deduzieren, deduktiv, schliessen

We have indeed already shown, in analysing the structure of understanding in general, that what gets censured inappropriately as a ‘circle’, belongs to the essence and to the distinctive character of understanding as such. In spite of this, if the problematic of fundamental ontology is to have its hermencutical Situation clarified, our investigation must now come back explicitly to this ‘circular argument’. When it is objected that the existential Interpretation is ‘circular’, it is said that we have ‘presupposed’ the idea of existence and of Being in general, and that Dasein gets Interpreted ‘accordingly’, so that the idea of Being may be obtained from it. But what does ‘presupposition’ signify? In positing the idea of existence, do we also posit some proposition from which we DEDUCE further propositions about the Being of Dasein, in accordance with formal rules of consistency? Or does this pre-supposing have the character of an understanding projection, in such a manner indeed that the Interpretation by which such an understanding gets developed, will let that which is to be interpreted put itself into words for the very first time, so that it may decide of its own accord whether, as the entity which it is, it has that state of Being for which it has been disclosed in the projection with regard to its formal aspects? Is (SZ:315) there any other way at all by which an entity can put itself into words with regard to its Being? We cannot ever ‘avoid’ a ‘circular’ proof in the existential analytic, because such an analytic does not do any proving at all by the rules of the ‘logic of consistency’. What common sense wishes to eliminate in avoiding the ‘circle’, on the supposition that it is measuring up to the loftiest rigour of scientific investigation, is nothing less than the basic structure of care. Because it is primordially constituted by care, any Dasein is already ahead of itself. As being, it has in every case already projected itself upon definite possibilities of its existence; and in such existentiell projections it has, in a pre-ontological manner, also projected something like existence and Being. Like all research, the research which wants to develop and conceptualize that kind of Being which belongs to existence, is itself a kind of Being which disclosive Dasein possesses; can such research be denied this projecting which is essential to Dasein? BTMR §63

2. It has been maintained secondly that the concept of ‘Being’ is indefinable. This is DEDUCED from its supreme universality, and rightly so, if definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam. ‘Being’ cannot indeed be conceived as an entity; enti non additur aliqua natura: nor can it acquire such a character as to have the term “entity” applied to it. “Being” cannot be derived from higher concepts by definition, nor can it be presented through lower ones. But does this imply that ‘Being’ no longer offers a problem? Not at all. We can infer only that ‘Being’ cannot have the character of an entity. Thus we cannot apply to Being the concept of ‘definition’ as presented in traditional logic, which itself has its foundations in ancient ontology and which, within certain limits, provides a justifiable way of characterizing “entities”. The indefinability of Being does not eliminate the question of its meaning; it demands that we look that question in the face. (SZ:4) BTMR §1

To put it negatively, it is beyond question that the totality of the structural whole is not to be reached by building it up out of elements, For this we would need an architect’s plan. The Being of Dasein, upon which the structural whole as such is ontologically supported, becomes accessible to us when we look all the way through this whole to a single primordially unitary phenomenon which is already in this whole in such a way that it provides the ontological foundation for each structural item in its structural possibility. Thus we cannot Interpret this ‘comprehensively’ by a process of gathering up what we have hitherto gained and taking it all together. The question of Dasein’s basic existential character is essentially different from that of the Being of something present-at-hand. Our everyday environmental experiencing (Erfahren), which remains directed both ontically and ontologically towards entities within-the-world, is not the sort of thing which can present Dasein in an ontically primordial manner for ontological analysis. Similarly our immanent perception of Experiences (Erlebnissen) fails to provide a clue which is ontologically adequate. On the other hand, Dasein’s Being is not be to DEDUCED from an idea of man. Does the Interpretation of Dasein which we have hitherto given permit us to infer what Dasein, from its own standpoint, demands as the only appropriate ontico-ontological way of access to itself? (SZ:182) BTMR §39

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

Now that resoluteness has been worked out as Being-guilty, a selfprojection in which one is reticent and ready for anxiety, our investigation has been put in a position for defining the ontological meaning of that potentiality which we have been seeking – Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. By now the authenticity of Dasein is neither an empty term nor an idea which someone has fabricated. But even so, as an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, the authentic Being-towards-death which we have DEDUCED existentially still remains a purely existential project for which Dasein’s attestation is missing. Only when such attestation has been found will our investigation suffice to exhibit (as its problematic requires) an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, existentially confirmed and clarified – a potentiality which belongs to Dasein. For only when this entity has become phenomenally accessible in its authenticity and its totality, will the question of the meaning of the Being of this entity, to whose existence there belongs in general an understanding of Being, be based upon something which will stand any test. BTMR §60

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

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

(SZ:367) If in the course of our existential Interpretation we were to talk about Dasein’s having a ‘spatio-temporal’ character, we could not mean that this entity is present-at-hand ‘in space and also in time’; this needs no further discussion. Temporality is the meaning of the Being of care. Dasein’s constitution and its ways to be are possible ontologically only on the basis of temporality, regardless of whether this entity occurs ‘in time’ or not. Hence Dasein’s specific spatiality must be grounded in temporality. On the other hand, the demonstration that this spatiality is existentially possible only through temporality, cannot aim either at DEDUCING space from time or at dissolving it into pure time. If Dasein’s spatiality is ‘embraced’ by temporality in the sense of being existentially founded upon it, then this connection between them (which is to be clarified in what follows) is also different from the priority of time over space in Kant’s sense. To say that our empirical representations of what is present-at-hand ‘in space’ run their course ‘in time’ as psychical occurrences, so that the ‘physical’ occurs mediately ‘in time’ also, is not to give an existential-ontological Interpretation of space as a form of intuition, but rather to establish ontically that what is psychically present-at-hand runs its course ‘in time’. BTMR §70

There are various ways in which phenomena can be covered up. In the first place, a phenomenon can be covered up in the sense that it is still quite undiscovered. It is neither known nor unknown. Moreover, a phenomenon can be buried over (verschüttet). This means that it has at some time been discovered but has deteriorated (verfiel) to the point of getting covered up again. This covering-up can become complete; or rather – and as a rule – what has been discovered earlier may still be visible, though only as a semblance. Yet so much semblance, so much ‘Being’. This covering-up as a ‘disguising’ is both the most frequent and the most dangerous, for here the possibilities of deceiving and misleading arc especially stubborn. Within a ‘system’, perhaps, those structures of Being – and their concepts – which are still available but veiled in their indigenous character, may claim their rights. For when they have been bound together constructively in a system, they present themselves as something ‘clear’, requiring no further justification, and thus can serve as the point of departure for a process of DEDUCTION. BTMR §7

But even if the analysis of Dasein’s end and totality takes on so broad an orientation, this cannot mean that the existential concepts of end and totality are to be obtained by way of a DEDUCTION. On the contrary, the existential meaning of Dasein’s coming-to-an-end must be taken from Dasein itself, and we must show how such ‘ending’ can constitute Being-a-whole for the entity which exists. BTMR §48

But factically there is no circle at all in formulating our question as we have described. One can determine the nature of entities in their Being without necessarily having the explicit concept of the meaning of Being at one’s disposal. Otherwise there could have been no ontological knowledge heretofore. One would hardly deny that factically there has been such knowledge. Of course ‘Being’ has been presupposed in all ontology up till now, but not as a concept at one’s disposal – not as the sort of thing we are seeking. This ‘presupposing’ of Being has rather the character of taking a look at it beforehand, so that in the light of it the entities presented to us get provisionally Articulated in their Being. This guiding (SZ:8) activity of taking a look at Being arises from the average understanding of Being in which we always operate and which in the end belongs to the essential constitution of Dasein itself. Such ‘presupposing’ has nothing to do with laying down an axiom from which a sequence of propositions is DEDUCTIVELY derived. It is quite impossible for there to be any ‘circular argument’ in formulating the question about the meaning of Being; for in answering this question, the issue is not one of grounding something by such a derivation; it is rather one of laying bare the grounds for it and exhibiting them. BTMR §2

But such an inquiry itself – ontology taken in the widest sense without favouring any particular ontological directions or tendencies – requires a further clue. Ontological inqury is indeed more primordial, as over against the ontical inquiry of the positive sciences. But it remains itself naïve and opaque if in its researches into the Being of entities it fails to discuss the meaning of BeinBeing in general. And the ontological task of a genealogy of the different possible ways of Being (which is not to be constructed DEDUCTIVELY) is precisely of such a sort as to require that we first come to an understanding of ‘what we really mean by this expression “Being”. BTMR §3