lay bare

freilegen

In the question about the meaning of Being, what is primarily interrogated is those entities which have the character of Dasein  . The preparatory existential analytic of Dasein must, in accordance with its peculiar character, be expounded in outline, and distinguished from other kinds of investigation which seem to run parallel (Chapter 1). Adhering to the procedure which we have fixed upon for starting our investigation, we must LAY BARE a fundamental structure in Dasein: Being-in-the-world (Chapter 2). In the interpretation   of Dasein, this structure is something ‘a priori  ’; it is not   pieced together, but is primordially and constantly a whole. It affords us, however, various ways of looking at the items which are constitutive for it. The whole of this structure always comes first; but if we keep this constantly in view, these items, as phenomena, will be made to stand   out. And thus we shall have as objects for analysis: the world in its worldhood (Chapter 3), Being-in-the-world as Being-with and Being-one’s-Self (Chapter 4), and Being-in as such (Chapter 5). By analysis of this fundamental structure, the Being of Dasein can be indicated provisionally. Its existential meaning is care (Chapter 6). BTMR  : §8

The kind of Being which belongs to these entities is readiness-to-hand  . But this characteristic is not to be understood as merely a way of taking them, as if we were talking such ‘aspects’ into the ‘entities’ which we proximally encounter, or as if some world-stuff which is proximally present-at-hand in itself were ‘given subjective colouring’ in this way. Such an Interpretation would overlook the fact that in this case these entities would have to be understood and discovered beforehand as something purely present-at-hand, and must have priority and take the lead in the sequence of those dealings with the ‘world’ in which something is discovered and made one’s own. But this already runs counter to the ontological meaning of cognition, which we have exhibited as a founded mode of Being-in-the-world. To LAY BARE what is just present-at-hand and no more, cognition must first penetrate beyond what is ready-to-hand in our concern. Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are ‘in themselves’ are defined ontologico-categorially. Yet only by reason of something present-at-hand, ‘is there’ anything ready-to-hand. Does it follow, however, granting this thesis   for the nonce, that readiness-to-hand is ontologically founded upon presence-at-hand? BTMR: §15

But as yet our analyses have done no more than LAY BARE the horizon   within which such things as the world and worldhood are to be sought. If we are to consider these further, we must, in the first instance, make it still more clear how the context of Dasein’s assigning-itself is to be taken ontologically. BTMR: §18

In controversy over principles, one must not only attach oneself to theses which can be grasped doxographically; one must also derive one’s orientation from the objective tendency of the problematic, even if it does not go beyond a rather ordinary way of taking things. In his doctrine of the res cogitans   and the res extensa, Descartes   not only wants to formulate the problem of ‘the "I" and the world’; he claims to have solved it in a radical manner. His Meditations make this plain. (See especially Meditations I and VI.) By taking his basic ontological orientation from traditional sources and not subjecting it to positive   criticism, he has made it impossible to LAY BARE any primordial ontological problematic of Dasein; this has inevitably obstructed his view of the phenomenon of the world, and has made it possible for the ontology of the ‘world’ to be compressed into that of certain entities within-the-world. The foregoing discussion should have proved this. BTMR: §21

Our analysis takes its departure from the traditional conception of truth, and attempts to LAY BARE the ontological foundations of that conception (a). In terms of these foundations the primordial phenomenon of truth becomes visible. We can then exhibit the way in which the traditional conception of truth has been derived from this phenomenon (b). Our investigation will make it plain that to the question of the ‘essence’ of truth, there belongs necessarily the question of the kind of Being which truth possesses. Together with this we must clarify the ontological meaning of the kind of talk in which we say that ‘there is truth’, and we must also clarify the kind of necessity with which ‘we must presuppose’ that ‘there is’ truth ©. BTMR: §44

What we are seeking is the answer to the question about the meaning of Being in general, and, prior to that, the possibility of working out in a radical manner this basic question of all ontology. But to LAY BARE the horizon within which something like Being in general becomes intelligible, is tantamount to clarifying the possibility of having any understanding of Being at all – an understanding which itself belongs to the constitution of the entity called Dasein. The understanding of Being, however, cannot be radically clarified as an essential element in Dasein’s Being, unless the entity to whose Being it belongs, has been Interpreted primordially in itself with regard to its Being. BTMR: §45

But the primordial ontological basis for’ Dasein’s existentiality is temporality. In terms of temporality, the articulated structural totality of Dasein’s Being as care first becomes existentially intelligible. The Interpretation of the meaning of Dasein’s Being cannot stop with this demonstration. The existential-temporal   analysis of this entity needs to be confirmed concretely. We must go back and LAY BARE in their temporal meaning the ontological structures of Dasein which we have previously obtained. Everydayness reveals itself as a mode of temporality. But by thus recapitulating our preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein, we will at the same time make the phenomenon of temporality itself more transparent. In terms of temporality, it then becomes intelligible why Dasein is, and can be, historical in the basis of its Being, and why, as historical, it can develop historiology. BTMR: §45

At the same time our analysis of anticipatory resoluteness has led us to the phenomenon of primordial and authentic truth. We have shown earlier how that understanding-of-Being which prevails proximally and for the most part, conceives Being in the sense of presence-at-hand, and so covers up the primordial phenomenon of truth. If, however, ‘there is’ Being only in so far as truth ‘is’, and if the understanding of Being varies according to the kind of truth, then truth which is primordial and authentic must guarantee the understanding of the Being of Dasein and of Being in general. The ontological ‘truth’ of the existential analysis is developed on the ground of the primordial existentiell truth. However, the latter does not necessarily need the former. The most primordial and basic existential truth, for which the problematic of fundamental ontology strives in preparing for the question of Being in general, is the disclosedness of the meaning of the Being of care. In order to LAY BARE this meaning, we need to hold in readiness, undiminished, the full structural content of care. BTMR: §63

In characterizing the ‘connection’ between care and Selfhood, our aim was not only to clarify the special problem of "I"-hood, but also to help in the final preparation for getting into our grasp phenomenally the totality of Dasein’s structural whole. We need the unwavering discipline of the existential way of putting the question, if, for our ontological point of view, Dasein’s kind of Being is not to be finally perverted into a mode of presence-at-hand, even one which is wholly undifferentiated. Dasein becomes ‘essentially’ Dasein in that authentic existence which constitutes itself as anticipatory resoluteness. Such resoluteness, as a mode of the authenticity of care, contains Dasein’s primordial Self-constancy and totality. We must take an undistracted look at these and understand them existentially if we are to LAY BARE the ontological meaning of Dasein’s Being. BTMR: §65

To LAY BARE the "upon-which" of a projection, amounts to disclosing that which makes possible what has been projected. To lay it bare in this way requires methodologically that we study the projection (usually a tacit one) which underlies an interpretation, and that we do so in such a way that what has been projected in the projecting can be disclosed and grasped with regard to its "upon-which". To set forth the meaning of care means, then, to follow up the projection which guides and underlies the primordial existential Interpretation of Dasein, and to follow it up in such a way that in what is here projected, its "upon-which" may be seen. What has been projected is the Being of Dasein, and it is disclosed in what constitutes that Being as an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. That upon which the Being which has been disclosed and is thus constituted has been projected, is that which itself makes possible this Constitution of Being as care. When we inquire about the meaning of care, we are asking what makes possible the totality of the articulated structural whole of care, in the unity of its articulation as we have unfolded it. BTMR: §65

In temporality, however, the constitutive totality of care has a possible basis for its unity. Accordingly it is within the horizon of Dasein’s temporal constitution that we must approach the ontological clarification of the ‘connectedness of life’ – that is to say, the stretching-along, the movement, and the persistence which are specific for Dasein. The movement [Bewegtheit  ] of existence is not the motion [Bewegung  ] of something present-at-hand. It is definable in terms of the way Dasein stretches along. The specific movement in which Dasein is stretched along and stretches itself along, we call its "historizing". The question of Dasein’s ‘connectedness’ is the ontological problem of Dasein’s historizing. To LAY BARE the structure of historizing, and the existential-temporal conditions of its possibility, signifies that one has achieved an ontological understanding of historicality. BTMR: §72