potentiality-for-being

Seinkönnen  

“For each moment [jeweilig], then, something is completed [fertig] and each being is there in the how of its being [Sein  ], if, with respect to ἀρετή  , nothing is left out from that which relates to the extent of the possible ability-to-be [Seinkönnen] of the being in question.” [Met. Δ 16, 1021 b 21 sqq.] [GA18MT  :56]

---

Whenever we let there be an involvement with something in something beforehand, our doing so is grounded in our understanding such things as letting something be involved, and such things as the “with-which” and the “in-which” of involvements. Anything of this sort, and anything else that is basic for it, such as the “towards-this” as that in which there is an involvement, or such as the “for-the-sake-of-which” to which every “towards-which” ultimately goes back – all these must be disclosed beforehand with a certain intelligibility [Verständlichkeit  ]. And what is that wherein Dasein   as Being-in-the-world understands itself pre-ontologically? In understanding a context of relations such as we have mentioned, Dasein has assigned itself to an “in-order-to” [Um-zu  ], and it has done so in terms of a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING for the sake of which it itself is – one which it may have seized upon either explicitly or tacitly, and which may be either authentic or inauthentic. This “in-order-to” prescribes a “towards-this” as a possible “in-which” for letting something be involved; and the structure of letting it be involved implies that this is an involvement which something has – an involvement which is with something. Dasein always assigns itself from a “for-the-sake-of-which” to the “with-which” of an involvement; that is to say, to the extent that it is, it always lets entities be encountered as ready-to-hand  . That wherein [Worin] Dasein understands itself beforehand in the mode of assigning itself is that for which [das Woraufhin] it has let entities be encountered beforehand. The “wherein” of an act of understanding which assigns or refers itself, is that for which one lets entities be encountered in the kind of Being that belongs to involvements; and this “wherein” is the phenomenon of the world. And the structure of that to which [woraufhin] Dasein assigns itself is what makes up the worldhood of the world. BTMR   §18

In the act of understanding [Verstehen], which we shall analyse more thoroughly later (Compare Section 31), the relations indicated above must have been previously disclosed; the act of understanding holds them in this disclosedness. It holds itself in them with familiarity; and in so doing, it holds them before itself, for it is in these that its assignment operates. The understanding lets itself make assignments both in these relationships themselves and of them. The relational character which these relationships of assigning possess, we take as one of signifying. In its familiarity with these relationships, Dasein ‘signifies’ to itself: in a primordial manner it gives itself both its Being and its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING as something which it is to understand with regard to its Being-in-the-world. The “for-the-sake-of-which” signifies an “in-order-to”; this in turn, a “towards-this”; the latter, an “in-which” of letting something be involved; and that in turn, the “with-which” of an involvement. These relationships are bound up with one another as a primordial totality; they are what they are a s this signifying [Be-deuten] in which Dasein gives itself beforehand its Being-in-the-world as something to be understood. The relational totality of this signifying we call “significance”. This is what makes up the structure of the world – the structure of that wherein Dasein as such already is. Dasein, in its familiarity with significance, is the ontical condition for the possibility of discovering entities which are encountered in a world with involvement (readiness-to-hand) as their kind of Being, and which can thus make themselves known as they are in themselves [in seinem An-sieh]. Dasein as such is always something of this sort; along with its Being, a context of the ready-to-hand is already essentially discovered: Dasein, in so far as it is, has always submitted itself already to a ‘world’ which it encounters, and this submission1 belongs essentially to its Being. BTMR §18

In contrast to this, there is also the possibility of a kind of solicitude which does not   so much leap in for the Other as leap ahead of him [ihm vorausspringt] in his existentiell POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, not in order to take away his ‘care’ but rather to give it back to him authentically as such for the first time. This kind of solicitude pertains essentially to authentic care – that is, to the existence of the Other, not to a “what” with which he is concerned; it helps the Other to become transparent to himself in his care and to become free for it. BTMR §26

When we are talking ontically we sometimes use the expression ‘understanding something’ with the signification of ‘being able to manage something’, ‘being a match for it’, ‘being competent to do something’. In understanding, as an existentiale, that which we have such competence over is not a “what”, but Being as existing. The kind of Being which Dasein has, as POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, lies existentially in understanding. Dasein is not something present-at-hand which possesses its competence for something by way of an extra; it is primarily Being-possible. Dasein is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility. The Being-possible which is essential for Dasein, pertains to the ways of its solicitude for Others and of its concern with the ‘world’, as we have characterized them; and in all these, and always, it pertains to Dasein’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING towards itself, for the sake of itself. The Being-possible which Dasein is existentially in every case, is to be sharply distinguished both from empty logical possibility and from the contingency of something present-at-hand, so far as with the present-at-hand this or that can ‘come to pass’. As a modal category of presence-at-hand, possibility signifies what is not yet actual and what is not at any time necessary. It characterizes the merely possible. Ontologically it is on a lower level than actuality and necessity. On the other hand, possibility as an existentiale is the most primordial and ultimate positive   way in which Dasein is characterized ontologically. As with existentiality in general, we can, in the first instance, only prepare for the problem of possibility. The phenomenal basis for seeing it at all is provided by the understanding as a disclosive POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. [SZ:144] BTMR §31

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

Understanding is the Being of such POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, which is never something still outstanding as not yet present-at-hand, but which, as something which is essentially never present-at-hand, ‘is’ with the Being of Dasein, in the sense of existence. Dasein is such that in every case it has understood (or alternatively, not understood) that ‘it is to be thus or thus. As such understanding it ‘knows’ what it is capable of – that is, what its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING is capable of. This ‘knowing’ does not first arise from an immanent self-perception, but belongs to the Being of the “there”, which is essentially understanding. And only because Dasein, in understanding, is its “there”, can it go astray and fail to recognize itself. And in so far as understanding is accompanied by state-of-mind and as such is existentially surrendered to thrownness, Dasein has in every case already gone astray and failed to recognize itself. In its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING it is therefore delivered over to the possibility of first finding itself again in its possibilities. BTMR §31

Understanding is the existential Being of Dasein’s own POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING; and it is so in such a way that this Being discloses in itself what its Being is capable of. We must grasp the structure of this existentiale more precisely. BTMR §31

As a disclosure, understanding always pertains to the whole basic state of Being-in-the-world. As a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, any Being-in is a potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. Not only is the world, qua world, disclosed as possible significance, but when that which is within-the-world is itself freed, this entity is freed for its own possibilities. That which is ready-to-hand is discovered as such in its serviceability, its usability, and its detrimentality. The totality of involvements is revealed as the categorial whole of a possible interconnection of the ready-to-hand. But even the ‘unity’ of the manifold present-at-hand, of Nature, can be discovered only if a possibility of it has been disclosed. Is it accidental that the question about the Being of Nature aims at the ‘conditions of its possibility’? On what is such an inquiry based? When confronted with this inquiry, we cannot leave aside the question: why are entities which are not of the character of Dasein understood in their Being, if they are disclosed in accordance with the conditions of their possibility? Kant   presupposes something of the sort, perhaps rightly. But this presupposition itself is something that cannot be left without demonstrating how it is justified. [SZ:145] BTMR §31

Why does the understanding – whatever may be the essential dimensions of that which can be disclosed in it – always press forward into possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself the existential structure which we call “projection”. With equal primordiality the understanding projects Dasein’s Being both upon its “for-the-sake-of-which” and upon significance, as the worldhood of its current world. The character of understanding as projection is constitutive for Being-in-the-world with regard to the disclosedness of its existentially constitutive state-of-Being by which the factical POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING gets its leeway [Spielraum  ]. And as thrown, Dasein is thrown into the kind of Being which we call “projecting”. Projecting has nothing to do with comporting oneself towards a plan that has been thought out, and in iccordance with which Dasein arranges its Being. On the contrary, any Dasein has, as Dasein, already projected itself; and as long as it is, it is projecting. As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the character of understanding as projection is such that the understanding does not grasp thematically that upon which it projects – that is’ to say, possibilities. Grasping it in such a manner would take away from what is projected its very character as a possibility, and would reduce it to the given contents which we have in mind; whereas projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such. As projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities. BTMR §31

Because of the kind of Being which is constituted by the existentiale of projection, Dasein is constantly ‘more’ than it factually is, supposing that one might want to make an inventory of it as something-at-hand and list the contents of its Being, and supposing that one were able to do so. But Dasein is never more than it factically is, for to its facticity its, potentialityfor-Being belongs essentially. Yet as Being-possible, moreover, Dasein is never anything less; that is to say, it is existentially that which, in its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, it is not yet. Only because the Being of the “there” receives its Constitution through understanding and through the character of understanding as projection, only because it is what it becomes (or alternatively, does not become), can it say to itself ‘Become what you are’, and say this with understanding. BTMR §31

Projection always pertains to the full disclosedness of Being-in-the-world; as POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, understanding has itself possibilities, which are sketched out beforehand within the range of what is essentially disclosable in it. Understanding can devote itself primarily to the disclosedness of the world; that is, Dasein can, proximally and for the most part, understand itself in terms of its world. Or else understanding throws itself primarily into the “for-the-sake-of-which”; that is, Dasein exists as itself. Understanding is either authentic, arising out of one’s own Self as such, or inauthentic. The ‘in-‘ of “inauthentic” does not mean that Dasein cuts itself off from its Self and understands ‘only’ the world. The world belongs to Being-one’s-Self as Being-in-the-world. On the other hand, authentic understanding, no less than that which is inauthentic, can be either genuine or not genuine. As POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, understanding is altogether permeated with possibility. When one is diverted into [Sichverlegen   in] one of these basic possibilities of understanding, the other is not laid aside [legt … nicht   ab]. Because understanding, in every case, pertains rather to Dasein’s full disclosedness as Being-in-the-world, this diversion of the understanding is an existential modification of projection as a whole. In understanding the world, Being-in is always understood along with it, while understanding of existence as such is always an understanding of the world. [SZ:146] BTMR §31

As factical Dasein, any Dasein has already diverted its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING into a possibility of understanding. BTMR §31

The disclosedness of the “there” in understanding is itself a way of Dasein’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. In the way in which its Being is projected both upon the “for-the-sake-of-which” and upon significance (the world), there lies the disclosedness of Being in general. Understanding of Being has already been taken for granted in projecting upon possibilities. In projection, Being is understood, though not ontologically conceived. An entity whose kind of Being is the essential projection of Being-in-the-world has understanding of Being, and has this as constitutive for its Being. What was posited dogmatically at an earlier stage now gets exhibited in terms of the Constitution of the Being in which Dasein as understanding is its “there”. The existential meaning of this understanding of Being cannot be satisfactorily clarified within the limits of this investigation except on the basis of the Temporal   Interpretation   of Being. BTMR §31

As existentialia, states-of-mind and understanding characterize the primordial disclosedness of Being-in-the-world. By way of having a mood, Dasein ‘sees’ possibilities, in terms of which it is. In the projective disclosure of such possibilities, it already has a mood in every case. The projection of its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING has been delivered over to the Fact of its thrownness into the “there”. Has not Dasein’s Being become more enigmatical now that we have explicated the existential constitution of the Being of the “there” in the sense of thrown projection? It has indeed. We must first let the full enigmatical character of this Being emerge, even if all we can do is to come to a genuine breakdown over its ‘solution’, and to formulate anew the question about the Being of thrown projective Being-in-the-world. [SZ:148] BTMR §31

As understanding, Dasein projects its Being upon possibilities. This Being-towards-possibilities which understands is itself a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and it is so because of the way these possibilities, as disclosed, exert their counter-thrust [Rückschlag] upon Dasein. The projecting of the understanding has its own possibility – that of developing itself [sich auszubilden]. This development of the understanding we call “interpretation”. In it the understanding appropriates understandingly that which is understood by it. In interpretation, understanding does not become something different. It becomes itself. Such interpretation is grounded existentially in understanding; the latter does not arise from the former. Nor is interpretation the acquiring of information   about what is understood; it is rather the working-out of possibilities projected in understanding. In accordance with the trend of these preparatory analyses of everyday Dasein, we shall pursue the phenomenon of interpretation in understanding the world – that is, in inauthentic understanding, and indeed in the mode of its genuineness. BTMR §32

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

We can make clear the connection of discourse with understanding and intelligibility by considering an existential possibility which belongs to talking itself-hearing. If we have not heard ‘aright’, it is not by accident that we say we have not ‘understood’. Hearing is constitutive for discourse. And just as linguistic utterance is based on discourse, so is acoustic perception on hearing. Listening to … is Dasein’s existential way of Being-open as Being-with for Others. Indeed, hearing constitutes the primary and authentic way in which Dasein is open for its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – as in hearing the voice of the friend whom every Dasein carries with it. Dasein hears, because it understands. As a Being-in-the-world with Others, a Being which understands, Dasein is ‘in thrall’ to Dasein-with and to itself; and in this thraldom it “belongs” to these. Being-with develops in listening to one another [Aufeinander-hören  ], which can be done in several possible ways: following, going along with, and the privative modes of not-hearing, resisting, defying, and turning away. BTMR §34

Everything looks as if it were genuinely understood, genuinely taken hold of, genuinely spoken, though at bottom it is not; or else it does not look so, and yet at bottom it is. Ambiguity not only affects the way we avail ourselves of what is accessible for use and enjoyment, and the way we manage it; ambiguity has already established itself in the understanding as a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and in the way Dasein projects itself and presents itself with possibilities. Everyone is acquainted with what is up for discussion and what occurs, and everyone discusses it; but everyone also knows already how to talk about what has to happen firstabout what is not yet up for discussion but ‘really’ must be done. Already everyone has surmised and scented out in advance what Others have also surmised and scented out. This Being-on-the scent is of course based upon hearsay, for if anyone is genuinely ‘on the scent’ of anything, he does not speak about it; and this is the most entangling way in which ambiguity presents Dasein’s possibilities so that they will already be stifled.in their power. BTMR §37

However, this tranquillity in inauthentic Being does not seduce one into stagnation and inactivity, but drives one into uninhibited ‘hustle’ [“Betriebs”]. Being-fallen   into the ‘world’ does not now somehow come to rest. The tempting tranquillization aggravates the falling. With special regard to the interpretation of Dasein, the opinion   may now arise that understanding the most alien cultures and ‘synthesizing’ them with one’s own may lead to Dasein’s becoming for the first time thoroughly and genuinely enlightened about itself. Versatile curiosity and restlessly “knowing it all” masquerade as a universal understanding of Dasein. But at bottom it remains indefinite what is really to be understood, and the question has not even been asked. Nor has it been understood that understanding itself is a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which must be made free in one’s ownmost Dasein alone. When Dasein, tranquillized, and ‘understanding’ everything, thus compares itself with everything, it drifts along towards an alienation [Entfremdung  ] in which its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING is hidden from it. Falling Being-in-the-world is not only tempting and tranquillizing; it is at the same time alienating. [SZ:178] BTMR §38

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

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

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

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

Anxiety makes manifest in Dasein its Being towards its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – that is, its Being-free for the freedom of choosing itself and taking hold of itself. Anxiety brings Dasein face to face with its Being-free for (propensio in …) the authenticity of its Being, and for this authenticity as a possibility which it always is. But at the same time, this is the Being to which Dasein as Being-in-the-world has been delivered over. BTMR §40

That about which anxiety is anxious reveals itself as that in the face of which it is anxious – namely, Being-in-the-world. The selfsameness of that in the face of which and that about which one has anxiety, extends even to anxiousness [Sichängsten] itself. For, as a state-of-mind, anxiousness is a basic kind of Being-in-the-world. Here the disclosure and the disclosed are existentially selfsame in such a way that in the latter the world has been disclosed as world, and Being-in has been disclosed as a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which is individualized, pure, and thrown; this makes it plain that with the phenomenon of anxiety a distinctive state-of-mind has become a theme for Interpretation. Anxiety individualizes Dasein and thus discloses it as ‘solus ipse’. But this existential ‘solipsism’ is so far from the displacement of putting an isolated subject-Thing into the innocuous emptiness of a worldless occurring, that in an extreme sense what it does is precisely to bring Dasein face to face with its world as world, and thus bring it face to face with itself as Being-in-the-world. BTMR §40

Dasein is an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is an issue. The phrase ‘is an issue’ has been made plain in the state-of-Being of understanding – of understanding as self-projective Being towards its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. This potentiality is that for the sake of which any Dasein is as it is. In each case Dasein has already compared itself, in its Being, with a possibility of itself. Being-free for one’s ownmost potentialityfor-Being, and therewith for the possibility of authenticity and inauthenticity, is shown, with a primordial, elemental concreteness, in anxiety. But ontologically, Being towards one’s ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING means that in each case Dasein is already ahead of itself [ihm selbst   … vorweg] in its Being. Dasein is always ‘beyond itself’ [“über sich hinaus”], not as a way of behaving towards other entities which it is not, but as Being towards the POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which it is itself. This structure of Being, which belongs to the essential ‘is an issue’, we shall denote as Dasein’s “Being-ahead-of-itself”. [SZ:192] BTMR §41

In Being-ahead-of-oneself as Being towards one’s ownmost potentialityfor-Being, lies the existential-ontological condition for the possibility of Being-free for authentic existentiell possibilities. For the sake of its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, any Dasein is as it factically is. But to the extent that this Being towards its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING is itself characterized by freedom, Dasein can comport itself towards its possibilities, even unwillingly; it can be inauthentically; and factically it is inauthentically, proximally and for the most part. The authentic “for-the-sake-of-which” has not been taken hold of; the projection of one’s own POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING has been abandoned to the disposal of the “they”. Thus when we speak of “Being-ahead-of-itself”, the ‘itself’ which we have in mind is in each case the Self in the sense of the they-self. Even in inauthenticity Dasein’ remains essentially ahead of itself, just as Dasein’s fleeing in the face of itself as it falls, still shows that it has the state-of-Being of an entity for which its Being is an issue. BTMR §41

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

All the same, this tranquillized ‘willing’ under the guidance of the “they”, does not signify that one’s Being towards one’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING has been extinguished, but only that it has been modified. In such a case, one’s Being towards possibilities shows itself for the most part as mere wishing. In the wish Dasein projects its Being upon possibilities which not only have not been taken hold of in concern, but whose fulfilment has not even been pondered over and expected. On the contrary, in the mode of mere wishing, the ascendancy of Being-ahead-of-oneself brings with it a lack of understanding for the factical possibilities. When the world has been primarily projected as a wish-world, Being-in-the-world has lost itself inertly in what is at its disposal; but it has done so in such a way that, in the light of what is wished for, that which is at its disposal (and this is all that is ready-to-hand) is never enough. Wishing is an existential modification of projecting oneself understandingly, when such selfprojection has’ fallen forfeit to thrownness and just keeps hankering after possibilities. Such hankering closes off the possibilities; what is ‘there’ in wishful hankering turns into the ‘actual world’. Ontologically, wishing presupposes care. BTMR §41

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

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

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

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

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

The possibility of this entity’s Being-a-whole is manifestly inconsistent with the ontological meaning of care, and care is that which forms the totality of Dasein’s structural whole. Yet the primary item in care is the ‘ahead-of-itself ‘, and this means that in every case Dasein exists for the sake of itself. ‘As long as it is’, right to its end, it comports itself towards its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. Even when it still exists but has nothing more ‘before it’ and has ‘settled [abgeschlossen] its account’, its. Being is still determined by the ‘ahead-of-itself’. Hopelessness, for instance, does not tear Dasein away from its possibilities, but is only one of its own modes of Being towards these possibilities. Even when one is without Illusions and ‘is ready for anything’ [“Gefasstsein auf   Alles”], here too the ‘ahead-of-itself’ lies hidden. The ‘ahead-of-itself ‘, as an item in the structure of care, tells us unambiguously that in Dasein there is always something still outstanding, which, as a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING for Dasein itself, has not yet become ‘actual’. It is essential to the basic constitution of Dasein that there is constantly something still to be settled [eine ständige Unabgeschlossenheit]. Such a lack of totality signifies that there is something still outstanding in one’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. BTMR §46

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 phenomenon, 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

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

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

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

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

Authentic Being-towards-death signifies an existentiell possibility of Dasein. This ontical POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING must, in turn, be ontologically possible. What are the existential conditions of this possibility? How are they themselves to become accessible? BTMR §52

Factically, Dasein maintains itself proximally and for the most part in an inauthentic Being-towards-death. How is the ontological possibility of an authentic Being-towards-death to be characterized ‘Objectively’, if, in the end, Dasein never comports itself authentically towards its end, or if, in accordance with its very meaning, this authentic Being must remain hidden from the Others? Is it not a fanciful undertaking, to project the existential possibility of so questionable an existentiell POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING? What is needed, if such a projection is to go beyond a merely fictitious arbitrary construction? Does Dasein itself give us any instructions for carrying it out? And can any grounds for its phenomenal legitimacy be taken from Dasein itself? Can our analysis of Dasein up to this point give us any prescriptions for the ontological task we have now set ourselves, so that what we have before us may be kept on a road of which we can be sure? 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

All the relationships which belong to Being-towards-death, up to the full content of Dasein’s uttermost possibility, as we have characterized it, constitute an anticipation which they combine in revealing, unfolding, and holding fast, as that which makes this possibility possible. The existential projection in which anticipation has been delimited, has made visible the ontological possibility of an existentiell Being-towards-death which is authentic. Therewith, however, the possibility of, Dasein’s having an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole emerges, but only as an ontological possibility. In our existential projection of anticipation, we have of course clung to those structures of Dasein which we have arrived at earlier, and we have, as it were, let Dasein itself project itself upon this possibility, without holding up to Dasein an ideal of existence with any special ‘content’, or forcing any such ideal upon it ‘from outside’. Nevertheless, this existentially ‘possible’ Being-towards-death remains, from the existentiell point of view, a fantastical exaction. The fact that an authentic potentialityfor-Being-a-whole is ontologically possible for Dasein, signifies nothing, so long as a corresponding ontical POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING has not been demonstrated in Dasein itself. Does Dasein ever factically throw itself into such a Being-towards-death? Does Dasein demand, even by reason of its ownmost Being, an authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING determined by anticipation? [SZ:267] 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

What we are seeking is an authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING of Dasein, which will be attested in its ekistentiell possibility by Dasein itself. But this very attestation must first be such that we can find it. If in this attestation, Dasein itself, as something for which authentic existence is possible, is to be ‘given’ to Dasein ‘to understand’, this attestation will have its roots in Dasein’s Being. So in exhibiting it phenomenologically, we include a demonstration that in Dasein’s state of Being it has its source. BTMR §54

With Dasein’s lostness in the “they”, that factical POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which is closest to it (the tasks, rules, and standards, the urgency and extent, of concernful and solicitous Being-in-the-world) has already been decided upon. The “they” has always kept Dasein from taking hold of these possibilities of Being. The “they” even hides the manner in which it has tacitly relieved Dasein of the burden of explicitly choosing these possibilities. It remains indefinite who has ‘really’ done the choosing. So Dasein make no choices, gets carried along by the nobody, and thus ensnares itself in inauthenticity. This process can be reversed only if Dasein specifically brings itself back to itself from its lostness in the “they”. But this bringing-back must have that kind of Being by the neglect of which [SZ:268] BTMR §54

Dasein has lost itself in inauthenticity. When Dasein thus brings itself back [ Das Sichzurückholen] from the “they”, the they-self is modified in an existentiell manner so that it becomes authentic Being-one’s-Self. This must be accomplished by making up for not choosing [Nachholen   einer Wahl  ]. But “making up” for not choosing signifies choosing to make this choice – deciding for a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and making this decision from one’s own Self. In choosing to make this choice, Dasein makes possible, first and foremost, its authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. BTMR §54

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

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

But how are we to determine what is said in the talk that belongs to this kind of discourse? What does the conscience call to him to whom it appeals? Taken strictly, nothing. The call asserts nothing, gives no information about world-events, has nothing to tell. Least of all does it try to set going a ‘soliloquy’ in the Self to which it has appealed. ‘Nothing’ gets called to [zu-gerufen] this Self, but it has been summoned [aufgerufen] to itself – that is, to its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. The tendency of the call is not such as to put up for ‘trial’ the Self to which the appeal is made; but it calls Dasein forth (and ‘forward’) into its ownmost possibilities, as a summons to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self. BTMR §56

That it is factically, may be obscure and hidden as regards the “why” of it; but the “that-it-is’ has itself been disclosed to Dasein. The thrownness of this entity belongs to the disclosedness of the ‘there’ and reveals itself constantly in its current state-of-mind.’ This state-of-mind brings Dasein, more or less explicitly and authentically, face to face with the fact ‘that it is, and that it has to be something with a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING as the entity which it is’. For the most part, however, its mood is such that its thrownness gets closed off. In the face of its thrownness Dasein flees to the relief which comes with the supposed freedom of the they-self. This fleeing has been described as a fleeing in the face of the uncanniness which is basically determinative for individualized Being-in-the-world. Uncanniness reveals itself authentically in the basic state-of-mind of anxiety; and, as the most elemental way in which thrown Dasein is disclosed, it puts Dasein’s Being-in-the-world face to face with the “nothing” of the world; in the face of this’ “nothing”, Dasein is anxious with anxiety about its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. What if this Dasein, which finds itself [sich befindet] in the very depths of its uncanniness, should be the caller of the call of conscience? BTMR §57

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

The call does not report events; it calls without uttering anything. The call discourses in the uncanny mode of keeping silent. And it does this only because, in calling the one to whom the appeal is made, it does not call him into the public idle talk of the “they”, but calls him back from this into the reticence of his existent POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. When the caller reaches him to whom the appeal is made, it does so with a cold assurance which is uncanny but by no means obvious. Wherein lies the basis for this assurance if not in the fact that when Dasein has been individualized down to itself in its uncanniness, it is for itself something that simply cannot be mistaken for anything else? What is it that so radically deprives Dasein of the possibility of misunderstanding itself by any sort of alibi and failing to recognize itself, if not the forsakenness [Verlassenheit  ] with which it has been abandoned [Überlassenheit] to itself? BTMR §57

Uncanniness is the basic kind of Being-in-the-world, even though in an everyday way it has been covered up. Out of the depths of this kind of Being, Dasein itself, as conscience, calls. The ‘it calls me’ [“es ruft mich”] is a distinctive kind of discourse for Dasein. The call whose mood has been attuned by anxiety is what makes it possible first and foremost for Dasein to project itself upon its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. The call of conscience, existentially understood, makes known for the first time what we have hitherto merely contended: that uncanniness pursues Dasein and is a threat to the lostness in which it has forgotten itself. BTMR §57

The proposition that Dasein is at the same time both the caller and the one to whom the appeal is made, has now lost its empty formal character and its obviousness. Conscience manifests itself as the call of care: the caller is Dasein, which, in its thrownness (in its Being-already-in), is anxious about its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. The one to whom the appeal is made is this very same Dasein, summoned to its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING (ahead of itself …). Dasein is falling into the “they” (in Being-already-alongside the world of its concern), and it is summoned out of this falling by the appeal. The call of conscience – that is, conscience itself – has its [SZ:278] ontological possibility in the fact that Dasein, in the very basis of its Being, is care. BTMR §57

But this ‘public conscience’ – what else is it than the voice of the “they”? A ‘world-conscience’ is a dubious fabrication, and Dasein can come to this only because conscience, in its basis and its essence, is in each case mine – not only in the sense that in each case the appeal is to one’s ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, but because the call comes from that entity which in each case I myself am. BTMR §57

Nevertheless, this Interpretation of the conscience as the call of care will be countered by the question of whether any interpretation of the [SZ:279] conscience can stand up if it removes itself so far from ‘natural experience’. How is the conscience to function as that which summons us to our ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, when proximally and for the most part it merely warns and reproves? Does the conscience speak in so indefinite and empty a manner about our POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING? Does it not rather speak definitely and concretely in relation to failures and omissions which have already befallen or which we still have before us? Does the alleged appeal stem from a ‘bad’ conscience or from a ‘good’ one? Does the conscience give us anything positive at all? Does it not function rather in just a critical fashion? BTMR §57

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

To grasp phenomenally what one hears in understanding the appeal, we must go back to the appeal anew. The appeal to the they-self signifies summoning one’s ownmost Self to its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and of course as Dasein – that is, as concernful Being-in-the-world and Being with Others. Thus in Interpreting existentially that towards which the call summons us, we cannot seek to delimit any concrete single possibility of existence as long as we correctly understand the methodological possibilities and tasks which such an Interpretation implies. That which can be established, and which geeks to be established, is not what gets called in and to each particular Dasein from an existentiell standpoint, but is rather what belongs to the existential condition for the possibility of its factical-existentiell POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. BTMR §58

We have already answered this question, however, in our thesis   that the call ‘says’ nothing which might be talked about, gives no information about events. The call points forward to Dasein’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and it does this as a call which comes from uncanniness. The caller is, .to be sure, indefinite; but the “whence” from which it calls does not remain a matter of indifference for the calling. This “whence” – the uncanniness of thrown individualization – gets called too [mitgerufen] in the calling; that is, it too gets disclosed [miterschlossen]. In calling forth to something, the “whence” of the calling is the “whither” to which we are called back. When the call gives us a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING to understand, it does not give us one which is ideal and universal; it discloses if as that which has been currently individualized and which belongs to that particular Dasein. We have not fully determined the character of the call as disclosure until we understand it as one which calls us back in calling us forth [als vorrufender Rückru]. If we take the call this way and orient   ourselves by it, we must first ask what it gives us to understand. BTMR §58

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

And how is Dasein this thrown basis? Only in that it projects itself upon possibilities into which it has been thrown. The Self, which as such has to lay the basis for itself, can never get that basis into its power; and yet, as existing, it must take over Being-a-basis. To be its own thrown basis is that POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which is the issue for care. BTMR §58

Dasein is its basis existently – that is, in such a manner that it understands itself in terms of possibilities, and, as so understanding itself, is that entity which has been thrown. But this implies that in having a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING it always stands in one possibility or another: it constantly is not other possibilities, and it has waived these in its existentiell. projection. Not only is the projection, as one that has been thrown, determined by the nullity of Being-a-basis; as projection it is itself essentially null. This does not mean that it has the ontical property of ‘inconsequentiality’ or ‘worthlessness’; what we have here is rather something existentially constitutive for the structure of the Being of projection. The nullity we have in mind belongs to Dasein’s Being-free for its existentiell possibilities. Freedom, however, is only in the choice of one possibility – that is, in tolerating one’s not having chosen the others and one’s not being able to choose them. BTMR §58

The call is the call of care. Being-guilty constitutes the Being to which we give the name of “care”. In uncanniness Dasein stands together with itself primordially. Uncanniness brings this entity face to face with its undisguised nullity, which belongs to the possibility of its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. To the extent that for Dasein, as care, its Being is an issue, it summons itself as a “they” which is factically falling, and summons itself from its uncanniness towards its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. The appeal calls back by calling forth: it calls Dasein forth to the possibility of taking over, in existing, even that thrown entity which it is; it calls Dasein back to its thrownness so as to understand this thrownness as the null basis which it has to take up into existence. This calling-back in which conscience calls forth, gives Dasein to understand that Dasein itself – the null basis for its null projection, standing in the possibility of its Being – is to bring itself back to itself from its lostness in the “they”; and this means that it is guilty. [SZ:287] BTMR §58

The meaning of the “call” becomes plain if, in our understanding of it, we stick to the existential sense of “Being-guilty”, instead of making basic the derivative conception of guilt in the sense of an indebtedness which has arisen’ through some deed done or left undone. Such a demand is not arbitrary, if the call of conscience, coming from Dasein itself, is directed towards that entity alone. But if so, the “summons to Being-guilty” signifies a calling-forth to that POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which in each case I as Dasein am already. Dasein need not first load a ‘guilt’ upon itself through its failures or omissions; it must only be ‘guilty!’ authentically – ‘guilty’ in the way in which it is. BTMR §58

Hearing the appeal correctly is thus tantamount to having an understanding of oneself in one’s ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – that is, to projecting oneself upon one’s ownmost authentic potentiality for becoming guilty. When Dasein understandingly lets itself be called forth to this possibility, this includes its becoming free for the call – its readiness for the potentiality of getting appealed to. In understanding the call, Dasein is in thrall to [harig] its ownmost possibility of existence. It has chosen itself. BTMR §58

Wanting to have a conscience is rather the most primordial existentiell presupposition for the possibility of factically coming to owe something. In understanding the call, Dasein lets its ownmost Self take action in itself [in sich   handeln  ] in terms of that POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which it has chose. Only so can it be answerable [verantwortlich]. Factically, however, any taking-action is necessarily ‘conscienceless’, not only because it may fail to avoid some factical moral   indebtedness, but because, on the null basis of its null projection, it has, in Being with Others, already become guilty towards them. Thus one’s wanting-to-have-a-conscience becomes the taking-over of that essential consciencelessness within which alone the existentiell possibility of being ‘good’ subsists. 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

In characterizing what is primordial in the ideas of ‘bad’ and ‘good’ conscience, we have also decided as to the distinction between a conscience which points forward and warns and one which points back and reproves. The idea of the warning conscience seems, of course, to come closest to the phenomenon of the summons. It shares with this the character of pointing forward. But this agreement is just an illusion. When we experience a warning conscience, the voice is regarded in turn as merely oriented towards the deed which has been willed, from which it seeks to preserve us. But the warning, as a check on what we have willed, is possible only because the ‘warning’ call is aimed at Dasein’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – that is, at its understanding of itself in Being-guilty; not until we have such understanding does ‘what we have willed’ get shattered. The conscience which warns us has the function of regulating from moment to moment our remaining free from indebtednesses. In the experience of a ‘warning’ conscience the tendency of its call is seen only to the extent that it remains accessible to the common sense of the “they”. BTMR §59

§60. The Existential Structure of the Authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which is Attested in the Conscience BTMR §60

The existential Interpretation of conscience is to exhibit an attestation of Dasein’s owninost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – an attestation which is [seiende] in Dasein itself. Conscience attests not by making something known in an undifferentiated manner, but by calling forth and summoning us to Being-guilty. That which is so attested becomes ‘grasped’ in the hearing which understands the call undisguisedly in the sense it has itself intended. The understanding of the appeal is a mode of Dasein’s Being, and only as such does it give us the phenomenal content of what the call of conscience attests. The authentic understanding of the call has been characterized as “wanting to have a conscience”. This is a way of letting one’s ownmost Self take action in itself of its own accord in its Being-guilty, and represents phenomenally that authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which Dasein itself attests. The existential structure of this must now be laid bare. Only so can we proceed to the basic constitution of the authenticity of Dasein’s existence as disclosed in Dasein itself. BTMR §60

Wanting to have a conscience is, as an understanding of oneself in one’s ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, a way in which Dasein has been disclosed. This disclosedness is constituted by discourse and state-of-mind, as well as by understanding. To understand in an existentiell manner implies projecting oneself in each case upon one’s ownmost factical possibility of having the potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. But the POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING is understood only by existing in this possibility. BTMR §60

The third essential item in disclosedness is discourse. The call itself is a primordial kind of discourse for Dasein; but there is no corresponding counter-discourse in which, let us say, one talks about what the conscience has said, and pleads one’s cause. In hearing the call understandingly, one denies oneself any counter-discourse, not because one has been assailed by some ‘obscure power’, which suppresses one’s hearing, but because this hearing has appropriated the content of the call unconcealedly. In the call one’s constant Being-guilty is represented, and in this way the Self is brought back from the loud idle talk which goes with the common sense of the “they”. Thus the mode of Articulative discourse which belongs to wanting to have a conscience, is one of reticence. Keeping silent has been characterized as an essential possibility of discourse. Anyone who keeps silent when he wants to give us to understand something, must ‘have something to say’. In the appeal Dasein gives itself to understand its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. This calling is therefore a keeping-silent. The discourse of the conscience never comes to utterance. BTMR §60

In the light of the “for-the-sake-of-which” of one’s self-chosen POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, resolute Dasein frees itself for its world. Dasein’s resoluteness towards itself is what first makes it possible to let the Others who are with it ‘be’ in their ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and to co-disclose this potentiality in the solicitude which leaps forth and liberates. When Dasein is resolute, it can become the ‘conscience’ of Others. Only by authentically Being-their-Selves in resoluteness ‘Can people authentically be with one another – not by ambiguous and jealous stipulations and talkative fraternizing in the “they” and in what “they” want to undertake. BTMR §60

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

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

Resoluteness brings the Being of the “there” into the existence of its Situation. Indeed it delimits the existential structure of that authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which the conscience attests – wanting to have a conscience. In this potentiality we have recognized the appropriate way of understanding the appeal. This makes it entirely plain that when the call of conscience summons us to our POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, it does not hold before us some empty’ ideal of existence, but calls us forth into the Situation. This existential positivity which the call of conscience possesses when rightly understood, gives us at the same time an insight: it makes us see to what extent we fail to recognize the disclosive character of the conscience if the tendency of the call is restricted to indebtednesses which have already occurred or which we have before us; it also makes us see to what extent the concrete understanding of the voice of conscience is only seemingly transmitted to us if this restriction is made. When our understanding of the appeal is Interpreted existentially as resoluteness, the conscience is revealed as that kind of Being – included in the very basis of Dasein – in which Dasein makes possible for itself its factical existence, thus attesting its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. BTMR §60

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

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

By “resoluteness” we mean “letting onself be called forth to one’s ownmost Being-guilty”. Being-guilty belongs to the Being of Dasein itself, and we have determined that this is primarily a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. To say that Dasein ‘is’ constantly guilty can only mean that in every case Dasein maintains itself in this Being and does so as either authentic or inauthentic existing. Being-guilty is not just an abiding property of something constantly present-at-hand, but the existentiell possibility of being authentically or inauthentically guilty. In every case, the ‘guilty’ is only in the current factical POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. Thus because Being-guilty belongs to the Being of Dasein, it must be conceived as a potentiality-for-Being-guilty. Resoluteness projects itself upon this POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING [SZ:306] BTMR §62

– that is to say, it understands itself in it. This understanding maintains itself, therefore, in a primordial possibility of Dasein. It maintains itself authentically in it if the resoluteness is primordially that which it tends to be. But we have revealed that Dasein’s primordial Being towards its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING is Being-towards-death – that is to say, towards that distinctive possibility of Dasein which we have already characterized. Anticipation discloses this possibility as possibility. Thus only as anticipating does resoluteness become a primordial Being towards Dasein’s ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. Only when it ‘qualifies’ itself as Being-towards-death does resoluteness understand the ‘can’ of its potentiality-for-Being-guilty. 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

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

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

Yet where are we to find out what makes up the ‘authentic’ existence of Dasein? Unless we have an existentiell understanding, all analysis of existentiality will remain groundless. Is it not the case that underlying our Interpretation of the authenticity and totality of Dasein, there is an ontical way of taking existence which may be possible but need not be binding for everyone? Existential Interpretation will never seek to take over any authoritarian pronouncement as to those things which, from an existentiell point of view, are possible or binding. But must it not justify itself in regard to those existentiell possibilities with which it gives ontological Interpretation its ontical basis? If the Being of Dasein is essentially POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, if it is Being-free for its ownmost possibilities, and if, in every case, it exists only in freedom for these possibilities or in lack of freedom for them, can ontological Interpretation do anything else than base itself on ontical possibilities – ways of POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – and project these possibilities upon their ontological possibility? And if, for the most part, Dasein interprets itself in terms of its lostness in concerning itself with the ‘world’, does not the appropriate way of disclosure for such an entity lie in determining the ontico-existentiell possibilities (and doing so in the manner which we have achieved by following the opposite course) and then providing an existential analysis grounded upon these possibilities? In that case, will not the violence of this projection amount to freeing Dasein’s undisguised phenomenal content? [SZ:313] 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

Even if the ontico-ontological projection of Dasein upon an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole may not be just something that is left to our discretion, does this already justify the existential Interpretation we have given for this phenomenon? Where does this Interpretation get its clue, if not from an idea of existence in general which has been ‘presupposed’? How have the steps in the analysis of inauthentic everydayness been regulated, if not by the concept of existence which we have posited? And if we say that Dasein ‘falls’, and that therefore the authenticity of its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING must be wrested from Dasein in spite of this tendency of its Being, from what point of view is this spoken? Is not everything already illumined by the light of the ‘presupposed’ idea of existence, even if rather dimly? Where does this idea get its justification? Has our initial projection, in which we called attention to it, led us nowhere? By no means. BTMR §63

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

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

Being-already-in-a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means, equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the ‘I’, what we have in view is that entity for which the issue is the Being of the entity that it is. With the ‘I’, care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the ‘fugitive’ way in which the “I” talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying “I” most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it is not authentically itself, and evades its authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an “I”-substance or to a ‘subject’, but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying “I” must be understood in terms of our authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Self hood is to be discerned existentially only in one’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self – that is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein’s Being as care. In terms of care the constancy of the Self, as the supposed persistence of the subjectum, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING also opens our eyes for the constancy of the Self in the sense of its having achieved some sort of position. The constancy of the Self, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the authentic counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling. Existentially, “Self-constancy” signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self’s Selfhood. BTMR §64

[SZ:325] Dasein is either authentically or inauthentically disclosed to itself as regards its existence. In existing, Dasein understands itself, and in such a way, indeed, that this understanding does not merely get something in its grasp, but makes up the existentiell Being of its factical POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. The Being which is disclosed is that of an entity for which this Being is an issue. The meaning of this Being – that is, of care – is what makes care possible in its Constitution; and it is what makes up primordially the Being of this POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. The meaning of Dasein’s Being is not something free-floating which is other than and ‘outside of’ itself, but is the self-understanding Dasein itself. What makes possible the Being of Dasein, and therewith its factical existence? BTMR §65

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

The “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

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

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

If the term “understanding” is taken in a way which is primordially existential, it means to be projecting towards a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING for the sake of which any Dasein exists. In understanding, one’s own potentialityfor-Being is disclosed in such a way that one’s Dasein always knows understandingly what it is capable of. It ‘knows’ this, however, not by having discovered some fact, but by maintaining itself in an existentiell possibility. The kind of ignorance which corresponds to this, does not consist in an absence or cessation of understanding, but must be regarded as a deficient mode of the projectedness of one’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. Existence can be questionable. If it is to be possible for something ‘to be in question’ [das “In-Frage  -stehen  ”], a disclosedness is needed. When one understands oneself projectively in an existentiell possibility, the future underlies this understanding, and it does so as a coming-towards-oneself out of that current possibility as which one’s Dasein exists. The future makes ontologically possible an entity which is in such a way that it exists understandingly in its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. Projection is basically futural; it does not primarily grasp the projected possibility thematically just by having it in view, but it throws itself into it as a possibility. In each case Dasein is understandingly in the way that it can be. Resoluteness has turned out to be a kind of existing which is primordial and authentic. Proximally and for the most part, to be sure, Dasein remains irresolute; that is to say, it remains closed off in its ownmost potentialityfor-Being, to which it brings itself only when it has been individualized. This implies that temporality does not temporalize itself constantly out of the authentic future. This inconstancy, however, does not mean that temporality sometimes lacks a future, but rather that the temporalizing of the future takes various forms. BTMR §68

To designate the authentic future terminologically we have reserved the expression “anticipation”. This indicates that Dasein, existing authentically, lets itself come towards itself as its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – that the future itself must first win itself, not from a Present, but from the inauthentic future. If we are to provide a formally undifferentiated term for the future, we may use the one with which we have designated the first ‘structural item of care – the “ahead-of-itself”. Factically, Dasein is constantly ahead of itself, but inconstantly anticipatory with regard to its existentiell possibility. [SZ:337] BTMR §68

How is the inauthentic future to be contrasted with this? Just as the authentic future is revealed in resoluteness, the inauthentic future, as an ecstatical mode, can reveal itself only if we go back ontologically from the inauthentic understanding of everyday concern to its existential-temporal meaning. As care, Dasein is essentially ahead of itself. Proximally and for the most part, concernful Being-in-the-world understands itself in terms of that with which it is concerned. Inauthentic understanding projects itself upon that with which one can concern oneself, or Upon what is feasible, urgent, or indispensable in our everyday business. But that with which we concern ourselves is as it is for the sake of that POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which cares. This potentiality lets Dasein come towards itself in its concernful Being-alongside that with which it is concerned. Dasein does not come towards itself primarily in its ownmost non-relational POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, but it awaits this concernfully in terms of that which yields or denies the object of its concern. Dasein comes towards itself from that with which it concerns itself. The inauthentic future has the character of awaiting. One’s concernful understanding of oneself as they-self in terms of what one does, has its possibility ‘based’ upon this ecstatical mode of the future. And only because factical. Dasein is thus awaiting its potentialityfor-Being, and is awaiting this potentiality in terms of that with which it concerns itself, can it expect anything and wait for it [erwarten   und warten auf …]. In each case some sort of awaiting must have disclosed the horizon and the range from which something can be expected. Expecting is founded upon awaiting, and is a mode of that future which temporalizes itself authentically as anticipation. Hence there lies in anticipation a more primordial Being-towards-death than in the concernful expecting of it. BTMR §68

Understanding, as existing in the POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, however it may have been projected, is primarily futural. But it would not temporalize itself if it were not temporal – that is, determined with equal primordiality by having been and by the Present. The way in which the latter ecstasis helps constitute inauthentic understanding, has already been made plain in a rough and ready fashion. Everyday concern understands itself in terms of that POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which confronts it as coming from its possible success or failure with regard to whatever its object of concern may be. Corresponding to the inauthentic future (awaiting), there is a special way of Being-alongside the things with which one concerns oneself. This way of Being-alongside is the Present – the “waiting-towards”; this ecstatical mode reveals itself if we adduce for comparison this very same ecstasis, but in the mode of authentic temporality. To the anticipation which goes with resoluteness, there belongs a Present in accordance with which a resolution discloses the Situation. In resoluteness, the Present is not only brought back from distraction with the objects of one’s closest concern, but it gets held in the future and in having been. That Present Which is held in authentic temporality and which thus is authentic itself, we call the “moment of vision”. This term must be understood in the active sense as an ecstasis. It means the resolute rapture with which Dasein is carried away to whatever possibilities and circumstances are encountered in the Situation as possible objects of concern, but a rapture which is held in resoluteness. The moment of vision is a phenomenon which in principle [SZ:338] can not be clarified in terms of the “now” [dem Jetzt  ]. The “now” is a temporal phenomenon which belongs to time as within-time-ness: the “now” ‘in which’ something arises, passes away, or is present-at-hand. ‘In the moment of vision’ nothing can occur; but as an authentic Present or waiting-towards, the moment of vision permits us to encounter for the first time what can be ‘in a time’ as ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. BTMR §68

In contradistinction to the moment of vision as the authentic Present, we call the inauthentic Present “making present”. Formally understood, every Present is one which makes present, but not every Present has the character of a ‘moment of vision’. When we use the expression “making present” without adding anything further, we always have in mind the inauthentic kind, which is irresolute and does not have the character of a moment of vision. Making-present will become clear only in the light of the temporal Interpretation of falling into the ‘world’ of one’s concern; such falling has its existential meaning in making present. But in so far as the POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING which is projected by inauthentic understanding is projected in terms of things with which one can be concerned, this means that such understanding temporalizes itself in terms of making present. The moment of vision, however, temporalizes itself in quite the opposite manner – in terms of the authentic future. BTMR §68

Inauthentic understanding temporalizes itself as an awaiting which makes present [gegenwärtigendes Geswärtigen] – an awaiting to whose ecstatical unity there must belong a corresponding “having been”. The authentic coming-towards-oneself of anticipatory resoluteness is at the sametime a coming-back to one’s ownmost Self, which has been thrown into its individualization. This ecstasis makes it possible for Dasein to be able to take over resolutely that entity which it already is. In anticipating, Dasein brings itself again forth into its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. If Being-as-having-been is authentic, we call it “repetition”. But when one projects oneself inauthentically towards those possibilities which have been drawn from the object of concern in making it present, this is possible only because Dasein has forgotten itself in its ownmost thrown POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. This forgetting is not nothing, nor is it just a failure to remember; it is rather a ‘positive’ ecstatical mode of one’s having been – a mode with a character of its own. The ecstasis (rapture) of forgetting has the character of backing away in the face of one’s ownmost “been”, and of doing so in a manner which is closed off from itself – in such a manner, indeed, that this backing-away closes off ecstatically that in the face of which one is [SZ:339] backing away, and thereby closes itself off too. Having forgotten [Vergessenheit  ] as an inauthentic way of having been, is thus related to that thrown Being which is one’s own; it is the temporal meaning of that Being in accordance with which I am proximally and for the most part as-having-been. Only on the basis of such forgetting can anything be retained [behalten  ] by the concernful making-present which awaits; and what are thus retained are entities encountered within-the-world with a character other than that of Dasein. To such retaining there corresponds a non-retaining which presents us with a kind of ‘forgetting’ in a derivative sense. BTMR §68

Just as expecting is possible only on the basis of awaiting, remembering is possible only on that of forgetting, and not vice versa; for in the mode of having-forgotten, one’s having been ‘discloses’ primarily the horizon into which a Dasein lost in the ‘superficiality’ of its object of concern, can bring itself by remembering. The awaiting which forgets and makes present is an ecstatical unity in its own right, in accordance with which inauthentic understanding temporalizes itself with regard to its temporality. The unity of these ecstases closes off one’s authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, and is thus the existential condition for the possibility of irresoluteness. Though inauthentic concernful understanding determines itself in the light of making present the object of concern, the temporalizing of the understanding is performed primarily in the future. BTMR §68

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

Anxiety discloses an insignificance of the world; and this insignificance reveals the nullity of that with which one can concern oneself – or, in other words, the impossibility of projecting oneself upon a potentialityfor-Being which belongs to existence and which is founded primarily upon one’s objects of concern. The revealing of this impossibility, however, signifies that one is letting the possibility of an authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING be lit up. What is the temporal meaning of this revealing? Anxiety is anxious about naked Dasein as something that has been thrown into uncanniness. It brings one back to the pure “that-it-is” of one’s ownmost individualized thrownness. This bringing-back has neither the character of an evasive forgetting nor that of a remembering. But just as little does anxiety imply that one has already taken over one’s existence into one’s resolution and done so by a repeating. On the contrary, anxiety brings one back to one’s thrownness as something possible which can be repeated. And in this way it also reveals the possibility of an authentic potentialityfor-Being – a potentiality which must, in repeating, come back to its thrown “there”, but come back as something fatural which comes towards [zukünftiges]. The character of having been is constitutive for the state-of-mind of anxiety; and bringing one face to face with repeatability is the specific ecstatical mode of this character. BTMR §68

The temporality of anxiety is peculiar; for anxiety is grounded primordially in having been, and only out of this do the future and the Present temporalize themselves; in this peculiar temporality is demonstrated the possibility of that power which is distinctive for the mood of anxiety. In this, Dasein is taken all the way back to its naked uncanniness, and becomes fascinated by it. This fascination, however, not only takes Dasein back from its ‘worldly’ possibilities, but at the same time gives it the possibility of an authentic POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. BTMR §68

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

As regards their temporal meaning, the characteristics of falling which we have pointed out – temptation, tranquillization, alienation, selfentanglement – mean that the making-present which ‘leaps away’ has an ecstatical tendency such that it seeks to temporalize itself out of itself. When Dasein entangles itself, this has an ecstatical meaning. Of course when one speaks of the rapture with which one’s existence is carried away in making present, this does not signify that Dasein detaches itself from its Self and its “I” Even when it makes present in the most extreme manner, it remains temporal – that is, awaiting and forgetful. In making present, moreover, Dasein still understands itself, though it has been alienated from its ownmost POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, which is based primarily on the authentic future and on authentically having been. But in so far as making-present is always offering something ‘new’, it does not let Dasein come back to itself and is constantly tranquillizing it anew. This tranquillizing, however, strengthens in turn the tendency towards leaping away. Curiosity is ‘activated’ not by the endless immensity of what we have not yet seen, but rather by the falling kind of temporalizing which belongs to the Present as it leaps away. Even if one has seen everything, this is precisely when curiosity fabricates something new. [SZ:348] BTMR §68

A specific kind of forgetting is essential for the temporality that is constitutive for letting something be involved. The Self must forget itself if, lost in the world of equipment, it is to be able ‘actually’ to go to work and manipulate something. But all the same, inasmuch as an awaiting always leads the way in the unity of the temporalizing of concern, concernful Dasein’s own POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING has, as we shall show, been given a position in care. BTMR §69

Circumspection operates in the involvement-relationships of the context of equipment which is ready-to-hand. Moreover, it is subordinate to the guidance of a more or less explicit survey of the equipmental totality of the current equipment-world and of the public environment which belongs to it. This survey is not just one in which things that are present-at-hand are subsequently scraped together. What is essential to it is that one should have a primary understanding of the totality of involvements within which factical concern always takes its start. Such a survey illumines one’s concern, and receives its ‘light’ from that POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING on the part of Dasein for the sake of which concern exists as care. In one’s current using and manipulating, the concernful circumspection which does this ‘surveying’, brings the ready-to-hand closer to Dasein, and does so by interpreting what has been sighted. This specific way of bringing the object of concern close by interpreting it circumspectively, we call “deliberating” [Überlegung  ]. The scheme peculiar to this is the ‘if – then’; if this or that, for instance, is to be produced, put to use, or averted, then some ways and means, circumstances, or opportunities will be needed. Circumspective deliberation illumines Dasein’s current factical situation in the environment with which it concerns itself. Accordingly, such deliberation never merely ‘affirms’ that some entity is present-at-hand or has such and such properties. Moreover, deliberation can be performed even when that which is brought close in it circumspectively is not palpably ready-to-hand and does not have presence within the closest range. Bringing the environment closer in circumispective deliberation has the existential meaning of a making present; for envisaging is only a mode of this. In envisaging, one’s deliberation catches sight directly of that which is needed but which is un-ready-to-hand. Circumspection which envisages does not relate itself to ‘mere representations’. [SZ:359] BTMR §69

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

Dasein exists for the sake of a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING of itself. In existing, it has been thrown; and as something thrown, it has been delivered over to entities which it needs in order to be able to be as it is-namely, for the sake of itself. In so far as Dasein exists factically, it understands itself in the way its “for-the-sake-of-itself” is thus connected with some current “in-order-to”. That inside which existing Dasein understands itself, is ‘there’ along with its factical existence. That inside which one primarily understands oneself has Dasein’s kind of Being. Dasein is its world existingly. BTMR §69

The unity of the horizonal schemata of future, Present, and having been, is grounded in the ecstatical unity of temporality. The horizon of temporality as a whole determines that whereupon [woraufhin] factically existing entities are essentially disclosed. With one’s factical Being-there, a POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING is in each case projected in the horizon of the future, one’s ‘Being-already’ is disclosed in the horizon of having been, and that with which one concerns oneself is discovered in the horizon of the Present. The horizonal unity of the schemata of these ecstases makes possible the primordial way in which the relationships of the “in-orderto” are connected with the “for-the-sake-of”. This implies that on the basis of the horizonal constitution of the ecstatical unity of temporality, there belongs to that entity which is in each case its own “there”, something like’ a world that has been disclosed. BTMR §69

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

As thrown, Dasein has indeed been delivered over to itself and to its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING, but as Being-in-the-world. As thrown, it has been submitted to a ‘world’, and exists factically with Others. Proximally and for the most part the Self is lost in the “they”. It understands itself in terms of those possibilities of existence which ‘circulate’ in the ‘average’ public way of interpreting Dasein today. These possibilities have mostly. been made unrecognizable by ambiguity; yet they are well known to us. The authentic existentiell understanding is so far from extricating itself from the way of interpreting Dasein which has come down to us, that in each case it is in terms of this interpretation, against it, and yet again for it, that any possibility one has chosen is seized upon in one’s resolution. BTMR §74

It is not necessary that in resoluteness one should explicitly know the origin of the possibilities upon which that resoluteness projects itself. It is rather in Dasein’s temporality, and there only, that there lies any possibility that the existentiell POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING upon which it projects itself can be gleaned explicitly from the way in which Dasein has been traditionally understood. The resoluteness which comes back to itself and hands itself down, then becomes the repetition of a possibility of existence that has come down to us. Repeating is handing down explicitly – that is to say, going back into the possibilities of the Dasein that has-been-there. The authentic repetition of a possibility of existence that has been – the possibility that Dasein may choose its hero – is grounded existentially in anticipatory resoluteness; for it is in resoluteness that one first chooses the choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated. But when one has, by repetition, handed down to oneself a possibility that has been, the Dasein that has-been-there is not disclosed in order to be actualized over again. The repeating of that which is possible does not bring again [Wiederbringen] something that is ‘past’, nor does it bind the ‘Present’ back to that which has already been ‘outstripped’. Arising, as it does, from a resolute projection of oneself, repetition does not let itself be persuaded of something by what is ‘past’, just in order that this, as something which was formerly [SZ:386] actual, may recur. Rather, the repetition makes a reciprocative rejoinder to the possibility of that existence which has-been-there. But when such a rejoinder is made to this possibility in a resolution, it is made in a moment of vision; and as such it is at the same time a disavowal of that which in the “today”, is working itself out as the ‘past’. Repetition does not abandon itself to that which is past, nor does it aim at progress. In the moment of vision authentic existence is indifferent to both these alternatives. BTMR §74

But what does it signify to say that Dasein is ‘factual’? If Dasein is ‘really’ actual only in existence, then its ‘factuality’ is constituted precisely by its resolute projection of itself upon a chosen POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. But if so, that which authentically has-been-there ‘factually’ is the existentiell possibility in which fate, destiny, and world-history have been factically determined. Because in each case existence is only as factically thrown, historiology will disclose the quiet force of the possible with greater penetration the more simply and the more concretely having-been-in-the-world is understood in terms of its possibility, and ‘only’ presented as such. BTMR §76

Dasein exists as an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is itself an issue. Essentially ahead of itself, it has projected itself upon its POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING before going on to any mere consideration of itself. In its projection it reveals itself as something which has been thrown. It has been thrownly abandoned to the ‘world’, and falls into it concernfully. As care – that is, as existing in the unity of the projection which has been fallingly thrown – this entity has been disclosed as a “there”. As being with Others, it maintains itself in an average way of interpreting – a way which has been Articulated in discourse and expressed in language. Being-in-the-world has always expressed itself, and as Being alongside entities encountered within-the-world, it constantly expresses itself in addressing itself to the very object of its concern and discussing it. The concern of circumspective common sense is grounded in temporality – indeed in the mode of a making-present which retains and awaits. Such concern, as concernfully reckoning up, planning, preventing, or taking precautions, always says (whether audibly or not) that something is to happen ‘then’, that something else is to be attended to ‘beforehand’, that what has failed or eluded us ‘on that former occasion’ is something that we must ‘now’ make up for. BTMR §79

The Being of Dasein is care. This entity exists fallingly as something that has been thrown. Abandoned to the ‘world’ which is discovered with its factical “there”, and concernfully submitted to it, Dasein awaits its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world; it awaits it in such a manner that it ‘reckons’ on and ‘reckons’ with whatever has an involvement for the sake of this POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING – an involvement which, in the end, is a distinctive one. Everyday circumspective Being-in-the-world needs the possibility of sight (and this means that it needs brightness) if it is to deal concerrifully with what is ready-to-hand within the present-at-hand. With the factical disclosedness of Dasein’s world, Nature has been uncovered for Dasein. In its thrownness Dasein has been surrendered to the changes of day and night. Day with its brightness gives it the possibility of sight; night takes this away. BTMR §80

When the ‘then’ which interprets itself in concernful awaiting gets dated, this dating includes some such statement as “then – when it dawns – it is time for one’s daily work”. The time which is interpreted in concern is already understood as a time for something. The current ‘now that so and so …’ is as such either appropriate or inappropriate. Not only is the ‘now’ (and so too any mode of interpreted time) a ‘now that …’ which is essentially datable; but as such it has essentially, at the same time, the structure of appropriateness or inappropriateness. Time which has been interpreted has by its very nature the character of ‘the time for something’ or ‘the wrong time for something’. When concern makes present by awaiting and retaining, time is understood in relation to a “for-which”; and this in turn is ultimately tied up with a “for-the-sake-of-which” of Dasein’s POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING. With this “in-order-to” relation, the time which has been made public makes manifest that structure with which we have earlier become acquainted as significance, and which constitutes the worldhood of the world. As ‘the time for something’, the time which has been made public has essentially a world-character. Hence the time which makes itself public in the temporalizing of temporality is what we designate as “world-time”. And we designate it thus not because it is presentat-hand as an entity within-the-world (which it can never be), but because it belongs to the world [zur Welt  ] in the sense which we have Interpreted existential-ontologically. In the following pages we must show how the essential relations of the world-structure (the ‘in-order-to’, for example) are connected with public time (the ‘then, when …’, for example) by reason of the ecstatico-horizonal constitution of temporality. Only now, in any case, can the time with which we concern ourselves be completely characterized as to its structure: it is datable, spanned, and public; and as having this structure, it belongs to the world itself. Every ‘now’, for instance, which is expressed in a natural everyday manner, has this kind of structure, and is understood as such, though pre-conceptually and unthematically, when Dasein concernfully allows itself time. [SZ:415] BTMR §80