- Hofstadter
- Original
Hofstadter
From this determination of being-in-the-world, which we cannot yet realize for ourselves in a truly phenomenological manner, we shall briefly indicate two further moments of the existential structure of the Dasein which are important for understanding what follows. The Dasein exists in the manner of being-in-the-world and as such it is for the sake of its own self. It is not the case that this being just simply is; instead, so far as it is, it is occupied with its own capacity to be. That it is for its own sake belongs to the concept of this existent being, just like the concept of being-in-the-world. The Dasein exists; that is to say, it is for the sake of its own capacity-to-be-in-the-world. Here there comes to view the structural moment that motivated Kant to define the person ontologically as an end, without inquiring into the specific structure of purposiveness and the question of its ontological possibility.
And furthermore, this being that we ourselves are and that exists for the sake of its own self is, as this being, in each case mine. The Dasein is not only, like every being in general, identical with itself in a formal-ontological sense—every thing is identical with itself—and it is also not merely, in distinction from a natural thing, conscious of this selfsameness. Instead, the Dasein has a peculiar selfsameness with itself in the sense of selfhood. It is in such a way that it is in a certain way its own, it has itself, and only on that account can it lose itself. Because selfhood belongs to existence, as in some manner “being-one’s-own,” the existent Dasein can choose itself on purpose and determine its existence primarily and chiefly starting from that choice; that is, it can exist authentically. However, it can also let itself be determined in its being by others and thus exist inauthentically by existing primarily in forgetfulness of its own self. With equal originality, the Dasein is at the same time determined in its possibilities by the beings to which it relates as to intraworldly beings. The Dasein understands itself first by way of these beings: it is at first unveiled to itself in its inauthentic selfhood. We have already said that inauthentic existence does not mean an apparent existence or an ungenuine existence. What is more, inauthenticity belongs to the essential nature of factical Dasein. Authenticity is only a modification but not a total obliteration of inauthenticity. We further emphasized that the Dasein’s everyday self-understanding maintains itself in inauthenticity and in fact in such a way that the Dasein thereby knows about itself without explicit reflection in the sense of an inner perception bent back on itself but in the manner of finding itself in things. We have tried to explain, by the interpretation of existence just given, how something like this should be possible on the basis of the ontological constitution of the Dasein. [BPP:170]