state-of-mind

Befindlichkeit  

In understanding and STATE-OF-MIND, we shall see the two constitutive ways of being the "there"; and these are equiprimordial. If these are to be analysed, some phenomenal confirmation is necessary; in both cases this will be attained by Interpreting some concrete mode which is important for the subsequent problematic. State-of-mind and understanding are characterized equiprimordially by discourse. BTMR   §28

Under A (the existential Constitutuon of the "there") we shall accordingly treat: Being-there as STATE-OF-MIND (Section 29); fear as a mode of STATE-OF-MIND (Section 30); Being-there as understanding (Section 31); understanding and interpretation   (Section 32); assertion as a derivative mode of interpretation (Section 33); Being-there, discourse, and language (Section 34). BTMR §28

What we indicate ontologically by the term "STATE-OF-MIND" is ontically the most familiar and everyday sort of thing; our mood, our Being-attuned. Prior to all psychology of moods, a field which in any case still lies fallow, it is necessary to see this phenomenon as a fundamental existentiale, and to outline its structure. BTMR §29

This characteristic of Dasein  ’s Being – this ‘that it is’ – is veiled in its "whence" and "whither", yet disclosed in itself all the more unveiledly; we call it the "thrownness" of this entity into its "there"; indeed, it is thrown in such a way that, as Being-in-the-world, it is the "there". The expression "thrownness" is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over. The ‘that it is and has to be’ which is disclosed in Dasein’s STATE-OF-MIND is not   the same ‘that-it-is’ which expresses ontologico-categorially the factuality belonging to presence-at-hand  . This factuality becomes accessible only if we ascertain it by looking at it. The "that-it-is" which is disclosed in Dasein’s STATE-OF-MIND must rather be conceived as an existential attribute of the entity which has Being-in-the-world as its way of Being. Facticity is not the factuality of the factum brutum of something present-at-hand, but a characteristic of Dasein’s Being – one which has been taken up into existence, even if proximally it has been thrust aside. The "that-it-is" of facticity never becomes something that we can come across by beholding it. BTMR §29

An entity of the character of Dasein is its "there" in such a way that, whether explicitly or not, it finds itself [sich befindet] in its thrownness. In a STATE-OF-MIND Dasein is always brought before itself, and has always found itself, not in the sense of coming across itself by perceiving itself, but in the sense of finding, itself in the mood that it has. As an entity which has been delivered over to its Being, it remains also delivered over to the fact that it must always have found itself – but found itself in a way of finding which arises not so much from a direct seeking as rather from a fleeing. The way in which the mood discloses is not one in which we look at thrownness, but one in which we turn towards or turn away [An- und Abkehr  ]. For the most part the mood does not turn towards the burdensome character of Dasein which is manifest in it, and least of all does it do so in the mood of elation when this burden has been alleviated. It is always by way of a STATE-OF-MIND that this turning-away is what it is. BTMR §29

From what has been said we can see already that a STATE-OF-MIND is very remote from anything like coming across a psychical condition by the kind of apprehending which first turns round and then back. Indeed it is so far from this, that only because the "there" has already been disclosed in a STATE-OF-MIND can immanent reflection come across ‘Experiences’ at all. The ‘bare mood’ discloses the "there" more primordially, but correspondingly it closes it off more stubbornly than any not-perceiving. BTMR §29

This is shown by bad moods. In these, Dasein becomes blind to itself, the environment with which it is concerned veils itself, the circumspection of concern gets led astray. States-of-mind are so far from being reflected upon, that precisely what they do is to assail Dasein in its unreflecting devotion to the ‘world’ with which it is concerned and on which it expends itself. A mood assails us. It comes neither from ‘outside’ nor from ‘inside’, but arises out of Being-in-the-world, as a way of such Being. But with the negative distinction between STATE-OF-MIND and the reflective apprehending of something ‘within’, we have thus reached a positive   insight into their character as disclosure. The mood has already disclosed, in every case, Being-in-the-world as a whole, and makes it possible first of all to direct oneself towards something. Having a mood is not related to the psychical in the first instance, and is not itself an inner condition which then reaches forth in an enigmatical way and puts its mark on Things and persons. It is in this that the second essential characteristic of states-of-mind shows itself. We have seen that the world, Dasein-with, and existence are equiprimordially disclosed; and STATE-OF-MIND is a basic existential species of their disclosedness, because this disclosedness itself is essentially Being-in-the-world. BTMR §29

[SZ:137] Besides these two essential characteristics of states-of-mind which have been explained – the disclosing of thrownriess and the current disclosing of Being-in-the-world as a whole – we have to notice a third, which contributes above all towards a more penetrating understanding of the worldhood of the world. As we have said earlier, the world which has already been disclosed beforehand permits what is within-the-world to be encountered. This prior disclosedness of the world belongs to Being-in and is partly constituted by one’s STATE-OF-MIND. Letting something be encountered is primarily circumspective; it is not just sensing something, or staring at it. It implies circumspective concern, and has the character of becoming affected in some way [Betroffenwerdens]; we can see this more precisely from the standpoint of STATE-OF-MIND. But to be affected by the unserviceable, resistant, or threatening character [Bedrohlichkeit] of that which is ready-to-hand, becomes ontologically possible only in so far as Being-in as such has been determined existentially beforehand in such a manner that what it encounters within-the-world can "matter" to it in this way. The fact that this sort of thing can "matter" to it is grounded in one’s STATE-OF-MIND; and as a STATE-OF-MIND it has already disclosed the world – as something by which it can be threatened, for instance. Only something which is in the STATE-OF-MIND of fearing (or fearlessness) can discover that what is environmentally ready-to-hand is threatening. Dasein’s openness to the world is constituted existentially by the attunement of a STATE-OF-MIND. BTMR §29

And only because the ‘senses’ [die "Sinne"] belong ontologically to an entity whose kind of Being is Being-in-the-world with a STATE-OF-MIND, can they be ‘touched’ by anything or ‘have a sense for’ ["Sinn   haben   für"] something in such a way that what touches them shows itself in an affect. Under the strongest pressure and resistance, nothing like an affect would come about, and the resistance itself would remain essentially undiscovered, if Being-in-the-world, with its STATE-OF-MIND, had not already submitted itself [sich schon angewiesen] to having entities within-the-world "matter" to it in a way which its moods have outlined in advance. Existentially, a STATE-OF-MIND implies a disclosive submission to the world, out of which we can encounter something that matters to us. Indeed from the ontological point of view we must as a general principle leave the primary discovery of the world to ‘bare mood’. Pure beholding, even if it were to penetrate to the innermost core of the Being of something present-at-hand, could never discover anything like that which is threatening. [SZ:138] BTMR §29

The fact that, even though states-of-mind are primarily disclosive, everyday circumspection goes wrong and to a large extent succumbs to delusion because of them, is a me òn [non-being] when measured against the idea   of knowing the ‘world’ absolutely. But if we make evaluations which are so unjustified ontologically, we shall completely fail to recognize the existentially positive character of the capacity for delusion. It is precisely when we see the ‘world’ unsteadily and fitfully in accordance with our moods, that the ready-to-hand shows itself in its specific worldhood, which is never the same from day to day. By looking at the world theoretically, we have already dimmed it down to the uniformity of what is purely present-at-hand, though admittedly this uniformity comprises a new abundance of things which can be discovered by simply characterizing them. Yet even the purest theoria   [theory] has not left all moods behind it; even when we look theoretically at what is just present-at-hand, it does not show itself purely as it looks unless this theoria lets it come towards us in a tranquil tarrying alongside …, in rastone and diagoge. Any cognitive determining has its existential-ontological Constitution in the STATE-OF-MIND of Being-in-the-world; but pointing this out is not to be confused with attempting to surrender science ontically to ‘feeling’. BTMR §29

The different modes of STATE-OF-MIND and the ways in which they are interconnected in their foundations cannot be Interpreted within the problematic of the present investigation. The phenomena have long been well-known ontically under the terms "affects" and "feelings" and have always been under consideration in philosophy. It is not an accident that the earliest systematic Interpretation of affects that has come down to us is not treated in the framework of ‘psychology’. Aristotle   investigates the pathe   [affects] in the second book of his Rhetoric. Contrary to the traditional orientation, according to which rhetoric is conceived as the kind of thing we ‘learn in school’, this work of Aristotle must be taken as the first systematic hermeneutic of the everydayness of Being with one another. Publicness, as the kind of Being which belongs to the "they" (Cf. Section 27), not only has in general its own way of having a mood, but needs moods and ‘makes’ them for itself. It is into such a mood and out of such a mood that the orator speaks. He must understand the possibilities of moods in order to rouse them and guide them aright. [SZ:139] BTMR §29

A STATE-OF-MIND not only discloses Dasein in its thrownness and its submission to that world which is already disclosed with its own Being; it is itself the existential kind of Being in which Dasein constantly surrenders itself to the ‘world’ and lets the ‘world’ "matter" to it in such a way that somehow Dasein evades its very self. The existential constitution of such evasion will become clear in the phenomenon of falling. BTMR §29

A STATE-OF-MIND is a basic existential way in which Dasein is its "there". It not only characterizes Dasein ontologically, but, because of what it discloses, it is at the same time methodologically significant in principle for the existential analytic. Like any ontological Interpretation whatsoever, this analytic can only, so to speak, "listen in" to some previously disclosed entity as regards its Being. And it will attach itself to Dasein’s distinctive and most far-reaching possibilities of disclosure, in order to get information   about this entity from these. Phenomenological Interpretation must make it possible for Dasein itself to disclose things primordially; it must, as it were, let Dasein interpret itself. Such Interpretation takes part in this disclosure only in order to raise to a conceptual level the phenomenal content of what has been disclosed, and to do so existentially. [SZ:140] BTMR §29

Later (Cf. Section 40) we shall provide an Interpretation of anxiety as such a basic STATE-OF-MIND of Dasein, and as one which is significant from the existential-ontological standpoint; with this in view, we shall now illustrate the phenomenon of STATE-OF-MIND even more concretely in its determinate mode of fear. BTMR §29

In fearing as such, what we have thus characterized as threatening is freed and allowed to matter to us. We do not first ascertain a future evil (malum futurum  ) and then fear it. But neither does fearing first take note of what is drawing close; it discovers it beforehand in its fearsomeness. And in fearing, fear can then look at the fearsome explicitly, and ‘make it clear’ to itself. Circumspection sees the fearsome because it has fear as its STATE-OF-MIND. Fearing, as a slumbering possibility of Being-in-the-world in a STATE-OF-MIND (we call this possibility ‘fearfulness’ ["Furchtsamkeit  "]), has already disclosed the world, in that out of it something like the fearsome may come close. The potentiality for coming close is itself freed by the essential existential spatiality of Being-in-the-world. BTMR §30

Whether privatively or positively, fearing about something, as being-afraid in the face of something, always discloses equiprimordially entities within-the-world and Being-in – the former as threatening and the latter as threatened. Fear is a mode of STATE-OF-MIND. BTMR §30

There can be variations in the constitutive items of the full phenomenon of fear. Accordingly, different possibilities of Being emerge in fearing. Bringing-close close by, belongs to the structure of the threatening as encounterable. If something threatening breaks in suddenly upon concernful Being-in-the-world (something threatening in its ‘not right away, but any moment’), fear becomes alarm [Erschrecken  ]. So, in what is threatening we must distinguish between the closest way in which it brings itself close, and the manner in which this bringing-close gets encountered – its suddenness. That in the face of which we are alarmed is proximally something well known and familiar. But if, on the other hand, that which threatens has the character of something altogether unfamiliar, then fear becomes dread [Grauen]. And where that which threatens is laden with dread, and is at the same time encountered with the suddenness of the alarming, then fear becomes terror [Entsetzen]. There are further variations of fear, which we know as timidity, shyness, misgiving, becoming startled. All modifications of fear, as possibilities of having a STATE-OF-MIND, point to the fact that Dasein as Being-in-the-world is ‘fearful’ ["furchtsam"]. This ‘fearfulness’ is not to be understood in an ontical sense as some factical ‘individualized’ disposition, but as an existential possibility of the essential STATE-OF-MIND of Dasein in general, though of course it is not the only one. BTMR §30

State-of-mind is one of the existential structures in which the Being of the ‘there’ maintains itself. Equiprimordial with it in constituting this Being is understanding. A STATE-OF-MIND always has its understanding, even if it merely keeps it suppressed. Understanding always has its mood. If we Interpret understanding as a fundamental existentiale, this indicates that this phenomenon is conceived as a basic mode of Dasein’s Being. On the other hand, ‘understanding’ in the sense of one possible kind of cognizing among others (as distinguished, for instance, from ‘explaining’), must, like explaining, be Interpreted as an existential derivative of that primary understanding which is one of the constituents of the Being of the "there" in general. [SZ:143] 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

But in the first instance, even if we are just to bring into view the everyday kind of Being in which there is understanding with a STATE-OF-MIND, and if we are to do so in a way which is phenomenally adequate to the full disclosedness of the "there", we must work out these existentialia concretely. BTMR §31

The fundamental existentialia which constitute the Being of the "there", the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, are states-of-mind and understanding. In understanding, there lurks the possibility of interpretation – that is, of appropriating what is understood. In so far as a STATE-OF-MIND is equiprimordial with an act of understanding, it maintains itself in a certain understanding. Thus there corresponds to it a certain capacity for getting interpreted. We have seen that assertion is derived from interpretation, and is an extreme case of it. In clarifying the third signification of assertion as communication (speaking forth), we were led to the concepts of "saying" and "speaking", to which we had purposely given no attention up to that point. The fact that language now becomes our theme for the first time will indicate that this phenomenon has its roots in the existential constitution of Dasein’s disclosedness. The existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse or talk. This phenomenon is one of which we have been making constant use already in our foregoing Interpretation of STATE-OF-MIND, understanding, interpretation, and assertion; but we have, as it were, kept it suppressed in our thematic analysis. [SZ:161] BTMR §34

Discourse is existentially equiprimordial with STATE-OF-MIND and understanding. The intelligibility of something has always been articulated, even before there is any appropriative interpretation of it. Discourse is the Articulation of intelligibility. Therefore it underlies both interpretation and assertion. That which can be Articulated in interpretation, and thus even more primordially in discourse, is what we have called "meaning". That which gets articulated as such in discursive Articulation, we call the "totality-of-significations" [Bedeutungsganze]. This can be dissolved or broken up into significations. Significations, as what has been Articulated from that which can be Articulated, always carry meaning [… sind … sinnhaft]. If discourse, as the Articulation of the intelligibility of the "there", is a primordial existentiale of disclosedncss, and if disclosedness is primarily constituted by Being-in-the-world, then discourse too must have essentially a kind of Being which is specifically worldly. The intelligibility of Being-in-the-world – an intelligibility which goes with a STATE-OF-MIND – expresses itself as discourse. The totality-of-significations of intelligibility is put into words. To significations, words accrue. But word-Things do not get supplied with significations. BTMR §34

Whenever something is communicated in what is said-in-the-talk, all talk about anything has at the same time the character of expressing itself [Sichaussprechens]. In talking, Dasein expresses itself [spricht sich… . aus] not because it has, in the first instance, been encapsulated as something ‘internal’ over against something outside, but because as Being-in-the-world it is already ‘outside’ when it understands. What is expressed is precisely this Being-outside – that is to say, the way in which one currently has a STATE-OF-MIND (mood), which we have shown to pertain to the full disclosedness of Being-in. Being-in and its STATE-OF-MIND are made known in discourse and indicated in language by intonation, modulation, the tempo of talk, ‘the way of speaking’. In ‘poetical’ discourse, the communication of the existential possibilities of one’s STATE-OF-MIND can become an aim in itself, and this amounts to a disclosing of existence. BTMR §34

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

In going back to the existential structures of the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, our Interpretation has, in a way, lost sight of Dasein’s everydayness. In our analysis, we must now regain this phenomenal horizon   which was our thematical starting-point. The question now arises: what are the existential characteristics of the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, so far as the latter, as something which is everyday, maintains itself in the kind of Being of the "they"? Does the "they" have a STATE-OF-MIND which is specific to it, a special way of understanding, talking, and interpreting? It becomes all the more urgent to answer these questions when we remember that proximally and for the most part Dasein is absorbed in the "they" and is mastered by it. Is not Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, thrown proximally right into the publicness of the "they"? And what does this publicness mean, other than the specific disclosedness of the "they"? [SZ:167] BTMR §34

The expression ‘idle talk’ ["Gerede  "] is not to be used here in a ‘disparaging’ signification. Terminologically, it signifies a positive phenomenon which constitutes the kind of Being of everyday Dasein’s understanding and interpreting. For the most part, discourse is expressed by being spoken out, and has always been so expressed; it is language. But in that case understanding and interpretation already lie in what has thus been expressed. In language, as a way things have been expressed or spoken out [Ausgesprochenheit], there is hidden a way in which the understanding of Dasein has been interpreted. This way of interpreting it is no more just present-at-hand than language is; on the contrary, its Being is itself of the character of Dasein. Proximally, and with certain limits, Dasein is constantly delivered over to this interpretedness, which controls and distributes the possibilities of average understanding and of the STATE-OF-MIND belonging to it. The way things have been expressed or spoken out is such that in the totality of contexts of signification into which it has been articulated, it preserves an understanding of the disclosed world and therewith, equiprimordially, an understanding of the Dasein-with of Others and of one’s own Being-in. The understanding which has thus already been "deposited" in the way things have been expressed, pertains just as much to any traditional discoveredness of entities which may have been reached, as it does to one’s current understanding of Being and to whatever possibilities and horizons for fresh interpretation and conceptual Articulation may be available. But now we must go beyond a bare allusion to the Fact of this interpretedness of Dasein, and must inquire about the existential kind of Being of that discourse which is expressed and which expresses itself. If this cannot be conceived as something present-at-hand, what is its Being, and what does this tell us in principle about Dasein’s everyday kind of Being? [SZ:168] BTMR §35

This way in which things have been interpreted in idle talk has already established itself in Dasein. There are many things with which we first become acquainted in this way, and there is not a little which never gets beyond such an average understanding. This everyday way in which things have been interpreted is one into which Dasein has grown in the first instance, with never a possibility of extrication. In it, out of it, and against it, all genuine understanding, interpreting, and communicating, all re-discovering and appropriating anew, are performed. In no case is a Dasein, untouched and unseduced by this way in which things have been interpreted, set before the open country of a ‘world-in-itself’ so that it just beholds what it encounters. The dominance of the public way in which things have been interpreted has already been decisive even for the possibilities of having a mood – that is, for the basic way in which Dasein lets the world "matter" to it. The "they" prescribes one’s STATE-OF-MIND, and determines what and how one ‘sees’. [SZ:170] BTMR §35

Since the way in which things have been publicly interpreted has already become a temptation to itself in this manner, it holds Dasein fast in its fallenness. Idle talk and ambiguity, having seen everything, having understood everything, develop the supposition that Dasein’s disclosedness, which is so available and so prevalent, can guarantee to Dasein that all the possibilities of its Being will be secure, genuine, and full. Through the self-certainty and decidedness of the "they", it gets spread abroad increasingly that there is no need of authentic understanding or the STATE-OF-MIND that goes with it. The supposition of the "they" that one is leading and sustaining a full and genuine ‘life’, brings Dasein a tranquillity, for which everything is ‘in the best of order’ and all doors are open. Falling Being-in-the-world, which tempts itself, is at the same time tranquillizing [beruhigend]. BTMR §38

Falling is not only existentially determinative for Being-in-the-world. At the same time turbulence makes manifest that the thrownness which can obtrude itself upon Dasein in its STATE-OF-MIND, has the character of throwing and of movement. Thrownness is neither a ‘fact that is finished’ nor a Fact that is settled. Dasein’s facticity is such that as long as it is what it is, Dasein remains in the throw, and is sucked into the turbulence of the "they’s" inauthenticity. Thrownness, in which facticity lets itself be seen phenomenally, belongs to Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is an issue. Dasein exists factically. [SZ:179] 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

An understanding of Being belongs to Dasein’s ontological structure. As something that is [Seiend  ], it is disclosed to itself in its Being. The kind of Being which belongs to this disclosedness is constituted by STATE-OF-MIND and understanding. Is there in Dasein an understanding STATE-OF-MIND in which Dasein has been disclosed to itself in some distinctive way? BTMR §39

As a STATE-OF-MIND which will satisfy these methodological requirements, the phenemonon of anxiety will be made basic for our analysis. In working out this basic STATE-OF-MIND and characterizing ontologically what is disclosed in it as such, we shall take the phenomenon of falling as our point of departure, and distinguish anxiety from the kindred phenomenon of fear, which we have analysed earlier. As one of Dasein’s possibilities of Being, anxiety – together with Dasein itself as disclosed in it – provides the phenomenal basis for explicitly grasping Dasein’s primordial totality of Being. Dasein’s Being reveals itself as care. If we are to work out this basic existential phenomenon, we must distinguish it from phenomena which might be proximally identified with care, such as will, wish, addiction, and urge. Care cannot be derived from these, since they themselves are founded upon it. BTMR §39

Thus our preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein will conclude with the following themes: the basic STATE-OF-MIND of anxiety as a distinctive way in which Dasein is disclosed (Section 40); Dasein’s Being as care (Section 41); the confirmation of the existential Interpretation of Dasein as care in terms of Dasein’s pre-ontological way of interpreting itself (Section 42); Dasein, worldhood, and Reality (Section 43); Dasein, disclosedness, and truth (Section 44). [SZ:184] BTMR §39

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

So in orienting our analysis by the phenomenon of falling, we are not in principle condemned to be without any prospect of learning something ontologically about the Dasein disclosed in that phenomenon. On the contrary, here, least of all, has our Interpretation been surrendered to an artificial way in which Dasein grasps itself; it merely carries out the explication of what Dasein itself ontically discloses. The possibility of proceeding towards Dasein’s Being by going along with it and following it up [Mit- und Nachgehen] Interpretatively with an understanding and the STATE-OF-MIND that goes with it, is the greater, the more primordial is that phenomenon which functions methodologically as a disclosive STATE-OF-MIND. It might be contended that anxiety performs some such function. BTMR §40

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

Being-anxious discloses, primordially and directly, the world as world. It is not the case, say, that the world first gets thought of by deliberating about it, just by itself, without regard for the entities within-the-world, and that, in the face of this world, anxiety then arises; what is rather the case is that the world as world is disclosed first and foremost by anxiety, as a mode of STATE-OF-MIND. This does not signify, however, that in anxiety the worldhood of the world gets conceptualized. BTMR §40

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

That 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

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

If we Interpret Dasein’s uncanniness from an existential-ontological point of view as a threat which reaches Dasein itself and which comes from Dasein itself, we are not contending that in factical anxiety too it has always been understood in this sense. When Dasein "understands" uncanniness in the everyday manner, it does so by turning away from it in falling; in this turning-away, the "not-at-home" gets ‘dimmed down’. Yet the everydayness of this fleeing shows phenomenally that anxiety, as a basic STATE-OF-MIND, belongs to Dasein’s essential state of Being-in-the-world, which, as one that is existential, is never present-at-hand but is itself always in a mode of factical Being-there – that is, in the mode of a STATE-OF-MIND. That kind of Being-in-the-world which is tranquillized and familiar is a mode of Dasein’s uncanniness, not the reverse. From an existential-ontological point of view, the "not-at-home" must be conceived as the more primordial phenomenon. BTMR §40

And only because anxiety is always latent in Being-in-the-world, can such Being-in-the-world, as Being which is alongside the ‘world’ and which is concernful in its STATE-OF-MIND, ever be afraid. Fear is anxiety, fallen into the ‘world’, inauthentic, and, as such, hidden from itself. BTMR §40

Even rarer than the existentiell Fact of "real" anxiety are attempts to Interpret this phenomenon according to the principles of its existential-ontological Constitution and function. The reasons for this lie partly in the general neglect of the existential analytic of Dasein, but more particularly in a failure to recognize the phenomenon of STATE-OF-MIND . Yet the factical rarity of anxiety as a phenomenon cannot deprive it of its fitness to take over a methodological function in principle for the existential analytic. On the contrary, the rarity of the phenomenon is an index that Dasein, which for the most part remains concealed from itself in its authenticity because of the way in which things have been publicly interpreted by the "they", becomes disclosable in a primordial sense in this basic STATE-OF-MIND. BTMR §40

Of course it is essential to every STATE-OF-MIND that in each case Being-in-the-world should be fully disclosed in all those items which are constitutive for it – world, Being-in, Self. But in anxiety there lies the possibility of a disclosure which is quite distinctive; for anxiety individualizes. This individualization brings Dasein back from its falling, and makes manifest to it that authenticity and inauthenticity are possibilities of its Being. These basic possibilities of Dasein (and Dasein is in each case mine) show themselves in anxiety as they are in themselves – undisguised by entities within-the-world, to which, proximally and for the most part, Dasein clings. [SZ:191] BTMR §40

Since our aim is to grasp the totality of this structural whole ontologically, we must first ask whether the phenomenon of anxiety and that which is disclosed in it, can give us the whole of Dasein in a way which is phenomenally eiquiprimordial, and whether they can do so in such a manner that if we look searchingly at this totality, our view of it will be filled in by what has thus been given us. The entire stock of what lies therein may be counted up formally and recorded: anxiousness as a STATE-OF-MIND is a way of Being-in-the-world; that in the face of which we have anxiety is thrown Being-in-the-world; that which we have anxiety about is our potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. Thus the entire phenomenon of anxiety shows Dasein as factically existing Being-in-the-world. The fundamental ontological characteristics of this entity are existentiality, facticity, and Being-fallen. These existential characteristics are not pieces belonging to something composite, one of which might sometimes be missing; but there is woven together in them a primordial context which makes up that totality of the structural whole which we are seeking. In the unity of those characteristics of Dasein’s Being which we have mentioned, this Being becomes something which it is possible for us to grasp as such ontologically. How is this unity itself to be characterized? BTMR §41

On the other hand, the urge ‘to live’ is something ‘towards’ which one is impelled, and it brings the impulsion along with it of its own accord. It is ‘towards this at any price’. The urge seeks to crowd out [verdrängen] other possibilities. Here too the Being-ahead-of-oneself is one that is inauthentic, even if one is assailed by an urge coming from the very thing that is urging one on. The urge can outrun one’s current STATE-OF-MIND and one’s understanding. But then Dasein is not – and never is – a ‘mere urge’ to which other kinds of controlling or guiding behaviour are added from time to time; rather, as a modification of the entirety of Being-in-the-world, it is always care already. [SZ:196] BTMR §41

Our earlier analysis of the worldhood of the world and of entities within-the-world has Shown, however, that the uncoveredness of entities within-the-world is grounded in the world’s disclosedness. But disclosedhess is that basic character of Dasein according to which it is its "there". Disclosedness is constituted by STATE-OF-MIND, understanding, and discourse, and pertains equiprimordially to the world, to Being-in, and to the Self. In its very structure, care is ahead of itself – Being already in a world – as Being alongside entities within-the-world; and in this structure the disclosedness of Dasein lies hidden. With and through it is uncoveredness; hence only with Dasein’s disclosedness is the most primordial phenomenon of truth attained. What we have pointed out earlier with regard to the existential Constitution of the "there" and in relation to the everyday Being of the "there", pertains ‘to the most primordial phenomenon of truth, nothing less. In so far as Dasein is its disclosedness essentially, and discloses and uncovers as something disclosed to this extent it is essentially ‘true’. Dasein is ‘in the truth’. This assertion has meaning ontologically. It does not purport to say that ontically Dasein is introduced ‘to all the truth’ either always or just in every case, but rather that the disclosedncss of its ownmost Being belongs to its existential constitution. [SZ:221] BTMR §44

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

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

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

[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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What kind of mood corresponds to such understanding? Understanding the call discloses one’s own Dasein in the uncannines of its individualization. The uncanniness which is revealed in understanding and revealed along with it, becomes genuinely disclosed by the STATE-OF-MIND of anxiety which belongs to that understanding. The fact of the anxiety of conscience, gives us phenomenal confirmation that in understanding the call Dasein is brought face to face with its own uncanniness. Wanting-to-have-a-conscience becomes a readiness for anxiety. [SZ:296] BTMR §60

The disclosedness of Dasein in wanting to have a conscience, is thus constituted by anxiety as STATE-OF-MIND, by understanding as a projection of oneself upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, and by discourse as reticence. This distinctive and authentic disclosedness, which is attested in Dasein itself by its conscience – this reticent self-projection upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, in which one is ready for anxiety – we call "resoluteness". [SZ:297] BTMR §60

Likewise, with the ‘already’ we have in view the existential temporal   meaning of the Being of that entity which, in so far as it is, is already something that has been thrown. Only because care is based on the character of "having been", can Dasein exist as the thrown entity which it is. ‘As long as’ Dasein factically exists, it is never past [vergangen  ], but it always is indeed as already having been, in the sense of the "I am-as-having-been". And only as long as Dasein is, can it be as having been. On the other hand, we call an entity "past", when it is no longer present-at-hand. Therefore Dasein, in existing, can never establish itself as a fact which is present-at-hand, arising and passing away ‘in the course of time’, with a bit of it past already. Dasein never ‘finds itself’ except as a thrown Fact. In the STATE-OF-MIND in which it finds itself, Dasein is assailed by itself as the entity which it still is and already was – that is to say, which it constantly is as having been. The primary existential meaning of facticity lies in the character of "having been". In our formulation of the structure of care, the temporal meaning of existentiality and facticity is indicated by the expressions ‘before’ and ‘already’. [SZ:328] BTMR §65

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

Resoluteness, which we have characterized with regard to its temporal meaning, represents an authentic disclosedness of Dasein – a disclosedness which constitutes an entity of such a kind that in existing, it can be its very ‘there’. Care has been characterized with regard to its temporal meaning, but only in its basic features. To exhibit its concrete temporal’ Constitution, means to give a temporal Interpretation of the items of its structure, taking them each singly: understanding, STATE-OF-MIND, falling, and discourse. Every understanding has its mood. Every STATE-OF-MIND is one in which one understands. The understanding which one has in such a STATE-OF-MIND has the character of falling. The understanding which has its mood attuned in falling, Articulates itself with relation to its intelligibility in discourse. The current temporal Constitution of these phenomena leads back in each case to that one kind of temporality which serves as such to guarantee the possibility that understanding, STATE-OF-MIND, falling, and discourse, are united in their structure. BTMR §68

Understanding is never free-floating, but always goes with some STATE-OF-MIND. The "there" gets equiprimordially disclosed by one’s mood in every case – or gets closed off by it. Having a mood brings Dasein face to face with its thrownness in such a manner that this thrownness is not known as such but disclosed far more primordially in ‘how one is’. Existentially, "Being-thrown" means finding oneself in some STATE-OF-MIND or other. One’s STATE-OF-MIND is therefore based upon thrownness. My mood represents whatever may be the way in which I am primarily the entity [SZ:340] that has been thrown. How does the temporal Constitution of having-amood let itself be made visible? How will the ecstatical unity of one’s current temporality give any insight into the existential connection between one’s STATE-OF-MIND and one’s understanding? BTMR §68

One’s mood discloses in the manner of turning thither or turning away from one’s own Dasein. Bringing Dasein face to face with the "that-it-is" of its own thrownness – whether authentically revealing it or inauthentically covering it up – becomes existentially possible only if Dasein’s Being, by its very meaning, constantly is as having been. The "been" is not what first brings one face to face with the thrown entity which one is oneself; but the ecstasis of the "been" is what first makes it possible to find oneself in the way of having a STATE-OF-MIND. BTMR §68

Understanding is grounded primarily in the future; one’s STATE-OF-MIND, however, temporalizes itself primarily in having been. Moods temporalize themselves – that is, their specific ecstasis belongs to a future and a Present in such a way, indeed, that these equiprimordial ecstases are modified by having been. BTMR §68

We have emphasized that while moods, of course, are ontically wellknown to us [bekannt  ], they are not recognized [erkannt] in their primordial existential function. They are regarded as fleeting Experiences which ‘colour’ one’s whole ‘psychical condition’. Anything which is observed to have the character of turning up and disappearing in a fleeting manner, belongs to the primordial constancy of existence. But all the same, what should moods have in common with ‘time’? That these ‘Experiences’ come and go, that they run their course ‘in time’, is a trivial thing to establish. Certainly. And indeed this can be established in an ontico-psychological manner. Our task, however, is to exhibit the ontological structure of having-a-mood in its existential-temporal Constitution. And of course this is proximally just a matter of first making the temporality of moods visible. The thesis   that ‘one’s STATE-OF-MIND is grounded primarily in having been’ means that the existentially basic character of moods lies in bringing one back to something. This bringing-back does not first produce a having been; but in any STATE-OF-MIND some mode of having been is made manifest for existential analysis. So if we are to Interpret states-of-mind temporally, our aim is not one of deducing moods from temporality and dissolving them into pure phenomena of temporalizing. All we have to do is to demonstrate that except on the basis of temporality, moods are not possible in what they ‘signify’ in an existentiell way or in how they ‘signify’ it. Our temporal Interpretation will restrict itself to the phenomena of fear and anxiety, which we have already analysed in a preparatory manner. [SZ:341] 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 moodcharacter 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

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

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 forgetting which is constitutive for fear, bewilders Dasein and lets it drift back and forth between ‘worldly’ possibilities which it has not seized upon. In contrast to this making-present which is not held   on to, the Present of anxiety is held On to when one brings oneself back to one’s ownmost thrownness. The existential meaning of anxiety is such that it cannot lose itself in something with which it might be concerned. If anything like this happens in a similar STATE-OF-MIND, this is fear, which the everyday. understanding confuses with anxiety. But even though the Present of anxiety is held on to, it does not as yet have the character of the moment of vision, which temporalizes itself in a resolution. Anxiety merely brings one into the mood for a possible resolution. The Present of anxiety holds the moment of vision at the ready [auf dem Sprung  ]; as such a moment it itself, and only itself, is possible. [SZ:344] BTMR §68

Although both fear and anxiety, as modes of STATE-OF-MIND, are grounded primarily in having been, they each have different sources with regard to their own temporalization in the temporality of care. Anxiety springs from the future of resoluteness, while fear springs from the lost Present, of which fear is fearfully apprehensive, so that it falls prey to it more than ever. BTMR §68

[SZ:345] But may not the thesis of the temporality of moods hold only for those phenomena which we have selected for our analysis? How is a temporal meaning to be found in the pallid lack of mood which dominates the ‘grey everyday’ through and through? And how about the temporality of such moods and affects as hope, joy, enthusiasm, gaiety? Not only fear and anxiety, but other moods, are founded existentially upon one’s haying been; this becomes plain if we merely mention such phenomena as satiety, sadness, melancholy, and desperation. Of course these must be Interpreted on the broader basis of an existential analytic of Dasein that has been well worked out. But even a phenomenon like hope, which seems to be founded wholly upon the future, must be analysed in much the same way as fear. Hope has sometimes been characterized as the expectation of a bonum   futurum, to distinguish it from fear, which relates itself to a malum futurum. But what is decisive for the structure of hope as a phenomenon, is not so much the ‘futural’ character of that to which it relates itself but rather the existential meaning of hoping itself. Even here its character as a mood lies primarily in hoping as hoping for something for oneself [Fürsich-erhoffen]. He who hopes takes himself with him into his hope, as it were, and brings himself up against what he hopes for. But this presupposes that he has somehow arrived at himself. To say that hope brings alleviation [erleichtert] from depressing misgivings, means merely that even hope, as a STATE-OF-MIND, is still related to our burdens, and related in the mode of Being-as-having been. Such a mood of elation – or better, one which elates – is ontologically possible only if Dasein has an ecstatico-temporal relation to the thrown ground of itself. BTMR §68

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

In our temporal Interpretation of understanding and STATE-OF-MIND, we not only have come up against a primary ecstasis for each of these phenomena, but at the same time we have always come up against temporality as a whole. Just as understanding is made possible primarily by the future, and moods are made possible by having been, the third constitutive item in the structure of care – namely, falling – has its existential meaning in the Present. Our preparatory analysis of falling began with an Interpretation of idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. In the temporal analysis of falling we shall take the same course. But we shall restrict our investigation to a consideration of curiosity, for here the specific temporality of falling is most easily seen. Our analysis of idle talk and ambiguity, however, presupposes our having already clarified the temporal Constitution of discourse and of explanation (interpretation). BTMR §68

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

Understanding is grounded primarily in the future (whether in anticipation or in awaiting). States-of-mind temporalize themselves primarily in having been (whether in repetition or in having forgotten). Falling has its temporal roots primarily in the Present (whether in making-present or in the moment of vision). All the same, understanding is in every case a Present which ‘is in the process of having been’. All the same, one’s STATE-OF-MIND temporalizes itself as a future which is ‘making present’. And all the same, the Present. ‘leaps away’ from a future that is in the process of having been, or else it is held on to by such a future. Thus we can see that in every ecstasis, temporality temporalizes itself as a whole; and this means that in the ecstatical unity with which temporality has fully temporalized itself currently, is grounded the totality of the structural whole of existence, facticity, and falling – that is, the unity of the care-structure. [SZ:350] BTMR §68

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

These manifold characteristics of everydayness, however, by no means designate it as a mere ‘aspect’ afforded by Dasein when ‘one looks at’ the things men do. Everydayness is a way to be – to which, of course, that which is publicly manifest belongs. But it is more or less familiar to any ‘individual’ Dasein as a way of existing which it may have as its own, and it is familiar to it through that STATE-OF-MIND which consists of a pallid lack of mood. In everydayness Dasein can undergo dull ‘suffering’, sink away in the dullness of it, and evade it by seeking new ways in which its dispersion in its affairs may be further dispersed. In the moment of vision, indeed, and often just ‘for that moment’, existence can even gain the mastery over the "everyday"; but it can never extinguish it. BTMR §71

The concern which awaits, retains, and makes present, is one which ‘allows itself’ so much time; and it assigns itself this time concernfully, even without determining the time by any specific reckoning, and before any such reckoning has been done. Here time dates itself in one’s current mode of allowing oneself time concernfully; and it does so in terms of those very matters with which one concerns oneself environmentally, and which have been disclosed in the understanding with its accompanying STATE-OF-MIND – in terms of what one does ‘all day long’. The more Dasein is awaitingly absorbed in the object of its concern and forgets itself in not awaiting itself, the more does even the time which it ‘allows’ itself remain covered up by this way of ‘allowing’. When Dasein is ‘living along’ in an everyday concernful manner, it just never understands itself as running along in a Continuously enduring sequence of pure ‘nows’. By reason of this covering up, the time which Dasein allows itself has gaps in it, as it were. Often we do not bring a ‘day’ together again when we come back to the time which we have ‘used’. But the time which has gaps in it does not go to pieces in this lack-of-togetherness, which is rather a mode of that temporality which has already been disclosed and stretched along ecstatically. The manner in which the time we have ‘allowed’ ‘runs its course’, and the way in which concern more or less explicitly assigns itself that time, can be properly explained as phenomena only if, on the one hand, we avoid [SZ:410] the theoretical ‘representation’ of a Continuous stream of "nows", and if, on the other hand, the possible ways in which Dasein assigns itself time and allows itself time are to be conceived of as determined primarily in terms of how Dasein, in a manner corresponding to its current existence, ‘has’ its time. BTMR §79

STATES-OF-MIND

Phenomenally, we would wholly fail to recognize both what mood discloses and how it discloses, if that which is disclosed were to be compared with what Dasein is acquainted with, knows, and believes ‘at the same time’ when it has such a mood. Even if Dasein is ‘assured’ in its belief about its ‘whither’, or if, in rational enlightenment, it supposes itself to know about its "whence", all this counts for nothing as against the phenomenal facts of the case: for the mood brings Dasein before the "that-it-is" of its "there", which, as such, stares it in the face with the inexorability of an enigma. From the existential-ontological point of view, there is not the slightest justification for minimizing what is ‘evident’ in states-of-mind, by measuring it against the apodictic certainty of a theoretical cognition of something which is purely present-at-hand. However the phenomena are no less falsified when they are banished to the sanctuary of the irrational. When irrationalism, as the counterplay of rationalism, talks about the things to which rationalism is blind, it does so only with a squint. [SZ:136] BTMR §29

Factically, Dasein can, should, and must, through knowledge and will, become master of its moods; in certain possible ways of existing, this may signify a priority of volition and cognition. Only we must not be misled by this into denying that ontologically mood is a primordial kind of Being for Dasein, in which Dasein is disclosed to itself prior to all cognition and volition, and beyond their range of disclosure. And furthermore, when we master a mood, we do so by way of a counter-mood; we are never free of moods. Ontologically, we thus obtain as the first essential characteristic of states-of-mind that they disclose Dasein in its thrownness, and – proximally and for the most part – in the manner of an evasive turning-away. BTMR §29

There are three points of view from which the phenomenon of fear may be considered. We shall analyse: (1) that in the face of which we fear, (2) fearing, and (3) that about which we fear. These possible ways of looking at fear are not accidental; they belong together. With them the general structure of states-of-mind comes to the fore. We shall complete our analysis by alluding to the possible ways in which fear may be modified; each of these pertains to different items in the structure of fear. BTMR §30

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

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

Idle talk, which closes things off in the way we have designated, is the kind of Being which belongs to Dasein’s understanding when that understanding has been uprooted. But idle talk does not occur as a condition which is present-at-hand in something present-at-hand: idle talk has been uprooted existentially, and this uprooting is constant. Ontologically this means that when Dasein maintains itself in idle talk, it is – as Being-in-the-world – cut off from its primary and primordially genuine relationships-of-Being towards the world, towards Dasein-with, and towards its very Being-in. Such a Dasein keeps floating unattached [in einer Schwebe]; yet in so doing, it is always alongside the world, with Others, and towards itself. To be uprooted in this manner is a possibility-of-Being only for an entity whose disclosedness is constituted by discourse as characterized by understanding and states-of-mind – that is to say, for an entity whose discloscdness, in such an ontologically constitutive state, is its "there", its ‘in-the-world’. Far from amounting to a "not-Being" of Dasein, this uprooting is rather Dasein’s most everyday and most stubborn ‘Reality’. BTMR §35

The leading question of this chapter has been about the Being of the "there". Our theme has been the ontological Constitution of the disclosedness which essentially belongs to Dasein. The Being of that disclosedness is constituted by states-of-mind, understanding, and discourse. Its everyday kind of Being is characterized by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. These show us the movement of falling, with temptation, tranquillizing, alienation, and entanglement as its essential characteristics. BTMR §38