vergegenwärtigen, Vergegenwärtigung
When we ENVISAGE concretely what we have set forth in our Interpretation’ of ‘phenomenon’ and ‘logos’, we are struck by an inner relationship between the things meant by these terms. The expression “phenomenology” may be formulated in Greek as legein ta phainomena, where legein means apophainesthai. Thus “phenomenology” means apophainesthai ta phainomena – to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself. This is the formal meaning of that branch of research which calls itself “phenomenology”. But here we are expressing nothing else than the maxim formulated above: ‘To the things themselves!’ BTMR §7
On the other hand, the analysis cannot keep clinging to an idea of death which has been devised accidentally and at random. We can restrain this arbitrariness only by giving beforehand an ontological characterization of the kind of Being in which the ‘end’ enters into Dasein’s average everydayness. To do so, we must fully ENVISAGE those structures of everydayness which we have earlier set forth. The fact that in an existential analysis of death, existentiell possibilities of Being-towards-death are consonant with it, is implied by the essence of all ontological investigation. All the more explicitly must the existential definition of concepts be unaccompanied by any existcntiell commitments, especially with relation to death, in which Dasein’s character as possibility lets itself be revealed most precisely. The existential problematic aims only at setting forth the ontological structure of Dasein’s Being-towards-the-end. BTMR §49
‘Being alongside’ the world in the sense of being absorbed in the world (a sense which calls for still closer interpretation) is an existentiale founded upon Being-in. In these analyses the issue is one of seeing a primordial structure of Dasein’s Being – a structure in accordance with whose phenomenal content the concepts of Being must be Articulated; because of this, and because this structure is in principle one which cannot be grasped by the traditional ontological categories, this ‘Being-alongside’ must be examined still more closely. We shall again choose the method of contrasting it with a relationship of Being which is essentially different ontologically – viz. categorial – but which we express by the same linguistic means. Fundamental ontological distinctions are easily obliterated; and if they are to be ENVISAGED phenomenally in this way, this must be done explicitly, even at the risk of discussing the ‘obvious’. The status of the ontological analytic shows, however, that we have been far from interpreting these obvious matters with an adequate ‘grasp’, still less with regard for the meaning of their Being; and we are even farther from possessing a stable coinage for the appropriate structural concepts. [SZ:55] BTMR §12
The idea of historiology as a science implies that the disclosure of historical entities is what it has seized upon as its own task. Every science is constituted primarily by thematizing. That which is familiar prescientifically in Dasein as disclosed Being-in-the-world, gets projected upon the Being which is specific to it. With this projection, the realm of entities is bounded off. The ways of access to them get ‘managed’ methodologically, and the conceptual structure for interpreting them is outlined. If we may postpone the question of whether a ‘history of the Present’ is possible, and assign [zuweisen] to historiology the task of disclosing the ‘past’, then the historiological thematizing of history is possible only if, in general, the ‘past’ has in each case already been disclosed. Quite apart from the question of whether sufficient sources are available for the historiological ENVISAGEMENT of the past, the way to it must in general be open if we are to go back to it historiologically. It is by no means patent that anything of the sort is the case, or how this is possible. BTMR §76
Circumspection operates in the involvement-relationships of the context of equipment which is ready-to-hand. Moreover, it is subordinate to the guidance of a more or less explicit survey of the equipmental totality of the current equipment-world and of the public environment which belongs to it. This survey is not just one in which things that are present-at-hand are subsequently scraped together. What is essential to it is that one should have a primary understanding of the totality of involvements within which factical concern always takes its start. Such a survey illumines one’s concern, and receives its ‘light’ from that potentiality-for-Being on the part of Dasein for the sake of which concern exists as care. In one’s current using and manipulating, the concernful circumspection which does this ‘surveying’, brings the ready-to-hand closer to Dasein, and does so by interpreting what has been sighted. This specific way of bringing the object of concern close by interpreting it circumspectively, we call “deliberating” [Überlegung]. The scheme peculiar to this is the ‘if – then’; if this or that, for instance, is to be produced, put to use, or averted, then some ways and means, circumstances, or opportunities will be needed. Circumspective deliberation illumines Dasein’s current factical situation in the environment with which it concerns itself. Accordingly, such deliberation never merely ‘affirms’ that some entity is present-at-hand or has such and such properties. Moreover, deliberation can be performed even when that which is brought close in it circumspectively is not palpably ready-to-hand and does not have presence within the closest range. Bringing the environment closer in circumispective deliberation has the existential meaning of a making present; for ENVISAGING is only a mode of this. In ENVISAGING, one’s deliberation catches sight directly of that which is needed but which is un-ready-to-hand. Circumspection which ENVISAGES does not relate itself to ‘mere representations’. [SZ:359] BTMR §69
Any genuine method is based on viewing in advance in an appropriate way the basic constitution of the ‘object’ to be disclosed, or of the domain within which the object lies. Thus any genuinely methodical consideration – which is to be distinguished from empty discussions of technique – must likewise give information about the kind of Being of the entity which has been taken as our theme. The clarification of the methodological possibilities, requirements, and limitations of the existential analytic in general, can alone secure the transparency which is necessary if we are to take the basic step of unveiling the meaning of the Being of care. But the Interpretation of the ontological meaning of, care must be performed on the basis of ENVISAGING phenomenologically in a full and constant manner Dasein’s existential constitution as we have exhibited it up till now. BTMR §61
Circumspective making-present, however, is a phenomenon with more than one kind of foundation. In the first instance, it always belongs to a full ecstatical unity of temporality. It is grounded in a retention of that context of equipment with which Dasein concerns itself in awaiting a possibility. That which has already been laid open in awaiting and retaining is brought closer by one’s deliberative making-present or ENVISAGING. But if deliberation is to be able to operate in the scheme of the ‘if – then’, concern must already have ‘surveyed’ a context of involvements and have an understanding of it. That which is considered with an ‘if’ must already be understood as something or other. This does not require that the understanding of equipment be expressed in a predication. The schema ‘something as something’ has already been sketched out beforehand in the structure of one’s pre-predicative understanding. The as-structure is grounded ontologically in the temporality of understanding. But on the other hand, only to the extent that Dasein, in awaiting some possibility (here this means a “towards-which”), has come back to a “towards-this” (that is to say that it retains something ready-to-hand) – only to this extent can the making-present which belongs to this awaiting and retaining, start with what is thus retained, and bring it, in its character of having been assigned or referred to its “towards-which”, explicitly closer. The deliberation which brings it close must, in the schema of making present, be in conformity with the kind of Being that belongs to what is’ to be brought close. The involvement-character of the ready-to-hand does not first get discovered by deliberation, but only gets brought close by it in such a manner as to let that in which something has an involvement, be seen circumspectively as this very thing. [SZ:360] BTMR §69