DASEIN is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it. But in that case, this is a constitutive state of DASEIN’s Being, and this implies that DASEIN, in its Being, has a relationship towards that Being – a relationship which itself is one of Being. And this means further that there is some way in which DASEIN understands itself in its Being, and that to some degree it does so explicitly. It is peculiar to this entity that with and through its Being, this Being is disclosed to it. Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of DASEIN’s Being. DASEIN is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological. BTMR: §4
DASEIN accordingly takes priority over all other entities in several ways. The first priority is an ontical one: DASEIN is an entity whose Being has the determinate character of existence. The second priority is an ontological one: DASEIN is in itself ‘ontological’, because existence is thus determinative for it. But with equal primordiality DASEIN also possesses – as constitutive for its understanding of existence – an understanding of the Being of all entities of a character other than its own. DASEIN has therefore a third priority as providing the ontico-ontological condition for the possibility of any ontologies. Thus DASEIN has turned out to be, more than any other entity, the one which must first be interrogated ontologically. BTMR: §4
If to Interpret the meaning of Being becomes our task, DASEIN is not only the primary entity to be interrogated; it is also that entity which already comports itself in its Being, towards what we are asking about when we ask this question. But in that case the question of Being is nothing other than the radicalization of an essential tendency-of-Being which belongs to DASEIN itself – the pre-ontological understanding of Being. BTMR: §4
In demonstrating that DASEIN is ontico-ontologically prior, we may have misled the reader into supposing that this entity must also be what is given as ontico-ontologically primary not only in the sense that it can itself be grasped ‘immediately’, but also in that the kind of Being which it possesses is presented just as ‘immediately’. Ontically, of course, DASEIN is not only close to us – even that which is closest: we are it, each of us, we ourselves. In spite of this, or rather for just this reason, it is ontologically that which is farthest. To be sure, its ownmost Being is such that it has an understanding of that Being, and already maintains itself in each case as if its Being has been interpreted in some manner. But we are certainly not saying that when DASEIN’s own Being is thus interpreted pre-ontologically in the way which lies closest, this interpretation can be taken over as an appropriate clue, as if this way of understanding Being is what must emerge when one’s ownmost state of Being is considered as an ontological theme. The kind of Being which belongs to DASEIN is rather such that, in understanding its own Being, it has a tendency to do so in terms of that entity towards which it comports itself proximally and in a way which is essentially constant – in terms of the ‘world’. In DASEIN itself, and therefore in its own understanding of Being, the way the world is understood is, as we shall show, reflected back ontologically upon the way in which DASEIN itself gets interpreted. BTMR: §5
Thus because DASEIN is ontico-ontologically prior, its own specific state of Being (if we understand this in the sense of DASEIN’s ‘categorial structure’) remains concealed from it. DASEIN is ontically ‘closest’ to itself and ontologically farthest; but pre-ontologically it is surely not a stranger. BTMR: §5
We have already intimated that DASEIN has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state. DASEIN is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this interconnection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever DASEIN tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light – and genuinely conceived – as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of DASEIN, which understands Being. This task as a whole requires that the conception of time thus obtained shall be distinguished from the way in which it is ordinarily understood. This ordinary way of understanding it has become explicit in an interpretation precipitated in the traditional concept of time, which has persisted from Aristotle to Bergson and even later. Here we must make clear that this conception of time and, in general, the ordinary way of understanding it, have sprung from temporality, and we must show how this has come about. We shall thereby restore to the ordinary conception the autonomy which is its rightful due, as against Bergson’s thesis that the time one has in mind in this conception is space. BTMR: §5
All research – and not least that which operates within the range of the central question of Being – is an ontical possibility of DASEIN. DASEIN’s Being finds its meaning in temporality. But temporality is also the condition which makes historicality possible as a temporal kind of Being which DASEIN itself possesses, regardless of whether or how DASEIN is an entity ‘in time’. Historicality, as a determinate character, is prior to what is called “history” (world-historical historizing). BTMR: §6
“Historicality” stands for the state of Being that is constitutive for DASEIN’s ‘historizing’ as such; only on the basis of such ‘historizing’ is anything like ‘world-history’ possible or can anything belong historically to world-history. In its factical Being, any DASEIN is as it already was, and it is ‘what’ it already was. It is its past, whether explicitly or not. And this is so not only in that its past is, as it were, pushing itself along ‘behind’ it, and that DASEIN possesses what is past as a property which is still present-at-hand and which sometimes has after-effects upon it: DASEIN ‘is’ its past in the way of its own Being, which, to put it roughly, ‘historizes’ out of its future on each occasion. Whatever the way of being it may have at the time, and thus with whatever understanding of Being it may possess, DASEIN has grown up both into and in a traditional way of interpreting itself: in terms of this it understands itself proximally and, within a certain range, constantly. By this understanding, the possibilities of its Being are disclosed and regulated. Its own past – and this always means the past of its ‘generation’ – is not something which follows along after DASEIN, but something which already goes ahead of it. BTMR: §6
If this historicality remains hidden from DASEIN, and as long as it so remains, DASEIN is also denied the possibility of historiological inquiry or the discovery of history. If historiology is wanting, this is not evidence against DASEIN’s historicality; on the contrary, as a deficient mode of this state of Being, it is evidence for it. Only because it is ‘historical’ can an era be unhistoriological. BTMR: §6
Our preparatory Interpretation of the fundamental structures of DASEIN with regard to the average kind of Being which is closest to it (a kind of Being in which it is therefore proximally historical as well), will make manifest, however, not only that DASEIN is inclined to fall back upon its world (the world in which it is) and to interpret itself in terms of that world by its reflected light, but also that DASEIN simultaneously falls prey to the tradition of which it has more or less explicitly taken hold. This tradition keeps it from providing its own guidance, whether in inquiring or in choosing. This holds true – and by no means least – for that understanding which is rooted in DASEIN’s ownmost Being, and for the possibility of developing it – namely, for ontological understanding. BTMR: §6
With regard to its subject-matter, phenomenology is the science of the Being of entities – ontology. In explaining the tasks of ontology we found it necessary that there should be a fundamental ontology taking as its theme that entity which is ontologico-ontically distinctive, DASEIN, in order to confront the cardinal problem – the question of the meaning of Being in general. Our investigation itself will show that the meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation. The logos of the phenomenology of DASEIN has the character of a hermeneuein, through which the authentic meaning of Being, and also those basic structures of Being which DASEIN itself possesses, are made known to DASEIN’s understanding of Being. The phenomenology of DASEIN is a hermeneutic in the primordial signification of this word, where it designates this business of interpreting. But to the extent that by uncovering the meaning of Being and the basic structures of DASEIN in general we may exhibit the horizon for any further ontological study of those entities which do not have the character of DASEIN, this hermeneutic also becomes a ‘hermeneutic’ in the sense of working out the conditions on which the possibility of any ontological investigation depends. And finally, to the extent that DASEIN, as an entity with the possibility of existence, has ontological priority over every other entity, “hermeneutic”, as an interpretation of DASEIN’s Being, has the third and specific sense of an analytic of the existentiality of existence; and this is the sense which is philosophically primary. Then so far as this hermeneutic works out DASEIN’s historicality ontologically as the ontical condition for the possibility of historiology, it contains the roots of what can be called ‘hermeneutic’ only in a derivative sense: the methodology of those humane sciences which are historiological in character. BTMR: §7
2. That Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being, is in each case mine. Thus DASEIN is never to be taken ontologically as an instance or special case of some genus of entities as things that are present-at-hand. To entities such as these, their Being is ‘a matter of indifference’; or more precisely, they ‘are’ such that their Being can be neither a matter of indifference to them, nor the opposite. Because DASEIN has in each case mineness (Jemeinigkeit), one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it: ‘I am’, ‘you are’. BTMR: §9
Furthermore, in each case DASEIN is mine to be in one way or another. DASEIN has always made some sort of decision as to the way in which it is in each case mine (je meines). That entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue, comports itself towards its Being as its ownmost possibility. In each case DASEIN is its possibility, and it ‘has’ this possibility, but not just as a property (eigenschaftlich), as something present-at-hand would. And because DASEIN is in each case essentially its own possibility, it can, in its very Being, ‘choose’ itself and win itself; it can also lose itself and never win itself; or only ‘seem’ to do so. But only in so far as it is essentially something which can be authentic – that is, something of its own – can it have lost itself and not yet won itself. As modes of Being, authenticity and inauthenticity (these expressions have been chosen terminologically in a strict sense) are both grounded in the fact that any DASEIN whatsoever is characterized by mineness. But the inauthenticity of DASEIN does not signify any ‘less’ Being or any ‘lower’ degree of Being. Rather it is the case that even in its fullest concretion DASEIN can be characterized by inauthenticity – when busy, when excited, when interested, when ready for joyment. BTMR: §9
The two characteristics of DASEIN which we have sketched – the priority of ‘existentia’ over essentia, and the fact that DASEIN is in each case mine (die Jemeinigkeit) – have already indicated that in the analytic of this entity we are facing a peculiar phenomenal domain. DASEIN does not have the kind of Being which belongs to something merely present-at-hand within the world, nor does it ever have it. So neither is it to be presented thematically as something we come across in the same way as we come across what is present-at-hand. The right way of presenting it is so far from self-evident that to determine what form it shall take is itself an essential part of the ontological analytic of this entity. Only by presenting this entity in the right way can we have any understanding of its Being. No matter how provisional our analysis may be, it always requires the assurance that we have started correctly. BTMR: §9
10. How the Analytic of DASEIN is to be Distinguished from Anthropology, Psychology, and Biology BTMR: §10
This is no less true of ‘psychology’, whose anthropological tendencies are today unmistakable. Nor can we compensate for the absence of ontological foundations by taking anthropology and psychology and building them into the framework of a general biology. In the order which any possible comprehension and interpretation must follow, biology as a ‘science of life’ is founded upon the ontology of DASEIN, even if not entirely. Life, in its own right, is a kind of Being; but essentially it is accessible only in DASEIN. The ontology of life is accomplished by way of a privative Interpretation; it determines what must be the case if there can be anything like mere-aliveness (Nur-noch-leben). Life is not a mere Being-present-at-hand, nor is it DASEIN. In turn, DASEIN is never to be defined ontologically by regarding it as life (in an ontologically indefinite manner) plus something else. BTMR: §10
The Interpretation of DASEIN in its everydayness, however, is not identical with the describing of some primitive stage of DASEIN with which we can become acquainted empirically through the medium of anthropology: Everydayness does not coincide with primitiveness, but is rather a mode of DASEIN’s Being, even when that DASEIN is active in a highly developed and differentiated culture – and precisely then. Moreover, even primitive DASEIN has possibilities of a Being which is not of the everyday kind, and it has a specific everydayness of its own. To orient the analysis of DASEIN towards the ‘life of primitive peoples’ can have positive significance (Bedeutung) as a method because ‘primitive phenomena’ are often less concealed and less complicated by extensive self-interpretation on the part of the DASEIN in question. Primitive DASEIN often speaks to us more directly in terms of a primordial absorption in ‘phenomena’ (taken in a pre-phenomenological sense). A way of conceiving things which seems, perhaps, rather clumsy and crude from our standpoint, can be positively helpful in bringing out the ontological structures of phenomena in a genuine way. BTMR: §11
IN our preparatory discussions (Section 9) we have brought out some characteristics of Being which will provide us with a steady light for our further investigation, but which will at the same time become structurally concrete as that investigation continues. DASEIN is an entity which, in its very Being, comports itself understandingly towards that Being. In saying this, we are calling attention to the formal concept of existence. DASEIN exists. Furthermore, DASEIN is an entity which in each case I myself am. Mineness belongs to any existent DASEIN, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible. In each case DASEIN exists in one or the other of these two modes, or else it is modally undifferentiated. BTMR: §12
DASEIN understands its ownmost Being in the sense of a certain ‘factual Being-present-at-hand’. And yet the ‘factuality’ of the fact (Tatsache) of one’s own DASEIN is at bottom quite different ontologically from the factual occurrence of some kind of mineral, for example. Whenever DASEIN is, it is as a Fact; and the factuality of such a Fact is what we shall call DASEIN’s “facticity”. This is a definite way of Being (Seinsbestimmtheit), and it has a complicated structure which cannot even be grasped as a problem until DASEIN’s basic existential states have been worked out. The concept of “facticity” implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its ‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world. BTMR: §12
From what we have been saying, it follows that Being-in is not a ‘property’ which DASEIN sometimes has and sometimes does not have, and without which it could be just as well as it could with it. It is not the case that man ‘is’ and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the ‘world’ – a world with which he provides himself occasionally. DASEIN is never ‘proximally’ an entity which is, so to speak, free from Being-in, but which sometimes has the inclination to take up a ‘relationship’ towards the world. Taking up relationships towards the world is possible only because DASEIN, as Being-in-the-world, is as it is. This state of Being does not arise just because some other entity is present-at-hand outside of DASEIN and meets up with it. Such an entity can ‘meet up with’ DASEIN only in so far as it can, of its own accord, show itself within a world. BTMR: §12
Nowadays there is much talk about ‘man’s having an environment (Umwelt)’; but this says nothing ontologically as long as this ‘having’ is left indefinite. In its very possibility this ‘having’ is founded upon the existential state of Being-in. Because DASEIN is essentially an entity with Being-in, it can explicitly discover those entities which it encounters environmentally, it can know them, it can avail itself of them, it can have the ‘world’. To talk about ‘having an environment’ is ontically trivial, but ontologically it presents a problem. To solve it requires nothing else than defining the Being of DASEIN, and doing so in a way which is ontologically adequate. Although this state of Being is one of which use has made in biology, especially since K. von Baer, one must not conclude that its philosophical use implies ‘biologism’. For the environment is a structure which even biology as a positive science can never find and can never define, but must presuppose and constantly employ. Yet, even as an a priori condition for the objects which biology takes for its theme, this structure itself can be explained philosophically only if it has been conceived beforehand as a structure of DASEIN. Only in terms of an orientation towards the ontological structure thus conceived can ‘life’ as a state of Being be defined a priori, and this must be done in a privative manner. Ontically as well as ontologically, the priority belongs to Being-in-the world as concern. In the analytic of DASEIN this structure undergoes a basic Interpretation. BTMR: §12
When DASEIN directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow first get out of an inner sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, but its primary kind of Being is such that it is always ‘outside’ alongside entities which it encounters and which belong to a world already discovered. Nor is any inner sphere abandoned when DASEIN dwells alongside the entity to be known, and determines its character; but even in this ‘Being-outside’ alongside the object, DASEIN is still ‘inside’, if we understand this in the correct sense; that is to say, it is itself ‘inside’ as a Being-in-the-world which knows. And furthermore, the perceiving of what is known is not a process of returning with one’s booty to the ‘cabinet’ of consciousness after one has gone out and grasped it; even in perceiving, retaining, and preserving, the DASEIN which knows remains outside, and it does so as DASEIN. If I ‘merely’ know (Wissen) about some way in which the Being of entities is interconnected, if I ‘only’ represent them, if I ‘do no more’ than ‘think’ about them, I am no less alongside the entities outside in the world than when I originally grasp them. Even the forgetting of something, in which every relationship of Being towards what one formerly knew has seemingly been obliterated, must be conceived as a modification of the primordial Being-in; and this holds for every delusion and for every error. BTMR: §13
When it comes to the problem of analysing the world’s worldhood ontologically, traditional ontology operates in a blind alley, if, indeed, it sees this problem at all. On the other hand, if we are to Interpret the worldhood of DASEIN and the possible ways in which DASEIN is made worldly (Verweltlichung), we must show why the kind of Being with which DASEIN knows the world is such that it passes over the phenomenon of worldhood both ontically and ontologically. But at the same time the very Fact of this passing-over suggests that we must take special precautions to get the right phenomenal point of departure (Ausgang) for access (Zugang) to the phenomenon of worldhood, so that it will not get passed over. BTMR: §14
The world itself is not an entity within-the-world; and yet it is so determinative for such entities that only in so far as ‘there is’ a world can they be encountered and show themselves, in their Being, as entities which have been discovered. But in what way ‘is there’ a world? If DASEIN is ontically constituted by Being-in-the-World, and if an understanding of the Being of its Self belongs just as essentially to its Being, no matter how indefinite that understanding may be, then does not DASEIN have an understanding of the world – a pre-ontological understanding, which indeed can and does get along without explicit ontological insights? With those entities which are encountered within-the-world – that is to say, with their character as within-the-world – does not something like the world show itself for concernful Being-in-the-world? Do we not have a pre-phenomenological glimpse of this phenomenon? Do we not always have such a glimpse of it, without having to take it as a theme for ontological Interpretation? Has DASEIN itself, in the range of its concernful absorption in equipment ready-to-hand, a possibility of Being in which the worldhood of those entities within-the-world with which it is concerned is, in a certain way, lit up for it, along with those entities themselves? BTMR: §16
Being-in-the-world, according to our Interpretation hitherto, amounts to a non-thematic circumspective absorption in references or assignments constitutive for the readiness-to-hand of a totality of equipment. Any concern is already as it is, because of some familiarity with the world. In this familiarity DASEIN can lose itself in what it encounters within-the-world and be fascinated with it. What is it that DASEIN is familiar with? Why can the worldly character of what is within-the-world be lit up? The presence-at-hand of entities is thrust to the fore by the possible breaks in that referential totality in which circumspection ‘operates’; how are we to get a closer understanding of this totality? BTMR: §16
What do we mean when we say that a sign “indicates”? We can answer this only by determining what kind of dealing is appropriate with equipment for indicating. And we must do this in such a way that the readiness-to-hand of that equipment can be genuinely grasped. What is the appropriate way of having-to-do with signs? Going back to our example of the arrow, we must say that the kind of behaving (Being) which corresponds to the sign we encounter, is either to ‘give way’ or to ‘stand still’ vis-à-vis the car with the arrow. Giving way, as taking a direction, belongs essentially to DASEIN’s Being-in-the-world. DASEIN is always somehow directed (ausgerichtet) and on its way; standing and waiting are only limiting cases of this directional ‘on-its-way’. The sign addresses itself to a Being-in-the-world which is specifically ‘spatial’. The sign is not authentically ‘grasped’ (“erfasst”) if we just stare at it and identify it as an indicator-Thing which occurs. Even if we turn our glance in the direction which the arrow indicates, and look at something present-at-hand in the region indicated, even then the sign is not authentically encountered. Such a sign addresses itself to the circumspection of our concernful dealings, and it does so in such a way that the circumspection which goes along with it, following where it points, brings into an explicit ‘survey’ whatever aroundness the environment may have at the time. This circumspective survey does not grasp the ready-to-hand; what it achieves is rather an orientation within our environment. There is also another way in which we can experience equipment: we may encounter the arrow simply as equipment which belongs to the car. We can do this without discovering what character it specifically has as equipment: what the arrow is to indicate and how it is to do so, may remain completely undetermined; yet what we are encountering is not a mere Thing. The experiencing of a Thing requires a definiteness of its own (ihre eigene Bestimmtheit), and must be contrasted with coming across a manifold of equipment, which may often be quite indefinite, even when one comes across it as especially close. BTMR: §17
But in significance itself, with which DASEIN is always familiar, there lurks the ontological condition which makes it possible for DASEIN, as something which understands and interprets, to disclose such things as ‘significations’; upon these, in turn, is founded the Being of words and of language. BTMR: §18
If we attribute spatiality to DASEIN, then this ‘Being in space’ must manifestly be conceived in terms of the kind of Being which that entity possesses. DASEIN is essentially not a Being-present-at-hand; and its “spatiality” cannot signify anything like occurrence at a position in ‘world-space’, nor can it signify Being-ready-to-hand at some place. Both of these are kinds of Being which belong to entities encountered within-the-world. DASEIN, however, is ‘in’ the world in the sense that it deals with entities encountered within-the-world, and does so concernfully and with familiarity. So if spatiality belongs to it in any way, that is possible only because of this Being-in. But its spatiality shows the characters of de-severance and directionality. BTMR: §23
When we speak of deseverance as a kind of Being which DASEIN has with regard to its Being-in-the-world, we do not understand by it any such thing as remoteness (or closeness) or even a distance. We use the expression “deseverance” in a signification which is both active and transitive. It stands for a constitutive state of DASEIN’s Being – a state with regard to which removing something in the sense of putting it away is only a determinate factical mode. “De-severing” amounts to making the farness vanish – that is, making the remoteness of something disappear, bringing it close. DASEIN is essentially de-severant: it lets any entity be encountered close by as the entity which it is. De-severance discovers remoteness; and remoteness, like distance, is a determinate categorial characteristic of entities whose nature is not that of DASEIN. De-severance, however, is an existentiale; this must be kept in mind. Only to the extent that entities are revealed for DASEIN in their deseveredness (Entferntheit), do ‘remotenesses’ (“Entfernungen”) and distances with regard to other things become accessible in entities within-the-world themselves. Two points are just as little desevered from one another as two Things, for neither of these types of entity has the kind of Being which would make it capable of desevering. They merely have a measurable distance between them, which we can come across in our de-severing. BTMR: §23
When one is primarily and even exclusively oriented towards remotenesses as measured distances, the primordial spatiality of Being-in is concealed. That which is presumably ‘closest’ is by no means that which is at the smallest distance ‘from us’. It lies in that which is desevered to an average extent when we reach for it, grasp it, or look at it. Because DASEIN is essentially spatial in the way of de-severance, its dealings always keep within an ‘environment’ which is desevered from it with a certain leeway (Spielraum); accordingly our seeing and hearing always go proximally beyond what is distantially ‘closest’. Seeing and hearing are distance-senses (Fernsinne) not because they are far-reaching, but because it is in them that DASEIN as deseverant mainly dwells. When, for instance, a man wears a pair of spectacles which are so close to him distantially that they are ‘sitting on his nose’, they are environmentally more remote from him than the picture on the opposite wall. Such equipment has so little closeness that often it is proximally quite impossible to find. Equipment for seeing – and likewise for hearing, such as the telephone receiver – has what we have designated as the inconspicuousness of the proximally ready-to-hand. So too, for instance, does the street, as equipment for walking. One feels the touch of it at every step as one walks; it is seemingly the closest and Realest of all that is ready-to-hand, and it slides itself; as it were, along certain portions of one’s body – the soles of one’s feet. And yet it is farther remote than the acquaintance whom one encounters ‘on the street’ at a ‘remoteness’ (“Entfernung”) of twenty paces when one is taking such a walk. Circumspective concern decides as to the closeness and farness of what is proximally ready-to-hand environmentally. Whatever this concern dwells alongside beforehand is what is closest, and this is what regulates our de-severances. BTMR: §23
As Being-in-the-world, DASEIN maintains itself essentially in a de-severing. This de-severance – the farness of the ready-to-hand from DASEIN itself – is something that DASEIN can never cross over. Of course the remoteness of something ready-to-hand from DASEIN can show up as a distance from it, if this remoteness is determined by a relation to some Thing which gets thought of as present-at-hand at the place DASEIN has formerly occupied. DASEIN can subsequently traverse the “between” of this distance, but only in such a way that the distance itself becomes one which has been desevered. So little has DASEIN crossed over its de-severance that it has rather taken it along with it and keeps doing so constantly; for DASEIN is essentially de-severance – that is, it is spatial. It cannot wander about within the current range of its de-severances; it can never do more than change them. DASEIN is spatial in that it discovers space circumspectively, so that indeed it constantly comports itself de-severantly towards the entities thus spatially encountered. BTMR: §23
As de-severant Being-in, DASEIN has likewise the character of directionality. Every bringing-close (Näherung) has already taken in advance a direction towards a region out of which what is de-severed brings itself close (sich nähert), so that one can come across it with regard to its place. Circumspective concern is de-severing which gives directionality. In this concern – that is, in the Being-in-the-world of DASEIN itself – a supply of ‘signs’ is presented. Signs, as equipment, take over the giving of directions in a way which is explicit and easily manipulable. They keep explicitly open those regions which have been used circumspectively – the particular “whithers” to which something belongs or goes, or gets brought or fetched. If DASEIN is, it already has, as directing and desevering, its own discovered region. Both directionality and de-severance, as modes of Being-in-the-world, are guided beforehand by the circumspection of concern. BTMR: §23
As Being-in-the-world, DASEIN has already discovered a ‘world’ at any time. This discovery, which is founded upon the worldhood of the world, is one which we have characterized as freeing entities for a totality of involvements. Freeing something and letting it be involved, is accomplished by way of referring or assigning oneself circumspectively, and this in turn is based upon one’s previously understanding significance. We have now shown that circumspective Being-in-the-world is spatial. And only because DASEIN is spatial in the way of de-severance and directionality can what is ready-to-hand within-the-world be encountered in its spatiality. To free a totality of involvements is, equiprimordially, to let something be involved at a region, and to do so by de-severing and giving directionality; this amounts to freeing the spatial belonging-somewhere of the ready-to-hand. In that significance with which DASEIN (as concernful Being-in) is familiar, lies the essential co-disclosedness of space. BTMR: §24
Space is not in the subject, nor is the world in space. Space is rather ‘in’ the world in so far as space has been disclosed by that Being-in-the-world which is constitutive for DASEIN. Space is not to be found in the subject, nor does the subject observe the world ‘as if’ that world were in a space; but the ‘subject’ (DASEIN), if well understood ontologically, is spatial. And because DASEIN is spatial in the way we have described, space shows itself as a priori. This term does not mean anything like previously belonging to a subject which is proximally still worldless and which emits a space out of itself. Here “apriority” means the previousness with which space has been encountered (as a region) whenever the ready-to-hand is encountered environmentally. BTMR: §24
OUR analysis of the worldhood of the world has constantly been bringing the whole phenomenon of Being-in-the-world into view, although its constitutive items have not all stood out with the same phenomenal distinctness as the phenomenon of the world itself. We have Interpreted the world ontologically by going through what is ready-to-hand within-the-world; and this Interpretation has been put first, because DASEIN, in its everydayness (with regard to which DASEIN remains a constant theme for study), not only is in a world but comports itself towards that world with one predominant kind of Being. Proximally and for the most part DASEIN is fascinated with its world. DASEIN is thus absorbed in the world; the kind of Being which it thus possesses, and in general the Being-in which underlies it, are essential in determining the character of a phenomenon which we are now about to study. We shall approach this phenomenon by asking who it is that DASEIN is in its everydayness. All the structures of Being which belong to DASEIN, together with the phenomenon which provides the answer to this question of the “who”, are ways of its Being. To characterize these ontologically is to do so existentially. We must therefore pose the question correctly and outline the procedure for bringing into view a broader phenomenal domain of DASEIN’s everydayness. By directing our researches towards the phenomenon which is to provide us with an answer to the question of the “who”, we shall be led to certain structures of DASEIN which are equiprimordial with Being-in-the-world: Being-with and Dasein-with (Mitsein und Mitdasein). In this kind of Being is grounded the mode of everyday Being-one’s-Self (Selbstsein); the explication of this mode will enable us to see what we may call the ‘subject’ of everydayness – the “they”. Our chapter on the ‘who’ of the average DASEIN will thus be divided up as follows: 1. an approach to the existential question of the “who” of DASEIN (Section 25); 2. the Dasein-with of Others, and everyday Being-with (Section 26); 3. everyday Being-one’s-Self and the “they” (Section 27). BTMR: §24
The answer to the question of who DASEIN is, is one that was seemingly given in Section 9, where we indicated formally the basic characteristics of DASEIN. DASEIN is an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each case mine. This definition indicates an ontologically constitutive state, but it does no more than indicate it. At the same time this tells us ontically (though in a rough and ready fashion) that in each case an “I” – not Others – is this entity. The question of the “who” answers itself in terms of the “I” itself, the ‘subject’, the ‘Self’. The “who” is what maintains itself as something identical throughout changes in its Experiences and ways of behaviour, and which relates itself to this changing multiplicity in so doing. Ontologically we understand it as something which is in each case already constantly present-at-hand, both in and for a closed realm, and which lies at the basis, in a very special sense, as the subjectum. As something selfsame in manifold otherness, it has the character of the Self. Even if one rejects the “soul substance” and the Thinghood of consciousness, or denies that a person is an object, ontologically one is still positing something whose Being retains the meaning of present-at-hand, whether it does so explicitly or not. Substantiality is the ontological clue for determining which entity is to provide the answer to the question of the “who”. DASEIN is tacitly conceived in advance as something present-at-hand. This meaning of Being is always implicated in any case where the Being of DASEIN has been left indefinite. Yet presence-at-hand is the kind of Being which belongs to entities whose character is not that of DASEIN. BTMR: §25
The assertion that it is I who in each case DASEIN is, is ontically obvious; but this must not mislead us into supposing that the route for an ontological Interpretation of what is ‘given’ in this way has thus been unmistakably prescribed. Indeed it remains questionable whether even the mere ontical content of the above assertion does proper justice to the stock of phenomena belonging to everyday DASEIN. It could be that the “who” of everyday DASEIN just is not the “I myself”. BTMR: §25
In this context of an existential analytic of factical DASEIN, the question arises whether giving the “I” in the way we have mentioned discloses DASEIN in its everydayness, if it discloses DASEIN at all. Is it then obvious a priori that access to DASEIN must be gained only by mere reflective awareness of the “I” of actions? What if this kind of ‘giving-itself’ on the part of DASEIN should lead our existential analytic astray and do so, indeed, in a manner grounded in the Being of DASEIN itself? Perhaps when DASEIN addresses itself in the way which is closest to itself; it always says “I am this entity”, and in the long run says this loudest when it is ‘not’ this entity. DASEIN is in each case mine, and this is its constitution; but what if this should be the very reason why, proximally and for the most part, DASEIN is not itself? What if the aforementioned approach, starting with the givenness of the “I” to DASEIN itself; and with a rather patent self-interpretation of DASEIN, should lead the existential analytic, as it were, into a pitfall? If that which is accessible by mere “giving” can be determined, there is presumably an ontological horizon for determining it; but what if this horizon should remain in principle undetermined? It may well be that it is always ontically correct to say of this entity that ‘I’ am it. Yet the ontological analytic which makes use of such assertions must make certain reservations about them in principle. The word ‘I’ is to be understood only in the sense of a non-committal formal indicator, indicating something which may perhaps reveal itself as its ‘opposite’ in some particular phenomenal context of Being. In that case, the ‘not-I’ is by no means tantamount to an entity which essentially lacks ‘I-hood’ (“Ichheit”), but is rather a definite kind of Being which the ‘I’ itself possesses, such as having lost itself (Selbstverlorenheit). BTMR: §25
Just as the ontical obviousness of the Being-in-itself of entities within-the-world misleads us into the conviction that the meaning of this Being is obvious ontologically, and makes us overlook the phenomenon of the world, the ontical obviousness of the fact that DASEIN is in each case mine, also hides the possibility that the ontological problematic which belongs to it has been led astray. Proximally the “who” of DASEIN is not only a problem ontologically; even ontically it remains concealed. BTMR: §25
If in each case DASEIN is its Self only in existing, then the constancy of the Self no less than the possibility of its ‘failure to stand by itself’ requires that we formulate the question existentially and ontologically as the sole appropriate way of access to its problematic. BTMR: §25
The answer to the question of the “who” of everyday DASEIN is to be obtained by analysing that kind of Being in which DASEIN maintains itself proximally and for the most part. Our investigation takes its orientation from Being-in-the-world – that basic state of DASEIN by which every mode of its Being gets co-determined. If we are correct in saying that by the foregoing explication of the world, the remaining structural items of Being-in-the-world have become visible, then this must also have prepared us, in a way, for answering the question of the “who”. BTMR: §26
Thus in characterizing the encountering of Others, one is again still oriented by that DASEIN which is in each case one’s own. But even in this characterization does one not start by marking out and isolating the ‘I’ so that one must then seek some way of getting over to the Others from this isolated subject? To avoid this misunderstanding we must notice in what sense we are talking about ‘the Others’. By ‘Others’ we do not mean everyone else but me – those over against whom the “I” stands out. They are rather those from whom, for the most part, one does not distinguish oneself – those among whom one is too. This Being-there-too (Auch-da-sein) with them does not have the ontological character of a Being-present-at-hand-along-‘with’ them within a world. This ‘with’ is something of the character of DASEIN; the ‘too’ means a sameness of Being as circumspectively concernful Being-in-the-world. ‘With’ and ‘too’ are to be understood existentially, not categorially. By reason of this with-like (mithaften) Being-in-the-world, the world is always the one that I share with Others. The world of DASEIN is a with-world (Mitwelt). Being-in is Being-with Others. Their Being-in-themselves within-the-world is Dasein-with (Mit-dasein). BTMR: §26
The expression ‘DASEIN’, however, shows plainly that ‘in the first instance’ this entity is unrelated to Others, and that of course it can still be ‘with’ Others afterwards. Yet one must not fail to notice that we use the term “Dasein-with” to designate that Being for which the Others who are (die seienden Anderen) are freed within-the-world. This Dasein-with of the Others is disclosed within-the-world for a DASEIN, and so too for those who are Daseins with us (die Mitdaseienden), only because DASEIN in itself is essentially Being-with. The phenomenological assertion that “DASEIN is essentially Being-with” has an existential-ontological meaning. It does not seek to establish ontically that factically I am not present-at-hand alone, and that Others of my kind occur. If this were what is meant by the proposition that DASEIN’s Being-in-the-world is essentially constituted by Being-with, then Being-with would not be an existential attribute which DASEIN, of its own accord, has coming to it from its own kind of Being. It would rather be something which turns up in every case by reason of the occurrence of Others. Being-with is an existential characteristic of DASEIN even when factically no Other is present-at-hand or perceived. Even DASEIN’s Being-alone is Being-with in the world. The Other can be missing only in and for a Being-with. Being-alone is a deficient mode of Being-with; its very possibility is the proof of this. On the other hand, factical Being-alone is not obviated by the occurrence of a second example of a human being ‘beside’ me, or by ten such examples. Even if these and more are present-at-hand, DASEIN can still be alone. So Being-with and the facticity of Being with one another are not based on the occurrence together of several ‘subjects’. Yet Being-alone ‘among’ many does not mean that with regard to their Being they are merely present-at-hand there alongside us. Even in our Being ‘among them’ they are there with us; their Dasein-with is encountered in a mode in which they are indifferent and alien. Being missing and ‘Being away’ (Das Fehlen und “Fortsein”) are modes of Dasein-with, and are possible only because DASEIN as Being-with lets the DASEIN of Others be encountered in its world. Being-with is in every case a characteristic of one’s own DASEIN; Dasein-with characterizes the DASEIN of Others to the extent that it is freed by its world for a Being-with. Only so far as one’s own DASEIN has the essential structure of Being-with, is it Dasein-with as encounterable for Others. BTMR: §26
But the fact that ‘empathy’ is not a primordial existential phenomenon, any more than is knowing in general, does not mean that there is nothing problematical about it. The special hermeneutic of empathy will have to show how Being-with-one-another and DASEIN’s knowing of itself are led astray and obstructed by the various possibilities of Being which DASEIN itself possesses, so that a genuine ‘understanding’ gets suppressed, and DASEIN takes refuge in substitutes; the possibility of understanding the stranger correctly presupposes such a hermeneutic as its positive existential condition. Our analysis has shown that Being-with is an existential constituent of Being-in-the-world. Dasein-with has proved to be a kind of Being which entities encountered within-the-world have as their own. So far as DASEIN is at all, it has Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being. This cannot be conceived as a summative result of the occurrence of several ‘subjects’. Even to come across a number of ‘subjects’ (einer Anzahl von “Subjekten”) becomes possible only if the Others who are concerned proximally in their Dasein-with are treated merely as ‘numerals’ (“Nummer”). Such a number of ‘subjects’ gets discovered only by a definite Being-with-and-towards-one-another. This ‘inconsiderate’ Being-with ‘reckons’ (“rechnet”) with the Others without seriously ‘counting on them’ (“auf sie zählt”), or without even wanting to ‘have anything to do’ with them. BTMR: §26
One’s own DASEIN, like the Dasein-with of Others, is encountered proximally and for the most part in terms of the with-world with which we are environmentally concerned. When DASEIN is absorbed in the world of its concern – that is, at the same time, in its Being-with towards Others – it is not itself. Who is it, then, who has taken over Being as everyday Being-with-one-another? BTMR: §26
In these characters of Being which we have exhibited – everyday Being-among-one-another, distantiality, averageness, levelling down, publicness, the disburdening of one’s Being, and accommodation – lies that ‘constancy’ of DASEIN which is closest to us. This “constancy” pertains not to the enduring Being-present-at-hand of something, but rather to DASEIN’s kind of Being as Being-with. Neither the Self of one’s own DASEIN nor the Self of the Other has as yet found itself or lost itself as long as it is (seiend) in the modes we have mentioned. In these modes one’s way of Being is that of inauthenticity and failure to stand by one’s Self. To be in this way signifies no lessening of DASEIN’s facticity, just as the “they”, as the “nobody”, is by no means nothing at all. On the contrary, in this kind of Being, DASEIN is an ens realissimum, if by ‘Reality’ we understand a Being that has the character of DASEIN. BTMR: §27
The Self of everyday DASEIN is the they-self, which we distinguish from the authentic Self – that is, from the Self which has been taken hold of in its own way (eigens ergriffenen). As they-self, the particular DASEIN has been dispersed into the “they”, and must first find itself. This dispersal characterizes the ‘subject’ of that kind of Being which we know as concernful absorption in the world we encounter as closest to us. If DASEIN is familiar with itself as they-self, this means at the same time that the “they” itself prescribes that way of interpreting the world and Being-in-the-world which lies closest. DASEIN is for the sake of the “they” in an everyday manner, and the “they” itself Articulates the referential context of significance. When entities are encountered, DASEIN’s world frees them for a totality of involvements with which the “they” is familiar, and within the limits which have been established with the “they’s” averageness. Proximally, factical DASEIN is in the with-world, which is discovered in an average way. Proximally, it is not ‘I’, in the sense of my own Self; that ‘am’, but rather the Others, whose way is that of the “they”. In terms of the “they”, and as the “they”, I am ‘given’ proximally to ‘myself’ (mir “selbst”). Proximally DASEIN is “they”, and for the most part it remains so. If DASEIN discovers the world in its own way (eigens) and brings it close, if it discloses to itself its own authentic Being, then this discovery of the ‘world’ and this disclosure of DASEIN are always accomplished as a clearing-away of concealments and obscurities, as a breaking up of the disguises with which DASEIN bars its own way. BTMR: §27
In which direction must we look, if we are to characterize Being-in, as such, phenomenally? We get the answer to this question by recalling what we were charged with keeping phenomenologically in view when we called attention to this phenomenon: Being-in is distinct from the present-at-hand insideness of something present-at-hand ‘in’ something else that is present-at-hand; Being-in is not a characteristic that is effected, or even just elicited, in a present-at-hand subject by the ‘world’s’ Being-present-at-hand; Being-in is rather an essential kind of Being of this entity itself. But in that case, what else is presented with this phenomenon than the commercium which is present-at-hand between a subject present-at-hand and an Object present-at-hand? Such an interpretation would come closer to the phenomenal content if we were to say that DASEIN is the Being of this ‘between’. Yet to take our orientation from this ‘between’ would still be misleading. For with such an orientation we would also be covertly assuming the entities between which this “between”, as such, ‘is’, and we would be doing so in a way which is ontologically vague. The “between” is already conceived as the result of the convenientia of two things that are present-at-hand. But to assume these beforehand always splits the phenomenon asunder, and there is no prospect of putting it together again from the fragments. Not only do we lack the ‘cement’; even the ‘schema’ in accordance with which this joining-together is to be accomplished, has been split asunder, or never as yet unveiled. What is decisive for ontology is to prevent the splitting of the phenomenon – in other words, to hold its positive phenomenal content secure. To say that for this we need far-reaching and detailed study, is simply to express the fact that something which was ontically self-evident in the traditional way of treating the ‘problem of knowledge’ has often been ontologically disguised to the point where it has been lost sight of altogether. BTMR: §28
When we talk in an ontically figurative way of the lumen naturale in man, we have in mind nothing other than the existential-ontological structure of this entity, that it is in such a way as to be its “there”. To say that it is ‘illuminated’ (“erleuchtet”) means that as Being-in-the-world it is cleared (gelichtet) in itself, not through any other entity, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing. Only for an entity which is existentially cleared in this way does that which is present-at-hand become accessible in the light or hidden in the dark. By its very nature, DASEIN brings its “there” along with it. If it lacks its “there”, it is not factically the entity which is essentially DASEIN; indeed, it is not this entity at all. DASEIN is its disclosedness. BTMR: §28
We are to set forth the Constitution of this Being. But in so far as the essence of this entity is existence, the existential proposition, ‘DASEIN is its disclosedness’, means at the same time that the Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being is to be its ‘there’. In addition to characterizing the primary Constitution of the Being of disclosedness, we will require, in conformity with the course of the analysis, an Interpretation of the kind of Being in which this entity is its “there” in an everyday manner. BTMR: §28
Both the undisturbed equanimity and the inhibited ill-humour of our everyday concern, the way we slip over from one to the other, or slip off into bad moods, are by no means nothing ontologically, even if these phenomena are left unheeded as supposedly the most indifferent and fleeting in DASEIN. The fact that moods can deteriorate (verdorben werden) and change over means simply that in every case DASEIN always has some mood (gestimmt ist). The pallid, evenly balanced lack of mood (Ungestimmtheit), which is often persistent and which is not to be mistaken for a bad mood, is far from nothing at all. Rather, it is in this that DASEIN becomes satiated with itself. Being has become manifest as a burden. Why that should be, one does not know. And DASEIN cannot know anything of the sort because the possibilities of disclosure which belong to cognition reach far too short a way compared with the primordial disclosure belonging to moods, in which DASEIN is brought before its Being as “there”. Furthermore, a mood of elation can alleviate the manifest burden of Being; that such a mood is possible also discloses the burdensome character of DASEIN, even while it alleviates the burden. A mood makes manifest ‘how one is, and how one is faring’ (“wie einem ist und wird”). In this ‘how one is’, having a mood brings Being to its “there”. BTMR: §29
In having a mood, DASEIN is always disclosed moodwise as that entity to which it has been delivered over in its Being; and in this way it has been delivered over to the Being which, in existing, it has to be. “To be disclosed” does not mean “to be known as this sort of thing”. And even in the most indifferent and inoffensive everydayness the Being of DASEIN can burst forth as a naked ‘that it is and has to be’ (als nacktes “Dass es es ist und zu sein hat”).The pure ‘that it is’ shows itself, but the “whence” and the “whither” remain in darkness. The fact that it is just as everyday a matter for DASEIN not to ‘give in’ (“nachgibt”) to such moods – in other words, not to follow up (nachgeht) their disclosure and allow itself to be brought before that which is disclosed – is no evidence against the phenomenal facts of the case, in which the Being of the “there” is disclosed moodwise in its “that-it-is”; it is rather evidence for it. In an ontico-existentiell sense, DASEIN for the most part evades the Being which is disclosed in the mood. In an ontologico-existential sense, this means that even in that to which such a mood pays no attention, DASEIN is unveiled in its Being-delivered-over to the “there”. In the evasion itself the “there” is something disclosed. 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
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. 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
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. BTMR: §29
That which fear fears about is that very entity which is afraid – DASEIN. Only an entity for which in its Being this very Being is an issue, can be afraid. Fearing discloses this entity as endangered and abandoned to itself. Fear always reveals DASEIN in the Being of its “there”, even if it does so in varying degrees of explicitness. If we fear about our house and home, this cannot be cited as an instance contrary to the above definition of what we fear about; for as Being-in-the-world, DASEIN is in every case concernful Being-alongside. Proximally and for the most part, DASEIN is in terms of what it is concerned with. When this is endangered, Being-alongside is threatened. Fear discloses DASEIN predominantly in a privative way. It bewilders us and makes us ‘lose our heads’. Fear closes off our endangered Being-in, and yet at the same time lets us see it, so that when the fear has subsided, DASEIN must first find its way about again. BTMR: §30
We have, after all, already come up against this primordial understanding in our previous investigations, though we did not allow it to be included explicitly in the theme under discussion. To say that in existing, DASEIN is its “there”, is equivalent to saying that the world is ‘there’; its Being-there is Being-in. And the latter is likewise ‘there’, as that for the sake of which DASEIN is. In the “for-the-sake-of-which”, existing Being-in-the-world is disclosed as such, and this disclosedness we have called “understanding”. In the understanding of the “for-the-sake-of-which”, the significance which is grounded therein, is disclosed along with it. The disclosedness of understanding, as the disclosedness of the “for-the-sake-of-which” and of significance equiprimordially, pertains to the entirety of Being-in-the-world. Significance is that on the basis of which the world is disclosed as such. To say that the “for-the-sake-of-which” and significance are both disclosed in DASEIN, means that DASEIN is that entity which, as Being-in-the-world, is an issue for itself. BTMR: §31
When we are talking ontically we sometimes use the expression ‘understanding something’ with the signification of ‘being able to manage something’, ‘being a match for it’, ‘being competent to do something’. In understanding, as an existentiale, that which we have such competence over is not a “what”, but Being as existing. The kind of Being which DASEIN has, as potentiality-for-Being, lies existentially in understanding. DASEIN is not something present-at-hand which possesses its competence for something by way of an extra; it is primarily Being-possible. DASEIN is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility. The Being-possible which is essential for DASEIN, pertains to the ways of its solicitude for Others and of its concern with the ‘world’, as we have characterized them; and in all these, and always, it pertains to DASEIN’s potentiality-for-Being towards itself, for the sake of itself. The Being-possible which DASEIN is existentially in every case, is to be sharply distinguished both from empty logical possibility and from the contingency of something present-at-hand, so far as with the present-at-hand this or that can ‘come to pass’. As a modal category of presence-at-hand, possibility signifies what is not yet actual and what is not at any time necessary. It characterizes the merely possible. Ontologically it is on a lower level than actuality and necessity. On the other hand, possibility as an existentiale is the most primordial and ultimate positive way in which DASEIN is characterized ontologically. As with existentiality in general, we can, in the first instance, only prepare for the problem of possibility. The phenomenal basis for seeing it at all is provided by the understanding as a disclosive potentiality-for-Being. BTMR: §31
Possibility, as an existentiale, does not signify a free-floating potentiality-for-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