ordinary

vulgär  

We have already intimated that Dasein   has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state. Dasein is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this interconnection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light – and genuinely conceived – as the horizon   for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of Dasein, which understands Being. This task as a whole requires that the conception of time thus obtained shall be distinguished from the way in which it is ORDINARILY understood. This ORDINARY way of understanding it has become explicit in an interpretation   precipitated in the traditional concept of time, which has persisted from Aristotle   to Bergson   and even later. Here we must make clear that this conception of time and, in general, the ORDINARY way of understanding it, have sprung   from temporality, and we must show how this has come about. We shall thereby restore to the ORDINARY conception the autonomy which is its rightful due, as against Bergson’s thesis   that the time one has in mind in this conception is space. [SZ  :18] BTMR §5

‘Time’ has long functioned as an ontological – or rather an ontical – criterion for naïvely discriminating various realms of entities. A distinction has been made between ‘temporal  ’ entities (natural processes and historical happenings) and ‘non-temporal’ entities (spatial and numerical relationships). We are accustomed to contrasting the ‘timeless’ meaning of propositions with the ‘temporal’ course of propositional assertions. It is also held   that there is a ‘cleavage’ between ‘temporal’ entities and the ‘supra-temporal’ eternal, and efforts are made to bridge this over. Here ‘temporal’ always means simply being [seiend  ] ‘in time’ – a designation which, admittedly, is still pretty obscure. The Fact remains that time, in the sense of ‘being [sein  ] in time’, functions as a criterion for distinguishing realms of Being. Hitherto no one has asked or troubled to investigate how time has come to have this distinctive ontological function, or with what right anything like time functions as such a criterion; nor has anyone asked whether the authentic ontological relevance which is possible for it, gets expressed when “time” is used in so naïvely ontological a manner. ‘Time’ has acquired this ‘self-evident’ ontological function ‘of its own accord’, so to speak; indeed it has done so within the horizon of the way it is ORDINARILY understood. And it has maintained itself in this function to this day. BTMR §5

In pursuing this task of destruction with the problematic of Temporality as our clue, we shall try to Interpret the chapter on the schematism and the Kantian doctrine of time, taking that chapter as our point of departure. At the same time we shall show why Kant   could never achieve an insight into the problematic of Temporality. There were two things that stood in his way: in the first place, he altogether neglected the problem of Being; and, in connection with this, he failed to provide an ontology with Dasein as its theme or (to put this in Kantian language) to give a preliminary ontological analytic of the subjectivity of the subject. Instead of this, Kant took over Descartes  ’ position quite dogmatically, notwithstanding all the essential respects in which he had gone beyond him. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that he was bringing the phenomenon of time back into the subject again, his analysis of it remained oriented towards the traditional way in which time had been ORDINARILY understood; in the long run this kept him from working out the phenomenon of a ‘transcendental   determination of time’ in its own structure and function. Because of this double effect of tradition   the decisive connection ‘between time and the ‘I think’ was shrouded in utter darkness; it did not   even become a problem. [SZ:24] BTMR §6

If in taking the concept of “phenomenon” this way, we leave indefinite which entities we consider as “phenomena”, and leave it open whether what shows itself is an entity or rather some characteristic which an entity may have in its Being, then we have merely arrived at the formal   conception of “phenomenon”. If by “that which shows itself” we understand those entities which are accessible through the empirical “intuition” in, let us say, Kant’s sense, then the formal conception of “phenomenon” will indeed be legitimately employed. In this usage “phenomenon” has the signification of the ORDINARY conception of phenomenon. But this ORDINARY conception is not the phenomenological conception. If we keep within the horizon of the Kantian problematic, we can give an illustration of what is conceived phenomenologically as a “phenomenon”, with reservations as to other differences; for we may then say that that which already shows itself in the appearance as prior to the “phenomenon” as ORDINARILY understood and as accompanying it in every case, can, even though it thus shows itself unthematically, be brought thematically to show itself; and what thus shows itself in itself (the ‘forms of the intuition’) will be the “phenomena” of phenomenology. For manifestly space and time must be able to show themselves in this way – they must be able to become phenomena – if Kant is claiming to make a transcendental assertion grounded in the facts when he says that space is the a priori   “inside-which” of an ordering. BTMR §7

Conscience gives us ‘something’ to understand; it discloses. By characterizing this phenomenon formally in this way, we find ourselves enjoined to take it back into the disclosedness of Dasein. This disclosedness, as a basic state of that entity which we ourselves are, is constituted by state-of-mind, understanding, falling, and discourse. If we analyse conscience more penetratingly, it is revealed as a call [Ruf  ]. Calling is a mode of discourse. The call of conscience has the character of an appeal to Dasein by calling it to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self; and this is done by way of summoning it to its ownmost Being-guilty. This existential Interpretation is necessarily a far cry from everyday ontical common sense, though it sets forth the ontological foundations of what the ORDINARY way of interpreting conscience has always understood within certain limits and has conceptualized as a ‘theory’ of conscience. Accordingly our existential Interpretation needs to be confirmed by a critique of the way in which conscience is ORDINARILY interpreted. When this phenomenon has been exhibited, we can bring out the extent to which it attests an authentic potentiality-for-Being of Dasein. To the call of conscience there corresponds a possible bearing. Our understanding of the appeal unveils itself as our wanting to have a conscience [Gewissenhabenwollen]. But in this phenomenon lies that existentiell choosing which we seek – the choosing to choose a kind of Being-one’s-Self which, in accordance with its existential structure, we call “resoluteness”. Thus we can see how the analyses of this chapter are divided up: the [SZ:270] existential-ontological foundations of conscience (Section 55); the character of conscience as a call (Section 56); conscience as the call of care (Section 57); understanding the appeal, and guilt (Section 58); the existential Interpretation of conscience and the way conscience is ORDINARILY interpreted (Section 59); the existential structure of the authentic potentiality-for-Being which is attested in the conscience (Section 60). BTMR §54

§59. The Existential Interpretation of the Conscience, and the Way Conscience is ORDINARILY Interpreted BTMR §59

And so with regard to the ORDINARY kind of Being of Dasein itself, there is no guarantee that the way of interpreting conscience which springs from it or the theories of conscience which are thus oriented, have arrived at the right ontological horizon for its Interpretation. In spite of this, even the ORDINARY experience of conscience must somehow – pre-ontologically – reach this phenomenon. Two things follow from this: on the one hand  , the everyday way of interpreting conscience cannot be accepted as the final criterion for the ‘Objectivity’ of an ontological analysis. On the other hand, such an analysis has no right to disregard the everyday understanding of conscience and to pass over the anthropological, psychological, and theological theories of conscience which have been based upon it. If existential analysis has laid bare the phenomenon of conscience in its ontological roots, then precisely in terms of this analysis the ORDINARY interpretations must become intelligible; and they must become intelligible not least in the ways in which they miss the phenomenon and in the reasons why they conceal it. But since in the context of the problems of this treatise the analysis of conscience is merely ancillary to what is ontologically the fundamental question, we must be satisfied with alluding to the essential problems when we characterize the connection between the existential Interpretation of conscience and the way it is ORDINARILY interpreted. [SZ:290] BTMR §59

If the ascendancy of the falling understanding of Being (of Being as presence-at-hand) keeps Dasein far from the ontological character of its own Being, it keeps it still farther from the primordial foundations of that Being. So one must not be surprised if, at first glance, temporality does not correspond to that which is accessible to the ORDINARY understanding as ‘time’. Thus neither the way time is conceived in our ORDINARY experience of it, nor the problematic which arises from this experience, can function without examination as a criterion for the appropriateness of an Interpretation of time. Rather, we must, in our investigation, make ourselves familiar beforehand with the primordial phenomenon of temporality, so that in terms of this we may cast light on the necessity, the source, and the reason for the dominion of the way it is ORDINARILY understood. BTMR §61

The phenomenal content of this meaning, drawn from the state of Being of anticipatory resoluteness, fills in the signification of the term “temporality”. In our terminological use of this expression, we must hold ourselves aloof from all those significations of ‘future’, ‘past’, and ‘Present’ which thrust themselves upon us from the ORDINARY conception of time. This holds also for conceptions of a ‘time’ which is ‘subjective’ or ‘Objective’, ‘immanent’ or ‘transcendent’. Inasmuch as Dasein understands itself in a way which, proximally and for the most part, is inauthentic, we may suppose that ‘time’ as ORDINARILY understood does indeed represent a genuine phenomenon, but one which is derivative [ein abkünftiges]. It arises from inauthentic temporality, which has a source of its own. The conceptions of ‘future’, ‘past’ and ‘Present’ have first arisen in terms of the inauthentic way of understanding time. In terminologically delimiting the primordial and authentic phenomena which correspond to these, we have to struggle against the same difficulty which keeps all ontological terminology in its grip. When violences are done in this field of investigation, they are not arbitrary but have a necessity grounded in the facts. If, however, we are to point out without gaps in the argument, how inauthentic temporality has its source in temporality which is [SZ:327] primordial and authentic, the primordial phenomenon, which we have described only in a rough and ready fashion, must first be worked out correctly. BTMR §65

The “ahead-of-itself” is grounded in the future. In the “Being-already-in …”, the character of “having been” is made known. “Being-alongside …” becomes possible in making present. While the “ahead” includes the notion of a “before”, neither the ‘before’ in the ‘ahead’ nor the ‘already’ is to be taken in terms of the way time is ORDINARILY understood; this has been automatically ruled out by what has been said above. With this ‘before’ we do not have in mind ‘in advance of something’ [das “Vorher”] in the sense of ‘not yet now – but later’; the ‘already’ is just as far from signifying ‘no longer now – but earlier’. If the expressions ‘before’ and ‘already’ were to have a time-oriented [zeithafte] signification such as this (and they can have this signification too), then to say that care has temporality would be to say that it is something which is ‘earlier’ and ‘later’, ‘not yet’ and ‘no longer’. Care would then be conceived as an entity which occurs and runs its course ‘in time’. The Being of an entity having the character of Dasein would become something present-at-hand. If this sort of thing is impossible, then any time-oriented signification which the expressions we have mentioned may have, must be different from this. The ‘before’ and the ‘ahead’ indicate the future as of a sort which would make it possible for Dasein to be such that its potentiality-for-Being is an issue. Self-projection upon the ‘for-the-sake-of-oneself’ is grounded in the future and is an essential characteristic of existentiality.The primary meaning of existentiality is the future. BTMR §65

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

Nevertheless, Dasein must also be called ‘temporal’ in the sense of Being ‘in time’. Even without a developed historiology, factical Dasein needs and uses a calendar and a clock. Whatever may happen ‘to Dasein’, it experiences it as happening ‘in time’. In the same way, the processes of Nature, whether living or lifeless, are encountered ‘in time’. They are within-time. So while our analysis of how the ‘time’ of within-time-ness has its source in temporality will be deferred until the next chapter, it would be easy to put this before our discussion of the connection between historicality and temporality. The historical is ORDINARILY characterized with the help of the time of within-time-ness. But if this ORDINARY characterization is to be stripped of its seeming self-evidence and exclusiveness, historicality must first be ‘deduced’ purely in terms of Dasein’s primordial temporality; this is demanded even by the way these are ‘objectively’ connected. Since, however, time as within-time-ness also ‘stems’ from the temporality of Dasein, historicality and within-time-ness turn out to be equiprimordial. Thus, within its limits, the ORDINARY interpretation of the temporal character of history is justified. [SZ:377] BTMR §72

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

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

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

On the other hand, within the horizon of the way time is ORDINARILY understood, temporality is inaccessible in the reverse direction. Not only must the now-time be oriented primarily by temporality in the order of possible interpretation, but it temporalizes itself only in the inauthentic temporality of Dasein; so if one has regard for the way the now-time is derived from temporality, one is justified in considering temporality as the time which is primordial. BTMR §81

Ecstatico-horizonal temporality temporalizes itself primarily in terms of the future. In the way time is ORDINARILY understood, however, the basic phenomenon of time is seen in the “now”, and indeed in that pure “now” which has been shorn in its full structure – that which they call the ‘Present’. One can gather from this that there is in principle no prospect that in terms of this kind of “now” one can clarify the ecstatico-horizonal phenomenon of the moment of vision which belongs to temporality, or even that one can derive it thus. Correspondingly, the future as ecstatically understood – the datable and significant ‘then’ – does not coincide with the ORDINARY conception of the ‘future’ in the sense of a pure “now” which has not yet come along but is only coming along. And the concept of the past in the sense of the pure “now” which has passed away, is just as far from coinciding with the ecstatical “having-been” – the datable and significant ‘on a former occasion’. The “now” is not pregnant with the “not-yet-now”, but the Present arises from the future in the primordial ecstatical unity of the temporalizing of temporality. BTMR §81

”inde mihi visum est, nihil   esse aliud tempus   quam distentionem; sed cuius rei nescio; et mirum si non ipsius animi.” Thus in principle even the Interpretation of Dasein as temporality does not lie beyond the horizon of the ORDINARY conception of time. And Hegel   has made an explicit attempt to set forth the way in which time as ORDINARILY understood is connected with spirit. In Kant, on the other hand, while time is indeed ‘subjective’, it stands ‘beside’ the ‘I think’ and is not bound up with it. The grounds which Hegel has explicitly provided for the connection between time and spirit are well suited to elucidate indirectly the foregoing Interpretation of Dasein as temporality and our exhibition of temporality as the source of worldtime. [SZ:428] BTMR §81

No detailed discussion is needed to make plain that in Hegel’s Interpretation of time he is moving wholly in the direction of the way time is ORDINARILY understood. When he characterizes time in terms of the “now”, this presupposes that in its full structure the “now” remains levelled off and covered up, so that it can be intuited as something present-at-hand, though present-at-hand only ‘ideally’. BTMR §82

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

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

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

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

Now what must be taken into account if the formal conception of phenomenon is to be deformalized into the phenomenological one, and how is this latter to be distinguished from the ORDINARY conception? What is it that phenomenology is to ‘let us see’? What is it that must be called a ‘phenomenon’ in a distinctive sense? What is it that by its very essence is necessarily the theme whenever we exhibit something explicitly? Manifestly, it is something that proximally and for the most part does not show itself at all: it is something that lies hidden, in contrast to that which proximally and for the most part does show itself; but at the same time it is something that belongs to what thus shows itself, and it belongs to it so essentially as to constitute its meaning and its ground. BTMR §7

Because phenomena, as understood phenomenologically, are never anything but what goes to make up Being, while Being is in every case the Being of ‘some entity, we must first bring forward the entities themselves if it is our aim that Being should be laid bare; and we must do this in the right way. These entities must likewise show themselves with the kind of access which genuinely belongs to them. And in this way the ORDINARY conception of phenomenon becomes phenomenologically relevant. If our analysis is to be authentic, its aim is such that the prior task of assuring ourselves ‘phenomenologically’ of that entity which is to serve as our example, has already been prescribed as our point of departure. BTMR §7

In controversy over principles, one must not only attach oneself to theses which can be grasped doxographically; one must also derive one’s orientation from the objective tendency of the problematic, even if it does not go beyond a rather ORDINARY way of taking things. In his doctrine of the res cogitans   and the res extensa, Descartes not only wants to formulate the problem of ‘the “I” and the world’; he claims to have solved it in a radical manner. His Meditations make this plain. (See especially Meditations I and VI.) By taking his basic ontological orientation from traditional sources and not subjecting it to positive   criticism, he has made it impossible to lay bare any primordial ontological problematic of Dasein; this has inevitably obstructed his view of the phenomenon of the world, and has made it possible for the ontology of the ‘world’ to be compressed into that of certain entities within-the-world. The foregoing discussion should have proved this. BTMR §21

If temporality makes up the primordial meaning of Dasein’s Being, and if moreover this entity is one for which, in its Being, this very Being is an issue, then care must use ‘time’ and therefore must reckon   with ‘time’. ‘Time-reckoning’ is developed by Dasein’s temporality. The ‘time’ which is experienced in such reckoning is that phenomenal aspect of temporality which is closest to us. Out of it arises the ORDINARY everyday understanding of time. And this understanding evolves into the traditional conception of time. BTMR §45

Thus the investigation comprised in the division which lies before us will now traverse the following stages: Dasein’s possibility of Being-a-whole, and Being-towards-death (Chapter 1); Dasein’s attestation of an authentic potentiality-for-Being, and resoluteness (Chapter 2); Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, and temporality as the ontological meaning of care (Chapter 3); temporality and everydayness (Chapter 4); temporality and historicality (Chapter 5); temporality and within-time-ness as the source of the ORDINARY conception of time (Chapter 6). BTMR §45

Such considerations are indisputably within their rights. We can, however, demand that in any Interpretation of conscience ‘one’ should recognize in it the phenomenon in question as it is experienced in an everyday manner. But satisfying this requirement does not mean in turn that the ORDINARY ontical way of understanding conscience must be recognized as the first court of appeal [erste Instanz] for an ontological Interpretation. On the other hand, the considerations which we have just marshalled remain premature as long as the analysis of conscience to which they pertain falls short of its goal. Hitherto we have merely tried to trace back conscience as a phenomenon of Dasein to the ontological constitution of that entity. This has served to prepare us for the task of making the conscience intelligible as an attestation of Dasein’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being – an attestation which lies in Dasein itself. BTMR §57

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

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

Though the call gives no information  , it is not merely critical; it is positive, in that it discloses Dasein’s most primordial potentiality-for-Being as Being-guilty. Thus conscience manifests itself as an attestation which belongs to Dasein’s Being – an attestation in which conscience calls Dasein itself face to face with its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. Is there an existentially more concrete way of determining the character of the authentic potentiality-for-Being which has thus been attested? But now that we have exhibited a potentiality-for-Being which is attested in Dasein itself, a preliminary question arises: can we claim sufficient evidential weight for the way we have exhibited this, as long as the embarrassment of our Interpreting the conscience in a one-sided manner by tracing it back to Dasein’s constitution while hastily passing over all the familiar findings of the ORDINARY interpretation of conscience, is one that is still undiminished? Is, then, the phenomenon of conscience, as it actually’ is, still recognizable at all in the Interpretation we have given? Have we not been all too sure of ourselves in the ingenuousness with which we have deduced an idea of the conscience from Dasien’s state of Being? [SZ:289] BTMR §58

The final step of our Interpretation of the conscience is the existential delimitation of the authentic potentiality-for-Being which ‘conscience attests. If we are to assure ourselves of a way of access which will make such a step possible even for the ORDINARY understanding of the conscience, we must explicitly demonstrate the connection between the results of our ontological analysis and the everyday ways in which the conscience is experienced. BTMR §58

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

But must the ontological Interpretation agree with the ORDINARY interpretation at all? Should not the latter be, in principle, ontologically suspect? If indeed Dasein understands itself proximally and for the most part in terms of that with which it concerns itself, and if it interprets all its ways of behaving as concern, then will not there be falling and concealment in its interpretation of that very way of its Being which, as a call, seeks to bring it back from its lostness in the concerns of the they”? BTMR §59

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

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

We must first show how the only phenomena with which the ORDINARY interpretation has any familiarity point back to the primordial meaning of the call of conscience when they are understood in a way that is ontologically appropriate; we must then show that the ORDINARY interpretation springs from the limitations of the way Dasein interprets itself in falling; and, since falling belongs to care itself, we must also show that this interpretation, in spite of all its obviousness, is by no means accidental. BTMR §59

In criticizing the ORDINARY interpretation of the conscience ontologically, one might be subject to the misunderstanding of supposing that if one demonstrates that the everyday way of experiencing the ‘Conscience is not existentially primordial, one will have made some judgment as to the existentiell ‘moral   quality’ of any Dasein which maintains itself in that kind of experience. Just as little as existence is necessarily and directly impaired by an ontologically inadequate way of understanding the conscience, so little does an existentially appropriate Interpretation of the conscience guarantee that one has understood the call in an existentiell manner. It’is no less possible to be serious when one experiences the conscience in the ORDINARY way than not to be serious when one’s understanding of it is more primordial. Nevertheless, the Interpretation which is more primordial existentially, also discloses possibilities for a more primordial existentiell understanding, as long as our ontological conceptualization does not let itself get cut off from our ontical experience. [SZ:295] BTMR §59

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

The temptation to overlook the finitude of the primordial and authentic future and therefore the finitude of temporality, or alternatively, to hold ‘a priori’ that such finitude is impossible, arises from the way in which the ORDINARY understanding of time is constantly thrusting itself to the fore. If the ORDINARY understanding is right in knowing a time which is endless, and in knowing only this, it has not yet been demonstrated that it also understands this time and its ‘infinity’. What does it mean to say, ‘Time goes on’ or ‘Time keep passing away?’ What is the signification of ‘in time’ in general, and of the expressions ‘in the future’ and ‘out of the future’ in particular? In what sense is ‘time’ endless? Such points need to be cleared up, if the ORDINARY objections to the finitude of primordial time are not to remain groundless. But we can clear them up effectively only if we have obtained an appropriate way of formulating the question as regards finitude and in-finitude. Such a formulation, however, arises only if we view the primordial phenomenon of time understandingly. The problem is not one of how the ‘derived’ [“abgeleitete”] infinite time, ‘in which the ready-to-hand arises and passes away, becomes primordial finite temporality; the problem is rather that of how inauthentic temporality arises out of finite authentic temporality, and how inauthentic temporality, as inauthentic, temporalizes an in-finite time out of the finite. Only because primordial time is finite can the ‘derived’ time temporalize itself as infinite. In the order in which we get things into our grasp through the understanding, the finitude of time does not become fully visible until we have exhibited ‘endless time’ so that these may be contrasted. [SZ:331] BTMR §65

By Interpreting everydayness and historicality temporally we shall get a steady enough view of primordial time to expose it as the condition which makes the everyday experience of time both possible and necessary. As an entity for which its Being is an issue, Dasein utilizes itself primarily for itself [verwendet sich … für sich selbst  ], whether it does so explicitly or not. Proximally and for the most part, care is circumspective concern. In utilizing itself for the sake of itself, Dasein ‘uses itself up’. In using itself up, Dasein uses itself – that is to say, its time. In using time, Dasein reckons with it. Time is first discovered in the concern which reckons [SZ:333] circumspectively, and this concern leads to the development of a time-reckoning. Reckoning with time is constitutive for Being-in-the-world. Concernful circumspective discovering, in reckoning with its time, permits those things which we have discovered, and which are ready-to-hand or present-at-hand, to be encountered in time. Thus entities within-the-world become accessible as ‘being in time’. We call the temporal attribute of entities within-the-world “within-time-ness” [die Innerzeitkeit]. The kind of ‘time’ which is first found ontically in within-time-ness, becomes the basis on which the ORDINARY traditional conception of time takes form. But time, as within-time-ness, arises from an essential kind of temporalizing of primordial temporality. The fact that this is its source, tells us that the time ‘in which’ what is present-at-hand arises and passes away, is a genuine phenomenon of time; it is not an externalization of a ‘qualitative time’ into space, as Bergson’s Interpretation of time – which is ontologically quite indefinite and inadequate – would have us believe. BTMR §66

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

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

We shall first describe the ORDINARY ways in which history is conceived, so that we may give our investigation an orientation as to those items which are commonly held to be essential for history. Here, it must be made plain what is primordially considered as historical. The point of attack for expounding the ontological problem of historicality will thus be designated. BTMR §72

Our exposition of the existential problem of historicality – an exposition which is necessarily limited, moreover, in that its goal is one of fundamental ontology – is divided up as follows: the ORDINARY understanding of history, and Dasein’s historizing (Section 73); the basic constitution of historicality (Section 74) ; Dasein’s historicality, and world-history (Section 75); the existential source of historiology in Dasein’s historicality (Section 76); the connection of the foregoing exposition of the problem of historicality with the researches of Dilthey   and the ideas of Count Yorck (Section 77). BTMR §72

§73. The ORDINARY. Understanding of Histoty, and Dasein’s Historizing BTMR §73

Our next aim is to find the right position for attacking the primordial question of the essence of history – that is to say, for construing historicality [SZ:378] existentially. This position is designated by that which is primordially historical. We shall begin our study, therefore, by characterizing what one has in view in using the expressions ‘history’ and ‘historical’ in the ORDINARY interpretation of Dasein. These expressions get used in several ways. BTMR §73

We contend that what is primarily historical is Dasein. That which is secondarily historical, however, is what we encounter within-the-world – not only equipment ready-to-hand, in the widest sense, but also the environing Nature as ‘the very soil of history.’ Entities other than Dasein which are historical by reason of belonging to the world, are what we call ‘world-historical’. It can be shown that the ORDINARY conception of ‘worldhistory’ arises precisely from our orientation to what is thus secondarily historical. World-historical entities do not first get their historical character, let us say, by reason of an historiological Objectification; they get it rather as those entities which they are in themselves when they are encountered within-the-world. BTMR §73

It will be said that these deliberations have been rather petty. No one denies that at bottom human Dasein is the primary ‘subject’ of history; and the ORDINARY conception of history, which we have cited, says so plainly enough. But with the thesis that ‘Dasein is historical’, one has in view not just the ontical Fact that in man we are presented with a more or less important ‘atom’ in the workings of world-history, and that he remains the plaything of circumstances and events. This thesis raises the problem: to what extent and on the basis of what ontological conditions, does historicality belong, as an essential constitutive state, to the subjectivity of the ‘historical’ subject? BTMR §73

We need only delimit that phenomenal range which we necessarily must also have in view ontologically when we talk of Dasein’s historicality. The transcendence of the world has a temporal foundation; and by reason of this, the world-historical is, in every case, already ‘Objectively’ there in the historizing of existing Being-in-the-world, without being grasped historiologically. And because factical Dasein, in falling, is absorbed in that with which it concerns itself, it understands its history worldhistorically in the first instance. And because, further, the ORDINARY understanding of Being understands ‘Being’ as presence-at-hand without further differentiation, the Being of the world-historical is experienced and interpreted in the sense of something present-at-hand which comes along, has presence, and then disappears. And finally, because the meaning of Being in general is held to be something simply self-evident, the question about the kind of Being of the world-historical and about the movement of historizing in general has ‘really’ just the barren circumstantiality of a verbal sophistry. BTMR §75

Factical Dasein takes time into its reckoning, without any existential understanding of temporality. Reckoning with time is an elemental kind of behaviour which must be clarified before we turn to the question of what it means to say that entities are ‘in time’. All Dasein’s behaviour is to be Interpreted in terms of its Being – that is, in terms of temporality. We must show how Dasein as temporality temporalizes a kind of behaviour which relates itself to time by taking it into its reckoning. Thus our previous characterization of temporality is not only quite incomplete in that we have not paid attention to all the dimensions of this phenomenon; it also is defective in principle because something like world-time, in the rigorous sense of the existential-temporal conception of the world, belongs to temporality itself. We must come to understand how this is possible and why it is necessary. Thus the ‘time’ which is familiar to us in the ORDINARY way – the time ‘in which’ entities occur – will be illuminated, and so will the within-time-ness of these entities. [SZ:405] BTMR §78

Everyday Dasein, the Dasein which takes time, comes across time proximally in what it encounters within-the-world as ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. The time which it has thus ‘experienced’ is understood within the horizon of that way of understanding Being which is the closest for Dasein; that is, it is understood as something which is itself somehow present-at-hand. How and why Dasein comes to develop the ORDINARY conception of time, must be clarified in terms of its state-of-Being as concerning itself with time – a state-of-Being with a temporal foundation. The ORDINARY conception of time owes its origin to a way in which primordial time has been levelled off. By demonstrating that this is the source of the ORDINARY conception, we shall justify our earlier Interpretation of temporality as primordial time. BTMR §78

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

The question of whether and how time has any ‘Being’, and of why and in what sense we designate it as ‘being’, cannot be answered until we have shown to what extent temporality itself, in the totality of its temporalizing makes it possible for us somehow to have an understanding of Being and address ouselves to entities. Our chapter will be divided as follows: Dasein’s temporality, and our concern with time (Section 79); the time with which we concern ourselves, and within-time-ness (Section 80); within-time-ness and the genesis   of the ORDINARY conception of time (Section 81); a comparison of the existential-ontological connection of temporality, Dasein, and world-time, with Hegel’s way of taking the relation between time and spirit (Section 82); the existential-temporal analytic of Dasein and the question of fundamental ontology as to the meaning of Being in general (Section 83). [SZ:406] BTMR §78

If world-time thus belongs to the temporalizing of temporality, then it can neither be volatilized ‘subjectivistically’ nor ‘reified’ by a vicious ‘Objectification’. These two possibilities can be avoided with a clear insight – not just by wavering insecurely between them – only if we can understand how everyday Dasein conceives of ‘time’ theoretically in terms of an understanding of time in the way which is closest to it, and if we can also understand to what extent this conception of time and the prevalence of this concept obstruct the possibility of our understanding in terms of primordial time what is meant by this conception – that is, the possibility of understanding it as temporality. The everyday concern which gives itself time, finds ‘the time’ in those entities within-the-world which are encountered ‘in time’. So if we are to cast any light on the genesis of the ORDINARY conception of time, we must take within-time-ness as our point of departure. BTMR §80

§81. Within-time-ness and the Genesis of the ORDINARY Conception of Time BTMR §81

When the concern which gives itself time reckons with time, the more ‘naturally’ it does so, the less it dwells at the expressed time as such; on the contrary, it is lost in the equipment with which it concerns itself, which in each case has a time of its own. When concern determines the time and assigns it, the more ‘naturally’ it does so – that is, the less it is directed towards treating time as such thematically – all the more does the Being which is alongside the object of concern (the Being which falls as it makes present) say unhesitatingly (whether or not anything is uttered) “now” or “then” or “on that former occasion”. Thus for the ORDINARY understanding of time, time shows itself as a sequence of “nows” which are constantly ‘present-at-hand’, simultaneously passing away and coming along. Time is understood as a succession, as a ‘flowing stream’ of “nows”, as the ‘course of time’. What is implied by such an interpretation of the world-time with which we concern ourselves? [SZ:422] BTMR §81

We get the answer if we go back to the full essential structure of worldtime and compare this with that with which the ORDINARY understanding of time is acquainted. We have exhibited datability as the first essential item in the time with which we concern ourselves. This is grounded in the ecstatical constitution of temporality. The ‘now’ is essentially a “now that …”. The datable “now”, which is understood in concern even if we cannot grasp it as such, is in each case one which is either appropriate or inappropriate. Significance belongs to the structure of the “now”. We have accordingly called the time with which we concern ourselves “world-time”. In the ORDINARY interpretations of time as a sequence of “nows”, both datability and significance are missing. These two structures are not permitted to ‘come to the fore’ when time is characterized as a pure succession. The ORDINARY interpretation of time covers them up. When these are covered up, the ecstatico-horizonal constitution of temporality, in which the datability and the significance of the “now” are grounded, gets levelled off. The “nows” get shorn of these relations, as it were; and, as thus shorn, they simply range themselves along after one another so as to make up the succession. BTMR §81

[SZ:424] The principal thesis of the ORDINARY way of interpreting time – namely, that time is ‘infinite’ – makes manifest most impressively the way in which world-time and accordingly temporality in general have been levelled off and covered up by such an interpretation. It is held that time presents itself proximally as an uninterrupted sequence of “nows”. Every “now”, moreover, is already either a “just-now” or a “forthwith”. If in characterizing time we stick primarily and exclusively to such a sequence, then in principle neither beginning nor end can be found in it. Every last   “now”, as “now”, is always already a “forthwith” that is no longer [ein Sofort-nicht  -mehr]; thus it is time in the sense of the “no-longer-now” – in the sense of the past. Every first “now” is a “just-now” that is not yet [ein Soeben-noch-nicht]; thus it is time in the sense of the “not-yetnow” – in the sense of the ‘future’. Hence time is endless ‘on both sides’. This thesis becomes possible only on the basis of an orientation towards a free-floating “in-itself” of a course of “nows” which is present-at-hand – an orientation in which the full phenomenon of the “now” has been covered up with regard to its datability, its worldhood, its spannedness, and its character of having a location of the same kind as Dasein’s, so that it has dwindled to an unrecognizable fragment. If one directs one’s glance towards Being-present-at-hand and not-Being-present-at-hand, and thus ‘thinks’ the sequence of “nows” through ‘to the end’, then an end can never be found. In this way of thinking time through to the end, one must always think more time; from this one infers that time is infinite. 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

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

The ORDINARY way of characterizing time as an endless, irreversible sequence of “nows” which passes away, arises from the temporality of falling Dasein. The ORDINARY representation of time has its natural justification. It belongs to Dasein’s average kind of Being, and to that understanding of Being which proximally prevails. Thus proximally and for the most part, even history gets understood publicly as happening within-time. This interpretation of time loses its exclusive and pre-eminent justification only if it claims to convey the ‘true’ conception of time and to be able to prescribe the sole possible horizon within which time is to be Interpreted. On the contrary, it has emerged that why and how world-time belongs to Dasein’s temporality is intelligible only in terms of that temporality and its temporalizing. From temporality the full structure of world-time has been drawn; and only the Interpretation of this structure gives us the clue for ‘seeing’ at all that in the ORDINARY conception of time something has been covered up, and for estimating how much the ecstatico-horizonal constitution of temporality has been levelled off. This orientation by Dasein’s temporality indeed makes it possible to exhibit the origin and the factical necessity of this levelling off and covering up, and at the same time to test the arguments for the ORDINARY theses about time. BTMR §81

[SZ:427] Although, proximally and for the most part, the ORDINARY experience of time is one that knows only ‘world-time’, it always gives it a distinctive relationship to ‘soul’ and ‘spirit,’ even’ if this is still a far cry from a philosophical inquiry oriented explicitly and primarily towards the ‘subject’. As evidence for this, two characteristic passages will suffice. BTMR §81

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

When a philosophical Interpretation of time is carried out, it gets a ‘locus   in a system  ’; this locus may be considered as criterial for the basic way of treating time by which such an Interpretation is guided. In the ‘physics’ of Aristotle – that is, in the context of an ontology of Nature – the ORDINARY way of understanding time has received its first thematically detailed traditional interpretation. ‘Time’, ‘location’, and ‘movement’ stand   together. True to tradition, Hegel’s analysis of time has its locus in the second part of his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, which is entitled ‘Philosophy of Nature’. The first portion of this treats of mechanics, and of this the first division is devoted to the discussion of ‘space and time’. He calls these ‘the abstract “outside-of-one-another”’. BTMR §82