding Being-towards-DEATH – towards DEATH as one’s ownmost possibility – one’s potentiality-for-Being becomes authentic and wholly transparent. [SZ:307] BTMR §62

The call of conscience passes over in its appeal all Dasein’s ‘worldly’ prestige and potentialities. Relentlessly it individualizes Dasein down to its potentiality-for-Being-guilty, and exacts of it that it should be this potentiality authentically. The unwavering precision with which Dasein is thus essentially individualized down to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, discloses the anticipation of [zum] DEATH as the possibility which is non-relational. Anticipatory resoluteness lets the potentiality-for-Being-guilty, as one’s ownmost non-relational possibility, be struck wholly into the conscience. BTMR §62

Any factical Dasein has been determined by its ownmost Being-guilty both before any factical indebtedness has been incurred and after any such indebtedness has been paid off; and wanting-to-have-a-conscience signifies that one is ready for the appeal to this ownmost Being-guilty. This prior Being-guilty, which is constantly with us, does not show itself unconcealedly in its character as prior until this very priority has been enlisted in [hineingestellt] that possibility which is simply not to be outstripped. When, in anticipation, resoluteness has caught up [eingeholt] the possibility of DEATH into its potentiality-for-Being, Dasein’s authentic existence can no longer be outstripped [überholt] by anything. BTMR §62

The phenomenon of resoluteness has brought us before the primordial truth of existence. As resolute, Dasein is revealed to itself in its current factical potentiality-for-Being, and in such a way that Dasein itself is this revealing and Being-revealed. To any truth, there belongs a corresponding holding-for-true. The explicit appropriating of what has been disclosed or discovered is Being-certain. The primordial truth of existence demands an equiprimordial Being-certain, in which one maintains oneself in what resoluteness discloses. It gives itself the current factical Situation, and brings itself into that Situation. The Situation cannot be calculated in advance or presented like something present-at-hand which is waiting for someone to grasp it. It merely gets disclosed in a free resolving which has not been determined beforehand but is open to the possibility of such determination. What, then, does the certainty which belongs to such resoluteness signify? Such certainty must maintain itself in what is disclosed by the resolution. But this means that it simply cannot become rigid as regards the Situation, but must understand that the resolution, in accordance with its own meaning as a disclosure, must be held open and free for the current factical possibility. The certainty of the resolution signifies that one holds oneself free for the possibility of taking it back – a possibility which is factically necessary. However, such holding-for-true in resoluteness (as the truth of existence) by no means lets us fall   back into irresoluteness. On the contrary, this holding-for-true, as a resolute holding-oneself-free for taking back, is authentic resoluteness which resolves to keep repeating itself. Thus, in [SZ:308] an existentiell manner, one’s very lostness in irresoluteness gets undermined. The holding-for-true which belongs to resoluteness, tends, in accordance with its meaning, to hold itself free constantly – that is, to hold itself free for Dasein’s whole potentiality-for-Being. This constant certainty is guaranteed to resoluteness only so that it will relate itself to that possibility of which it can be utterly certain. In its DEATH, Dasein must simply ‘take back’ everything. Since resoluteness is constantly certain of DEATH – in other words, since it anticipates it – resoluteness thus attains a certainty which is authentic and whole. BTMR §62

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

Our analysis has revealed seriatim those items of modalization towards which resoluteness tends of itself and which arise from authentic Being towards DEATH as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, non-relational, not to be outstripped, certain, and yet indefinite. Resoluteness is authentically and wholly what it can be, only as anticipatory resoluteness. [SZ:309] BTMR §62

But on the other hand, in our Interpretation of the ‘connection’ between resoluteness and anticipation, we have first reached a full existential understanding of anticipation itself. Hitherto this could amount to no more than an ontological projection. We have now shown that anticipation is not just a fictitious possibility which we have forced upon Dasein; it is a mode of an existentiell potentiality-for-Being that is attested in Dasein – a mode which Dasein exacts of itself, if indeed it authentically understands itself as resolute. Anticipation ‘is’ not some kind of freefloating behaviour, but must be conceived as the possibility of the authenticity of that resoluteness which has been attested in an existentiell way – a possibility hidden in such resoluteness, and thus attested therewith. Authentic ‘thinking about DEATH’ is a wanting-to-have-a-conscience, which has become transparent to itself in an existcntiell manner. If resoluteness, as authentic, tends towards the mode delimited by anticipation, and if anticipation goes to make up Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, then in the resoluteness which is attested in an existentiell manner, there is attested with it an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole which belongs to Dasein. The question of the polentiality-for-Being-a-whole is one which is factical and existentiell. It is answered by Dasein as resolute. The question of Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole has now fully sloughed off the character indicated at the beginning, when we treated it as it if were just a theoretical or methodological question of the analytic of Dasein, arising from the endeavour to have the whole of Dasein completely ‘given’. The question of Dasein’s totality, which at the beginning we discussed only with regard to ontological method, has its justification, but only because the ground for that justification goes back to an ontical possibility of Dasein. BTMR §62

Anticipatory resoluteness is not a way of escape, fabricated for the ‘overcoming’ of DEATH; it is rather that understanding which follows the call of conscience and which frees for DEATH the possibility of acquiring power over Dasein’s existence and of basically dispersing all fugitive Selfconcealments. Nor does wanting-to-have-a-conscience, which has been made’ determinate as Being-towards-DEATH, signify a kind of seclusion in which one flees the world; rather, it brings one without Illusions into the resoluteness of ‘taking action’. Neither does anticipatory resoluteness stem from ‘idealistic’ exactions soaring above existence and its possibilities; it springs from a sober understanding of what are factically the basic possibilities for Dasein. Along with the sober anxiety which brings us face to face with our individualized potentiality-for-Being, there goes an unshakable joy in this possibility. In it Dasein becomes free from the entertaining ‘incidentals’ with which busy curiosity keeps providing itself – primarily from the events of the world. But the analysis of these basic moods would transgress the limits which we have drawn for the present Interpretation by aiming towards fundamental ontology. BTMR §62

Not only in exhibiting the most elemental structures of Being-in-the-world, in delimiting the concept of the world, in clarifying the average “who” of this entity (the “who” which is closest to us – the they-self), in Interpreting the ‘there’, but also, above all, in analysing care, DEATH, conscience, and guilt – in all these ways we have shown how in Dasein itself concernful common sense has taken control of Dasein’s potentialityfor-Being and the disclosure of that potentiality – that is to say, the closing of it off. BTMR §63

It may be that our method demands this ‘violent’ presentation of possibilities of existence, but can such a presentation be taken out of the province of our free discretion? If the analytic makes anticipatory resoluteness basic as a potentiality-for-Being which, in an existentiell manner, is authentic – a possibility to which Dasein itself summons us from the very basis of its existence – then is this possibility just one which is left to our discretion? Has that way-of-Being in accordance with which Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being comports itself towards its distinctive possibility – DEATH – been just accidentally pounced upon? Does Being-in-the-world have a higher instance for its potentiality-for-Being than its own DEATH? BTMR §63

When one talks of the ‘circle’ in understanding, one expresses a failure to recognize two things: (1) that understanding as such makes up a basic kind of Dasein’s Being, and (2) that this Being is constituted as care. To deny the circle, to make a secret of it, or even to want to overcome it, means finally to reinforce this failure. We must rather endeavour to leap into the ‘circle’, primordially and wholly, so that even at the start of the analysis of Dasein we make sure that we have a full view of Dasein’s circular Being. If, in the ontology of Dasein, we ‘take our departure’ from a worldless “I” in order to provide this “I” with an Object and an ontologically baseless relation to that Object, then we have ‘presupposed’ not too much, but too little. If we make a problem of ‘life’, and then just occasionally have regard for DEATH too, our view is too short-sighted. The object we have taken as our theme is artificially and dogmatically curtailed if ‘in the [SZ:316] first instance’ we restrict ourselves to a ‘theoretical subject’, in order that we may then round it out ‘on the practical side’ by tacking on an ‘ethic’. BTMR §63

Through the unity of the items which are constitutive for care – existentiality, 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

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

Furthermore, the pallid lack of mood – indifference – which is addicted to nothing and has no urge for anything, and which abandons itself to whatever the day may bring, yet in so doing takes everything along with it in a certain manner, demonstrates most penetratingly the power of forgetting in the everyday mode of that concern which is closest to us. Just living along [Das Dahinleben  ] in a way which ‘lets’ everything ‘be’ as it is, is based on forgetting and abandoning oneself to one’s thrownness. It has the ecstatical meaning of an inauthentic way of having been. Indifference, which can go along with busying oneself head over heels, must be sharply distinguished from equanimity. This latter mood springs from resoluteness, which, in a moment of vision, looks at those Situations which are possible in one’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole as disclosed in our anticipation of [zum] DEATH. BTMR §68

Even though many structures of Dasein when taken singly are still obscure, it seems that by casting light upon temporality as the primordial condition for the possibility of care, we have reached the primordial Interpretation of Dasein which we require. We have exhibited temporality with a view to Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. We have then confirmed the temporal   Interpretation of care by demonstrating the temporality of concernful Being-in-the-world. Our analysis of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole has revealed that in care is rooted an equiprimordial connectedness of DEATH, guilt, and conscience. Can Dasein be understood in a way that is more primordial than in the projection of its authentic existence? BTMR §72

Although up till now we have seen no possibility of a more radical approach to the existential analytic, yet, if we have regard for the preceding discussion of the ontological meaning of everydayness, a difficult consideration comes to light. Have we indeed brought the whole of Dasein, as regards its authentically Being-a-whole, into the fore-having of our existential analysis? It may be that a formulation of the question as related to Dasein’s totality, possesses a genuinely unequivocal character ontologically. It may be that as regards Being-towards-the-end the question itself may even have found its answer. But DEATH is only the ‘end’ of Dasein; and, taken formally, it is just one of the ends by which Dasein’s totality is closed round. The other ‘end’, however, is the ‘beginning’, the ‘birth’. Only that entity which is ‘between’ birth and DEATH presents the whole which we have been seeking. Accordingly the orientation of our analytic has so far remained ‘one-sided’, in spite of all its tendencies towards a consideration of existent Being-a-whole and in spite of the genuineness with which authentic and inauthentic Being-towards-DEATH have been explicated. Dasein has been our theme only in the way in which it exists ‘facing forward’, as it were, leaving ‘behind it’ all that has been. Not only has Being-towards-the-beginning remained unnoticed; but so too, and above all, has the way in which Dasein stretches along between birth and DEATH. The ‘connectedness of life’, in which Dasein somehow maintains itself constantly, is precisely what we have overlooked in our analysis of Being-a-whole. [SZ:373] BTMR §72

We have regarded temporality as the meaning of the Being of Dasein’s totality; must we not now take this back, even if what we have described as the ‘connectedness’ between birth and DEATH is ontologically quite obscure? Or does temporality, as we have exhibited it, first of all give us the basis on which to provide an unequivocal direction for the existential-ontological question of this ‘connectedness’? In the field of these Investigations, it is perhaps already a gain, when we learn not to take problems too lightly. BTMR §72

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

If we have regard for what we have worked out under the title of “temporality” as the meaning of the Being of care, we find that while the ordinary interpretation of Dasein, within its own limits, has its justification and is sufficient, we cannot carry through a genuine ontological analysis of the way Dasein stretches along between birth and DEATH if we take this interpretation as our clue, nor can we even fix upon such an analysis as a problem. [SZ:374] BTMR §72

Dasein does not exist as the sum of the momentary actualities of Experiences which come along successively and disappear. Nor is there a sort of framework which this succession gradually fills up. For how is such a framework to be present-at-hand, where, in each case, only the Experience one is having ‘right now’ is ‘actual’, and the boundaries of the framework – the birth which is past and the DEATH which is only oncoming – lack actuality? At bottom, even in the ordinary way of taking the ‘connectedness of life’, one does not think of this as a framework drawn tense ‘outside’ of Dasein and spanning it round, but one rightly seeks this connectedness in Dasein itself. When, however, one tacitly regards this entity ontologically as something present-at-hand ‘in time’, any attempt at an ontological characterization of the Being ‘between’ birth and DEATH will break down. BTMR §72

Dasein does not fill up a track or stretch ‘of life’ – one which is somehow present-at-hand – with the phases of its momentary actualities. It stretches itself along in such a way that its own Being is constituted in advance as a stretching-along. The ‘between’ which relates to birth and DEATH already lies in the Being of Dasein. On the other hand, it is by no means the case that Dasein ‘is’ actual in a point of time, and that, apart from this, it is ‘surrounded’ by the non-actuality of its birth and DEATH. Understood existentially, birth is not and never is something past in the sense of something no longer present-at-hand; and DEATH is just as far from having the kind of Being of something still outstanding, not yet present-at-hand but coming along. Factical Dasein exists as born; and, as born, it is already dying, in the sense of Being-towards-DEATH. As long as Dasein factically exists, both the ‘ends’ and their ‘between’ are, and they are in the only way which is possible on the basis of Dasein’s Being as care. Thrownness and that Being towards DEATH in which one either flees it or anticipates it, form a unity; and in this unity birth and DEATH are ‘connected’ in a manner characteristic of Dasein. As care, Dasein is the ‘between’. BTMR §72

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

The resoluteness in which Dasein comes back to itself, discloses current factical possibilities of authentic existing, and discloses them in terms of the heritage which that resoluteness, as thrown, takes over. In one’s coming back resolutely to one’s thrownness, there is hidden a handing down to oneself of the possibilities that have come down to one, but not necessarily as having thus come down. If everything ‘good’ is a heritage, and the character of ‘goodness’ lies in making authentic existence possible, then the handing down of a heritage constitutes itself in resoluteness. The more authentically Dasein resolves – and this means that in anticipating DEATH it understands. itself unambiguously in terms of its ownmost distinctive possibility – the more unequivocally does it choose and find the possibility of its existence, and the less does it do so by accident. Only by the anticipation of DEATH is every accidental and ‘provisional’ possibility driven out. Only Being-free for DEATH, gives Dasein its goal outright and pushes existence into its finitude. Once one has grasped the finitude of one’s existence, it snatches one back from the endless multiplicity of possibilities which offer themselves as closest to one – those of comfortableness, shirking, and taking things lightly – and brings Dasein into the simplicity of its fate [Schicksals]. This is how we designate Dasein’s primordial historizing, which lies in authentic resoluteness and in which Dasein hands itself down to itself, free for DEATH, in a possibility which it has inherited and yet has chosen. [SZ:384] BTMR §74

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

[SZ:385] Fate is that powerless superior power which puts itself in readiness for adversities – the power of projecting oneself upon one’s own Being-guilty, and of doing so reticently, with readiness for anxiety. As such, fate requires as the ontological condition for its possibility, the state of Being of care – that is to say, temporality. Only if DEATH, guilt, conscience, freedom, and finitude reside together equiprimordially in the Being of an entity as they do in care, can that entity exist in the mode of fate; that is to say, only then can it be historical in the very depths of its existence. BTMR §74

Only an entity which, in its Being, is essentially futural so that it is free for its DEATH and can let itself be thrown back upon its factical “there” by shattering itself against DEATH – that is to say, only an entity which, as futural, is equiprimordially in the process of having-been, can, by handing down to itself the possibility it has inherited, take over its own thrownness and bein the moment of vision for ‘its time’. Only authentic temporality which is at the same time finite, makes possible something like fate – that is to say, authentic historicality. BTMR §74

We characterize repetition as a mode of that resoluteness which hands itself down – the mode by which Dasein exists explicitly as fate. But if fate constitutes the primordial historicality of Dasein, then history has its essential importance neither in what is past nor in the “today” and its ‘connection’ with what is past, but in that authentic historizing of existence which arises from Dasein’s future. As a way of Being for Dasein, history has its roots so essentially in the future that DEATH, as that possibility of Dasein which we have already characterized, throws anticipatory existence back upon its factical thrownness, and so for the first time imparts to having-been its peculiarly privileged position in the historical. Authentic Being-towards-DEATH – that is to say, the finitude of temporality – is the hidden basis of Dasein’s historicality. Dasein does not first become historical in repetition; but because it is historical as temporal, it can take itself over in its history by repeating. For this, no historiology is as yet needed. BTMR §74

That which we have hitherto been characterizing as “historicality” to conform with the kind of historizing which lies in anticipatory resoluteness, we now designate as Dasein’s “authentic historicality”. From the phenomena of handing down and repeating, which are rooted in the future, it has become plain why the historizing of authentic history lies preponderantly in having been. But it remains all the more enigmatic in what way this historizing, as fate, is to constitute the whole ‘connectedness’ of Dasein from its birth to its DEATH. How can recourse to resoluteness bring us any enlightenment? Is not each resolution just one more single ‘Experience’ in the sequence of the whole connectedness of our Experiences? Is the ‘connectedness’ of authentic historizing to consist, let us say, of an uninterrupted sequence of resolutions? Why is it that the question of how the ‘connectedness of life’ is Constituted finds no adequate and satisfying answer? Is not our investigation overhasty? Does it not, in the end, hang   too much on the answer, without first having tested the legitimacy of the question? Nothing is so plain from the course of the existential analytic so far, as the Fact that the ontology of Dasein is always falling back upon the allurements of the way in which Being is ordinarily understood. The only way of encountering this fact methodologically is by studying the source of the question of how Dasein’s connectedness is Constituted, no matter how ‘obvious’ this question may be, and by determining within what ontological horizon it moves. [SZ:387] BTMR §74

We have thus pointed out the source of the question of the ‘connectedness’ of Dasein in the sense of the unity with which Experiences are linked together between birth and DEATH. At the same time, the origin of this question betrays that it is an inappropriate one if we are aiming at a primordial existential Interpretation of Dasein’s totality of historizing. On the other hand, despite the predominance of this ‘natural’ horizon for such questions, it becomes explicable why Dasein’s authentic historicality – fate and repetition – looks as if it, least of all, could supply the phenomenal basis for bringing into the shape of an ontologically grounded problem what is at bottom intended in the question of the ‘connectedness’ of life. BTMR §75

This question does not ask how Dasein gains such a unity of connectedness that the sequence of ‘Experiences’ which has ensued and is still ensuing can subsequently be linked together; it asks rather in which of its own kinds of Being Dasein loses itself in such a manner that it must, as it were, only subsequently pull itself together out of its dispersal, and think up for itself a unity in which that “together” is embraced. Our lostness in the “they” and in the world-historical has earlier been revealed as a fleeing in the face of DEATH. Such fleeing makes manifest that Being-towards-DEATH is a basic attribute of care. Anticipatory resoluteness brings this Being-towards-DEATH into authentic existence. The historizing of this resoluteness, however, is the repetition of the heritage of possibilities by handing these down to oneself in anticipation; and we have Interpreted this historizing as authentic historicality. Is perhaps the whole of existence stretched along in this historicality in a way which is primordial and not lost, and which has no need of connectedness? The Self’s resoluteness against the inconstancy of distraction, is in itself a steadiness which has been stretched along – the steadiness with which Dasein as fate ‘incorporates’ into its existence birth and DEATH and their ‘between’, and holds them as thus ‘incorporated’, so that in such constancy Dasein is indeed in a moment of vision for what is world-historical in its current Situation. In the fateful repetition [SZ:391] of possibilities that have been, Dasein brings itself back ‘immediately’ – that is to say, in a way that is temporally ecstatical – to what already has been before it. But when its heritage is thus handed down to itself, its ‘birth’ is caught up into its existence in coming back from the possibility of DEATH (the possibility which is not to be outstripped), if only so that this existence may accept the thrownness of its own “there” in a way which is more free from Illusion. BTMR §75

But wherein are grounded this levelling-off of world-time and this covering-up of temporality? In the Being of Dasein itself, which we have, in a preparatory manner, Interpreted as care. Thrown and falling, Dasein is proximally and for the most part lost in that with which it concerns itself. In this lostness, however, Dasein’s fleeing in the face of that authentic existence which has been characterized as “anticipatory resoluteness”, has made itself known; and this is a fleeing which covers up. In this concernful fleeing lies a fleeing in the face of DEATH – that is, a looking-away from the end of Being-in-the-world. This looking-away from it, is in itself a mode of that Being-towards-the-end which is ecstatically futural. The inauthentic temporality of everyday Dasein as it falls, must, as such a looking-away from finitude, fail to recognize authentic futurity and therewith temporality in general. And if indeed the way in which Dasein is ordinarily understood is guided by the “they”, only so can the selfforgetful ‘representation’ of the ‘infinity’ of public time be strengthened. The “they” never dies because it cannot die; for DEATH is in each case mine, and only in anticipatory resoluteness does it get authentically understood in an existentiell manner. Nevertheless, the “they”, which never dies and which misunderstands Being-towards-the-end, gives a characteristic interpretation to fleeing in the face of DEATH. To the very end ‘it always has more time’. Here a way of “having time” in the sense that one can lose it makes itself known. ‘Right now, this! then that! And that is barely over, when …’ Here it is not as if the finitude of time were getting understood; quite the contrary, for concern sets out to snatch as much as possible from the time which still keeps coming and ‘goes on’. Publicly, time is something which everyone takes and can take. In the everyday way in which we are with one another, the levelled-off sequence of “nows” remains completely unrecognizable as regards its origin in the temporality of the individual Dasein. How is ‘time’ in its course to be touched even the least bit when a man who has been present-at-hand ‘in time’ no longer exists? Time goes on, just as indeed it already ‘was’ when a man ‘came into life’. The only time one knows is the public time which has been levelled off and which belongs to everyone – and that means, to nobody. [SZ:425] BTMR §81

But just as he who flees in the face of DEATH is pursued by it even as he evades it, and just as in turning away from it he must see it none the less, even the innocuous infinite sequence of “nows” which simply runs its course, imposes itself ‘on’ Dasein in a remarkably enigmatical way. BTMR §81

Why do we say that time passes away, when we do not say with just as much emphasis that it arises? Yet with regard to the pure sequence of “nows” we have as much right to say one as the other. When Dasein talks of time’s passing away, it understands, in the end, more of time than it wants to admit; that is to say, the temporality in which world-time temporalizes itself has not been completely closed off, no matter how much it may get covered up. Our talk about time’s passing-away gives expression to this ‘experience’: time does not let itself be halted. This ‘experience’ in turn is possible only because the halting of time is something that we want. Herein lies an inauthentic awaiting of ‘moments’ – an awaiting in which these are already forgotten as they glide by. The awaiting of inauthentic existence – the awaiting which forgets as it makes present – is the condition for the possibility of the ordinary experience of time’s passing-away. Because Dasein is futural in the “ahead-of-itself”, it must, in awaiting, understand the sequence of “nows” as one which glides by as it passes away. Dasein knows fugitive time in terms of its ‘fugitive’ knowledge about its DEATH. In the kind of talk which emphasizes time’s passing away, the finite futurity of Dasein’s temporality is publicly reflected. And because even in talk about time’s passing away, DEATH can remain covered up, time shows itself as a passing-away ‘in itself’. BTMR §81