mode

Modus, modal, modifizieren

If the question about Being is to be explicitly formulated and carried through in such a manner as to be completely transparent to itself, then any treatment of it in line with the elucidations we have given requires us to explain how Being is to be looked at, how its meaning is to be understood and conceptually grasped; it requires us to prepare the way for choosing the right entity for our example, and to work out the genuine way of access to it. Looking at something, understanding and conceiving it, choosing, access to it – all these ways of behaving are constitutive for our inquiry, and therefore are MODES of Being for those particular entities which we, the inquirers, are ourselves. Thus to work out the question of Being adequately, we must make an entity – the inquirer – transparent in his own Being. The very asking of this question is an entity’s MODE of Being; and as such it gets its essential character from what is inquired about – namely, Being. This entity which each of us is himself and which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being, we shall denote by the term “Dasein”. If we are to formulate our question explicitly and transparently, we must first give a proper explication of an entity (Dasein), with regard to its Being. BTMR §2

In the question of the meaning of Being there is no ‘circular reasoning’ but rather a remarkable ‘relatedness backward or forward’ which what we are asking about (Being) bears to the inquiry itself as a MODE of Being of an entity. Here what is asked about has an essential pertinence to the inquiry itself, and this belongs to the ownmost meaning [eigensten Sinn] of the question of Being. This only means, however, that there is a way – perhaps even a very special one – in which entities with the character of Dasein are related to the question of Being. But have we not thus demonstrated that a certain kind of entity has a priority with regard to its Being? And have we not thus presented that entity which shall serve as the primary example to be interrogated in the question of Being? So far our discussion has not demonstrated Dasein’s priority, nor has it shown decisively whether Dasein may possibly or even necessarily serve as the primary entity to be interrogated. But indeed something like a priority of Dasein has announced itself. BTMR §2

This elemental historicality of Dasein may remain hidden from Dasein itself. But there is a way by which it can be discovered and given proper attention. Dasein can discover tradition, preserve it, and study it explicitly. The discovery of tradition and the disclosure of what it ‘transmits’ and how this is transmitted, can be taken hold of as a task in its own right. In this way Dasein brings itself into the kind, of Being which consists in histoiriological inquiry and research. But historiology – or more precisely historicity – is possible as a kind of Being which the inquiring Dasein may possess, only because historicality is a determining characteristic for Dasein in the very basis of its Being. 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

Everyone who is acquainted with the middle ages sees that Descartes is ‘dependent’ upon medieval scholasticism and employs its terminology. But with this ‘discovery’ nothing is achieved philosophically as long as it remains obscure to what a profound extent the medieval ontology has influenced the way in which posterity has determined or failed to determine the ontological character of the res cogitans. The full extent of this cannot be estimated until both the meaning and the limitations of the ancient ontology have been exhibited in terms of an orientation directed towards the question of Being. In other words, in our process of destruction we find ourselves faced with the task of Interpreting the basis of the ancient ontology in the light of the problematic of Temporality. When this is done, it will be manifest that the ancient way of interpreting the Being of entities is oriented towards the ‘world’ or ‘Nature’ in the widest sense, and that it is indeed in terms of ‘time’ that its understanding of Being is obtained. The outward evidence for this (though of course it is merely outward evidence) is the treatment of the meaning of Being as parousia or ousia, which signifies, in ontologico-Temporal terms, ‘presence’ [“Anwesenheit”]. Entities are grasped in their Being as ‘presence’; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite MODE of time – the ‘Present’ BTMR §6

logos as “discourse” means rather the same as deloun: to make manifest what one is ‘talking about’ in one’s discourse. Aristotle has explicated this function of discourse more precisely as apophainesthai. The logos lets something be seen (phainesthai), namely, what the discourse is about; and it does so either for the one who is doing the talking (the medium) or for persons who are talking with one another, as the case may be. Discourse ‘lets something be seen’ apo …: that is, it lets us see something from the very thing which the discourse is about. In discourse (apophansis), so far as it is genuine, what is said [was geredet ist] is drawn from what the talk is about, so that discursive communication, in what it says [in ihrem Gesagten], makes manifest what it is talking about, and thus makes this accessible to the other party. This is the structure of the logos as apophansis. This MODE of making manifest in the sense of letting something be seen by pointing it out, does not go with all kinds of ‘discourse’. Requesting (euche), for instance, also makes manifest, but in a different way. BTMR §7

But because ‘truth’ has this meaning, and because the logos is a definite MODE of letting something be seen, the logos is just not the kind of thing that can be considered as the primary ‘locus’ of truth. If, as has become quite customary nowadays, one defines “truth” as something that ‘really’ pertains to judgment, and if one then invokes the support of Aristotle with this thesis, not only is this unjustified, but, above all, the Greek conception of truth has been misunderstood. aisthesis, the sheer sensory perception of something, is ‘true’ in the Greek sense, and indeed more primordially than the logos which we have been discussing. Just as seeing aims at colours, any aisthesis aims at its idia (those entities which are genuinely accessible only through it and for it); and to that extent this perception is always true. This means that seeing always discovers colours, and hearing always discovers sounds. Pure noein is the perception of the simplest determinate ways of Being which entities as such may possess, and it perceives them just by looking at them. This noein is what is ‘true’ in the purest and most primordial sense; that is to say, it merely discovers, and it does so in such a way that it can never cover up. This noein can never cover up; it can never be false; it can at worst remain a non-perceiving, agnoein, not sufficing for straightforward and appropriate access. BTMR §7

The way in which Being and its structures are encountered in the MODE of phenomenon is one which must first of all be wrested from the objects of phenomenology. Thus the very point of departure [Ausgang] for our analysis requires that it be secured by the proper method, just as much as does our access [Zugang] to the phenomenon, or our passage [Durchgang] through whatever is prevalently covering it up. The idea of grasping and explicating phenomena in a way which is ‘original’ and ‘intuitive’ [“originären” und “intuitiven”] is directly opposed to the na naïveté of a haphazard, ‘immediate’, and unreflective ‘beholding. [“Schauen”]. [SZ:37] BTMR §7

Dasein’s average everydayness, however, is not to be taken as a mere ‘aspect’. Here too, and even in the MODE of inauthenticity, the structure of existentiality lies a priori. And here too Dasein’s Being is an issue for it in a definite way; and Dasein comports itself towards it in the MODE of average everydayness, even if this is only the MODE of fleeing in the face of it and forgetfulness thereof. BTMR §9

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. [SZ:51] BTMR §11

Second, that entity which in every case has Being-in-the-world as the way in which it is. Here we are seeking that which one inquires into when one asks the question ‘Who?’ By a phenomenological demonstration we shall determine who is in the MODE of Dasein’s average everydayness. (See the fourth chapter of this Division.) BTMR §12

Both in Dasein and for it, this state of Being is always in some way familiar [bekannt]. Now if it is also to become known [erkannt], the knowing which such a task explicitly implies takes itself (as a knowing of the world [Welterkennen]) as the chief exemplification of the ‘soul’s’ relationship to the world. Knowing the world (noein) – or rather addressing oneself to the ‘world’ and discussing it (logos) – thus functions as the primary MODE of Being-in-the-world, even though Being-in-the-world does not as such get conceived. But because this structure of Being remains ontologically inaccessible, yet is experienced ontically as a ‘relationship’ between one entity (the world) and another (the soul), and because one proximally understands Being by taking entities as entities within-the-world for one’s ontological foothold, one tries to conceive the relationship between world and soul as grounded in these two entities [SZ:59] themselves and in the meaning of their Being – namely, to conceive it as Being-present-at-hand. And even though Being-in-the-world is something of which one has pre-phenomenological experience and acquaintance [erfahren und gekannt], it becomes invisible if one interprets it in a way which is ontologically inappropriate. This state of Dasein’s Being is now one with which one is just barely acquainted (and indeed as something obvious), with the stamp of an inappropriate interpretation. So in this way it becomes the ‘evident’ point of departure for problems of epistemology or the ‘metaphysics of knowledge’. For what is more obvious than that a ‘subject’ is related to an ‘Object’ and vice versa? This ‘subject-Object-relationship’ must be presupposed. But while this presupposition is unimpeachable in its facticity, this makes it indeed a baleful one, if its ontological necessity and especially its ontological meaning are to be left in the dark. BTMR §12

§13. A Founded MODE in which Being-in is Exemplified. Knowing the World. BTMR §13

If Being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein, and one in which Dasein operates not only in general but pre-eminently in the MODE of everydayness, then it must also be something which has always been experienced ontically. It would be unintelligible for Being-in-the-world to remain totally veiled from view, especially since Dasein has at its disposal an understanding of its own Being, no matter how indefinitely this understanding may function. But no sooner was the ‘phenomenon of knowing the world’ grasped than it got interpreted in a ‘superficial’, [SZ:60] formal manner. The evidence for this is the procedure (still customary today) of setting up knowing as a ‘relation between subject and Object’ – a procedure in which there lurks as much ‘truth’ as vacuity. But subject and Object do not coincide with Dasein and the world. BTMR §13

With this kind of approach one remains blind to what is already tacitly implied even when one takes the phenomenon of knowing as one’s theme in the most provisional manner: namely, that knowing is a MODE of Being of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and is founded ontically upon this state of Being. But if, as we suggest, we thus find phenomenally that knowing is a kind of Being which belongs to Being-in-the-world, one might object that with such an Interpretation of knowing, the problem of knowledge is nullified; for what is left to be asked if one presupposes that knowing is already ‘alongside’ its world, when it is not supposed to reach that world except in the transcending of the subject? In this question the constructivist ‘standpoint’, which has not been phenomenally demonstrated, again comes to the fore; but quite apart from this, what higher court is to decide whether and in what sense there is to be any problem of knowledge other than that of the phenomenon of knowing as such and the kind of Being which belongs to the knower? BTMR §13

If we now ask what shows itself in the phenomenal findings about knowing, we must keep in mind that knowing is grounded beforehand in a Being-already-alongside-the-world, which is essentially constitutive for Dasein’s Being. Proximally, this Being-already-alongside is not just a fixed staring at something that is purely present-at-hand. Being-in-the-world, as concern, is fascinated by the world with which it is concerned. If knowing is to be possible as a way of determining the nature of the present-at-hand by observing it, then there must first be a deficiency in our having-to-do with the world concernfully. When concern holds back [Sichenthalten] from any kind of producing, manipulating, and the like, it puts itself into what is now the sole remaining MODE of Being-in, the MODE of just tarrying alongside… . [das Nur-noch-verweilen bei …] This kind of Being towards the world is one which lets us encounter entities within-the-world purely in the way the look (eidos), just that; on the basis of this kind of Being, and as a MODE of it, looking explicitly at what we encounter is possible. Looking at something in this way is sometimes a definite way of taking up a direction towards something – of setting our sights towards what is present-at-hand. It takes over a ‘view-point’ in advance from the entity which it encounters. Such looking-at enters the MODE of dwelling autonomously alongside entities within-the-world. In this kind of ‘dwelling’ as a holding-oneself-back from any manipulation or utilization, the perception of the present-at-hand is consummated. Perception is consummated when one addresses oneself to something as something and discusses it as such. This amounts to interpretation in the broadest sense; and on the basis of such interpretation, perception becomes an act of making determinate. What is thus perceived and made determinate can be expressed in propositions, and can be retained and preserved as what has thus been asserted. This perceptive retention of an assertion about something is itself a way of Being-in-the-world; it is not to be Interpreted as a ‘procedure’ by which a subject provides itself with representations [Vorstellungen] of something which remain stored up ‘inside’ as having been thus appropriated, and with regard to which the question of how they ‘agree’ with actuality can occasionally arise. [SZ:62] BTMR §13

We have now pointed out how those MODES of Being-in-the-world which are constitutive for knowing the world are interconnected in their foundations; this makes it plain that in knowing, Dasein achieves a new status of Being [Seinsstand] towards a world which has already been discovered in Dasein itself. This new possibility of Being can develop itself autonomously; it can become a task to be accomplished, and as scientific knowledge it can take over the guidance for Being-in-the-world. But a ‘commercium’ of the subject with a world does not get created for the first time by knowing, nor does it arise from some way in which the world acts upon a subject. Knowing is a MODE of Dasein founded upon Being-in-the-world. Thus Being-in-the-world, as a basic state, must be Interpreted beforehand. BTMR §13

A glance at previous ontology shows that if one fails to see Being-in-the-world as a state of Dasein, the phenomenon of worldhood likewise gets passed over. One tries instead to Interpret the world in terms of the Being of those entities which are present-at-hand within-the-world but which are by no means proximally discovered – namely, in terms of Nature. If one understands Nature ontologico-categorially, one finds that Nature is a limiting case of the Being of possible entities within-the-world. Only in some definite MODE of its own Being-in-the-world can Dasein discover entities as Nature. This manner of knowing them has the character of depriving the world of its worldhood in a definite way. ‘Nature’, as the categorial aggregate of those structures of Being which a definite entity encountered within-the-world may possess, can never make worldhood intelligible. But even the phenomenon of ‘Nature’, as it is conceived, for instance, in romanticism, can be grasped ontologically only in terms of the concept of the world – that is to say, in terms of the analytic of Dasein. BTMR §14

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

In our concernful dealings, however, we not only come up against unusable things within what is ready-to-hand already: we also find things which are missing – which not only are not ‘handy’ [“handlich”] but are not ‘to hand’ [“zur Hand”] at all. Again, to miss something in this way amounts to coming across something un-ready-to-hand. When we notice what is un-ready-to-hand, that which is ready-to-hand enters the MODE of obtrusiveness The more urgently [Je dringlicher] we need what is missing, and the more authentically it is encountered in its un-readiness-to-hand, all the more obtrusive [um so aufdringlicher] does that which is ready-to-hand become – so much so, indeed, that it seems to lose its character of readiness-to-hand. It reveals itself as something just presentat-hand and no more, which cannot be budged without the thing that is missing. The helpless way in which we stand before it is a deficient MODE of concern, and as such it uncovers the Being-just-present-at-hand-andno-more of something ready-to-hand. BTMR §16

In establishing a sign, however, one does not necessarily have to produce equipment which is not yet ready-to-hand at all. Signs also arise when one takes as a sign [Zum-Zeichen-nehmen] something that is ready-to-hand already. In this MODE, signs “get established” in a sense which is even more primordial. In indicating, a ready-to-hand equipment totality, and even the environment in general, can be provided with an availability which is circumspectively oriented; and not only this: establishing a sign can, above all, reveal. What gets taken as a sign becomes accessible only through its readiness-to-hand. If, for instance, the south wind ‘is accepted’ [“gilt”] by the farmer as a sign of rain, then this ‘acceptance’ [“Geltung”] – or the ‘value’ with which the entity is ‘invested’ – is not a sort of bonus over and above what is already present-at-hand in itself – viz, the flow of air in a definite geographical direction. The south wind may be meteorologically accessible as something which just occurs; but it is never present-at-hand proximally in such a way as this, only occasionally taking over the function of a warning signal. On the contrary, only by the circumspection with which one takes account of things in farming, is the south wind discovered in its Being. [SZ:81] BTMR §17

Whenever we let there be an involvement with something in something beforehand, our doing so is grounded in our understanding such things as letting something be involved, and such things as the “with-which” and the “in-which” of involvements. Anything of this sort, and anything else that is basic for it, such as the “towards-this” as that in which there is an involvement, or such as the “for-the-sake-of-which” to which every “towards-which” ultimately goes back – all these must be disclosed beforehand with a certain intelligibility [Verständlichkeit]. And what is that wherein Dasein as Being-in-the-world understands itself pre-ontologically? In understanding a context of relations such as we have mentioned, Dasein has assigned itself to an “in-order-to” [Um-zu], and it has done so in terms of a potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which it itself is – one which it may have seized upon either explicitly or tacitly, and which may be either authentic or inauthentic. This “in-order-to” prescribes a “towards-this” as a possible “in-which” for letting something be involved; and the structure of letting it be involved implies that this is an involvement which something has – an involvement which is with something. Dasein always assigns itself from a “for-the-sake-of-which” to the “with-which” of an involvement; that is to say, to the extent that it is, it always lets entities be encountered as ready-to-hand. That wherein [Worin] Dasein understands itself beforehand in the MODE of assigning itself is that for which [das Woraufhin] it has let entities be encountered beforehand. The “wherein” of an act of understanding which assigns or refers itself, is that for which one lets entities be encountered in the kind of Being that belongs to involvements; and this “wherein” is the phenomenon of the world. And the structure of that to which [woraufhin] Dasein assigns itself is what makes up the worldhood of the world. BTMR §18

Hardness gets taken as resistance. But neither hardness nor resistance is understood in a phenomenal sense, as something experienced in itself whose nature can be determined in such an experience. For Descartes, resistance amounts to no more than not yielding place – that is, not undergoing any change of location. So if a Thing resists, this means that it stays in a definite location relatively to some other Thing which is changing its location, or that it is changing its own location with a velocity which permits the other Thing to ‘catch up’ with it. But when the experience of hardness is Interpreted this way, the kind of Being which belongs to sensory perception is obliterated, and so is any possibility that the entities encountered in such perception should be grasped in their Being. Descartes takes the kind of Being which belongs to the perception of something, and translates it into the only kind he knows: the perception of something becomes a definite way of Being-present-at-hand-side-byside of two res extensae which are present-at-hand; the way in which their movements are related is itself a MODE of that extensio by which the presence-at-hand of the corporeal Thing is primarily characterized. Of course no behaviour in which one feels one’s way by touch [eines tastenden Verhaltens] can be ‘completed’ unless what can thus be felt [des Betastbaren] has ‘closeness’ of a very special kind. But this does not mean that touching [ Berührung] and the hardness which makes itself known in touching consist ontologically in different velocities of two corporeal Things. Hardness and resistance do not show themselves at all unless an entity has the kind of Being which Dasein – or at least something living – possesses. BTMR §21

But quite apart from the specific problem of the world itself, can the Being of what we encounter proximally within-the-world be reached ontologically by this procedure? When we speak of material Thinghood, have we not tacitly posited a kind of Being – the constant presence-at hand of Things – which is so far from having been rounded out ontologically by subsequently endowing entities with value-predicates, that these value-characters themselves are rather just ontical characteristics of those entities which have the kind of Being possessed by Things? Adding on value-predicates cannot tell us anything at all new about the Being of goods, but would merely presuppose again that goods have pure presence-at-hand as their kind of Being. Values would then be determinate characteristics which a Thing possesses, and they would be present-at-hand. They would have their sole ultimate ontological source in our previously laying down the actuality of Things as the fundamental stratum. But even prephenomenological experience shows that in an entity which is supposedly a Thing, there is something that will not become fully intelligible through Thinghood alone. Thus the Being of Things has to be rounded out. What, then does the Being of values or their ‘validity’ [“Geltung”] (which Lotze took as a MODE of ‘affirmation’) really amount to ontologically? And what does it signify ontologically for Things to be ‘invested’ with values in this way? As long as these matters remain obscure, to reconstruct the Thing of use in terms of the Thing of Nature is an ontologically questionable undertaking, even if one disregards the way in which the problematic has been perverted in principle. And if we are to reconstruct this Thing of use, which supposedly comes to us in the first instance ‘with its skin off’, does not this always require that we previously take a positive look at the phenomenon whose totality such a reconstruction is to restore? But if we have not given a proper explanation beforehand of its ownmost state of Being, are we not building our reconstruction without a plan? Inasmuch as this reconstruction and ‘rounding-out’ of the traditional ontology of the ‘world’ results in our reaching the same entities with which we started when we analysed the readiness-to-hand of equipment and the totality of [SZ:100] involvements, it seems as if the Being of these entities ‘has in fact been clarified or has at least become a problem. But by taking extensio as a proprietas, Descartes can hardly reach the Being of substance; and by taking refuge in ‘value’-characteristics (“wertlichen” Beschaffenheiten] we are just as far from even catching a glimpse of Being as readiness-to-hand, let alone permitting it to become an ontological theme.Descartes has narrowed down the question of the world to that of Things of Nature [Naturdinglichkeit] as those entities within-the-world’ which are proximally accessible. He has confirmed the opinion that to know an entity in what is supposedly the most rigorous ontical manner is our only possible access to the primary Being of the entity which such knowledge reveals. But at the same time we must have the insight to see that in principle the ‘roundings-out’ of the Thing-ontology also operate on the same dogmatic basis as that which Descartes has adopted.We have already intimated in Section 14 that passing over the world and those ‘entities which we proximally encounter is not accidental, not an oversight which it would be’ simple to correct, but that it is grounded in a kind of Being which belongs essentially to Dasein itself. When our analytic of Dasein has given some transparency to those main structures of Dasein which are of the most importance in the framework of this problematic, and when we have assigned [zugewiesen] to the concept of Being in general the horizon within which its intelligibility becomes possible, so that readiness-to-hand and presence-at-hand also become primordially intelligible ontologically for the first time, only then can our critique of the Cartesian ontology of the world (an ontology which, in principle, is still the usual one today) come philosophically into its own.To do this, we must show several things. (See Part One, Division Three.) BTMR §21

‘In the region of’ means not only ‘in the direction of’ but also within the range [Umkreis] of something that lies in that direction. The kind of place which is constituted by direction and remoteness (and closeness is only a MODE of the latter) is already oriented towards a region and oriented within it. Something like a region must first be discovered if there is to be any possibility of allotting or coming across places for a totality of equipment that is circumspectively at one’s disposal. The regional orientation of the multiplicity of places belonging to the ready-to-hand goes to make up the aroundness – the “round-about-us” [das Um-uns-herum] – of those entities which we encounter as closest environmentally. A three-dimensional multiplicity of possible positions which gets filled up with Things present-at-hand is never proximally given. This dimensionality of space is still veiled in the spatiality of the ready-to-hand. The ‘above’ is what is ‘on the ceiling’; the ‘below’ is what is ‘on the floor’; [SZ:103] the ‘behind’ is what is ‘at the door’; all “wheres” are discovered and circumspectively interpreted as we go our ways in everyday dealings; they are not ascertained and catalogued by the observational measurement of space. BTMR §22

[SZ:105] 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

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 Daseinwith [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 [SZ:114] 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 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

Dasein understands itself proximally and for the most part in terms of its world; and the Dasein-with of Others’is often encountered in terms of what is ready-to-hand within-the-world. But even if Others become themes for study, as it were, in their own Dasien, they are not encountered as person-Things present-at-hand: we meet them ‘at work’, that is, primarily in their Being-in-the-world. Even if we see the Other ‘just standing around’, he is never apprehended as a human-Thing present-at-hand, but his ‘standing-around’ is an existential MODE of Being – an unconcerned, uncircumspective tarrying alongside everything and nothing [Verweilen bei Allem und Keinem]. The Other is encountered in his Dasein-with in the world. 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 scienden 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

Solicitude proves to be a state of Dasein’s Being – one which, in accordance with its different possibilities, is bound up with its Being towards the world of its concern, and likewise with its authentic Being towards itself. Being with one another is based proximally and often exclusively upon what is a matter of common concern in such Being. A Being-with-one-another which arises [entspringt] from one’s doing the same thing as someone else, not only keeps for the most part within the outer limits, but enters the MODE of distance and reserve. The Being-with-one-another of those who are hired for the same affair often thrives only on mistrust. On the other hand, when they devote themselves to the same affair in common, their doing so is determined by the manner in which their Dasein, each in its own way, has been taken hold of. They thus become authentically bound together, and this makes possible the right kind of objectivity [die rechte Sachlichkeit], which frees the Other in his freedom for himself. BTMR §26

In the preparatory stage of the existential analytic of Dasein, we have for our leading theme this entity’s basic state, Being-in-the-World. Our first aim is to bring into relief phenomenally the unitary primordial structure of Dasein’s Being, in terms of which its possibilities and the ways for it ‘to be’ are ontologically determined. Up till now, our phenomenal characterization of Being-in-the-world has been directed towards the world, as a structural item of Being-in-the-world, and has attempted to provide an answer to the question about the “who” of this entity in its everydayness. But even in first marking out the tasks of a preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein, we have already provided an advance orientation as to Being-in as such, and have illustrated it in the concrete MODE of knowing the world. BTMR §28

In understanding and state-of-mind, we shall see the two constitutive ways of being the “there”; and these are equiprimordial. If these are to be analysed, some phenomenal confirmation is necessary; in both cases this will be attained by Interpreting some concrete MODE which is important for the subsequent problematic. State-of-mind and understanding are characterized equiprimordially by discourse. BTMR §28

Under A (the existential Constitutuon of the “there”) we shall accordingly treat: Being-there as state-of-mind (Section 29); fear as a MODE of state-of-mind (Section 30); Being-there as understanding (Section 31); understanding and interpretation (Section 32); assertion as a derivative MODE of interpretation (Section 33); Being-there, discourse, and language (Section 34). BTMR §28

Later (Cf. Section 40) we shall provide an Interpretation of anxiety as such a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, and as one which is significant from the existential-ontological standpoint; with this in view, we shall now illustrate the phenomenon of state-of-mind even more concretely in its determinate MODE of fear. BTMR §29

§30. Fear as a MODE of State-of-Mind BTMR §30

Whether privatively or positively, fearing about something, as being-afraid in the face of something, always discloses equiprimordially entities within-the-world and Being-in – the former as threatening and the latter as threatened. Fear is a MODE of state-of-mind. BTMR §30

State-of-mind is one of the existential structures in which the Being of the ‘there’ maintains itself. Equiprimordial with it in constituting this Being is understanding. A state-of-mind always has its understanding, even if it merely keeps it suppressed. Understanding always has its mood. If we Interpret understanding as a fundamental existentiale, this indicates that this phenomenon is conceived as a basic MODE of Dasein’s Being. On the other hand, ‘understanding’ in the sense of one possible kind of cognizing among others (as distinguished, for instance, from ‘explaining’), must, like explaining, be Interpreted as an existential derivative of that primary understanding which is one of the constituents of the Being of the “there” in general. [SZ:143] BTMR §31

As understanding, Dasein projects its Being upon possibilities. This Being-towards-possibilities which understands is itself a potentiality-for-Being, and it is so because of the way these possibilities, as disclosed, exert their counter-thrust [Rückschlag] upon Dasein. The projecting of the understanding has its own possibility – that of developing itself [sich auszubilden]. This development of the understanding we call “interpretation”. In it the understanding appropriates understandingly that which is understood by it. In interpretation, understanding does not become something different. It becomes itself. Such interpretation is grounded existentially in understanding; the latter does not arise from the former. Nor is interpretation the acquiring of information about what is understood; it is rather the working-out of possibilities projected in understanding. In accordance with the trend of these preparatory analyses of everyday Dasein, we shall pursue the phenomenon of interpretation in understanding the world – that is, in inauthentic understanding, and indeed in the MODE of its genuineness. BTMR §32

The ready-to-hand is always understood in terms of a totality of involvements. This totality need not be grasped explicitly by a thematic interpretation. Even if it has undergone such an interpretation, it recedes into an understanding which does not stand out from the background. And this is the very MODE in which it is the essential foundation for everyday circumspective interpretation. In every case this interpretation is grounded in something we have in advance – in a fore-having. As the appropriation of understanding, the interpretation operates in Being towards a totality of involvements which is already understood – a Being which understands. When something is understood but is still veiled, it becomes unveiled by an act of appropriation, and this is always done under the guidance of a point of view, which fixes that with regard to which what is understood is to be interpreted. In every case interpretation is grounded in something we see in advance – in a fore-sight. This fore-sight ‘takes the first cut’ out of what has been taken into our fore-having, and it does so with a view to a definite way in which this can be interpreted. Anything understood which is held in our fore-having and towards which we set our sights ‘foresightedly’, becomes conceptualizable through the interpretation. In such an interpretation, the way in which the entity we are interpreting is to be conceived can be drawn from the entity itself, or the interpretation can force the entity into concepts to which it is opposed in its manner of Being. In either case, the interpretation has already decided for a definite way of conceiving it, either with finality or with reservations; it is grounded in something we grasp in advance – in a fore-conception. BTMR §32

§33. Assertion as a Derivative MODE of Interpretation BTMR §33

If we bring together the three significations of ‘assertion’ which we have analysed, and get a unitary view of the full phenomenon, then we may define “assertion” as “a pointing-out which gives something a definite character and which communicates”. It remains to ask with what justification we have taken assertion as a MODE of interpretation at all. If it is something of this sort, then the essential structures of interpretation must recur in it. The pointing-out which assertion does is performed on the basis of what has already been disclosed in understanding or discovered circumspectively. Assertion is not a free-floating kind of behaviour which, in its own right, might be capable of disclosing entities in general in a primary way: on the contrary it always maintains itself on the basis of Being-in-the-world. What we have shown earlier in relation to knowing the world, holds just as well as assertion. Any assertion requires a fore-having of whatever has been disclosed; and this is what it points out by way of giving something a definite character. Furthermore, in any approach when one gives something a definite character, one is already taking a look directionally at what is to be put forward in the assertion. When an entity which has been presented is given a definite character, the function of giving it such a character is taken over by that with regard to which we set our sights towards the entity. Thus any assertion requires a fore-sight; in this the predicate which we are to assign [zuzuweisende] and make stand out, gets loosened, so to speak, from its unexpressed inclusion in the entity itself. To any assertion as a communication which gives something a definite character there belongs, moreover, an Articulation of what is pointed out, and this Articulation is in accordance with significations. Such an assertion will operate with a definite way of conceiving: “The hammer is heavy”, “Heaviness belongs to the hammer”, “The hammer has the property of heaviness”. When an assertion is made, some foreconception is always implied; but it remains for the most part inconspicuous, because the language already hides in itself a developed way of conceiving. Like any interpretation whatever, assertion necessarily has a fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception as its existential foundations. [SZ:157] BTMR §33

But to what extent does it become a derivative MODE of interpretation? What has been modified in it? We can point out the modification if we stick to certain limiting cases of assertion which function in logic as normal cases and as examples of the ‘simplest’ assertion-phenomena. Prior to all analysis, logic has already understood ‘logically’ what it takes as a theme under the heading of the “categorical statement” – for instance, ‘The hammer is heavy’. The unexplained presupposition is that the ‘meaning’ of this sentence is to be taken as: “This Thing – a hammer – has the property of heaviness”. In concernful circumspection there are no such assertions ‘at first’. But such circumspection has of course its specific ways of interpreting, and these, as compared with the ‘theoretical judgment’ just mentioned, may take some such form as ‘The hammer is too heavy’, or rather just ‘Too heavy!’, ‘Hand me the other hammer!’ Interpretation is carried out primordially not in a theoretical statement but in an action of circumspective concern – laying aside the unsuitable tool, or exchanging it, ‘without wasting words’. From the fact that words are absent, it may not be concluded that interpretation is absent. On the other hand, the kind of interpretation which is circumspectively expressed is not necessarily already an assertion in the sense we have defined. By what existential-ontological modifications does assertion arise from circums interpretation? BTMR §33

Keeping silent is another essential possibility of discourse, and it has the same existential foundation. In talking with one another, the person who keeps silent can ‘make one understand’ (that is, he can develop an understanding), and he can do so more authentically than the person who is never short of words. Speaking at length [Viel-sprechen] about something does not offer the slightest guarantee that thereby understanding is advanced. On the contrary, talking extensively about something, covers it up and brings what is understood to a sham clarity – the unintelligibility of the trivial. But to keep silent does not mean to be dumb. On the contrary, if a man is dumb, he still has a tendency to ‘speak’. Such a person has not proved that he can keep silence; indeed, he entirely lacks the possibility of proving anything of the sort. And the person who is accustomed by Nature to speak little is no better able to show that he is keeping silent or that he is the sort of person who can do so. He who never says anything cannot keep silent at any given moment. Keeping silent authentically is possible only in genuine discoursing. To be able to keep silent, Dasein must have something to say – that is, it must have at its disposal an authentic and rich disclosedness of itself. In that case one’s reticence [Verschwiegenheit] makes something manifest, and does away with ‘idle talk’ [“Gerede”]. As a MODE of discoursing, reticence Articulates the intelligibility of Dasein in so primordial a manner that it gives rise to a potentiality-for-hearing which is genuine, and to a Being-with-one-another which is transparent. [SZ:165] BTMR §34

Rather it concerns itself with a kind of knowing, but just in order to have known. Both this not tarrying in the environment with which one concerns oneself, and this distraction by new possibilities, are constitutive items for curiosity; and upon these is founded the third essential characteristic of this phenomenon, which we call the character of “never dwelling anywhere” [Aufenthaltslosigkeit]. Curiosity is everywhere and nowhere. This MODE of Being-in-the-world reveals a new kind of Being of everyday Dasein – a kind in which Dasein is constantly uprooting itself. [SZ:173] BTMR §36

This term does not express any negative evaluation, but is used to signify that Dasein is proximally and for the most part alongside the ‘world’ of its concern. This “absorption in …” [Aufgehen bei …] has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the “they”. Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away [abgefallen] from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the ‘world’. “Fallenness” into the ‘world’ means an absorption in Being-with-one-another, in so far as the latter is guided by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Through the Interpretation of falling, what we have called the “inauthenticity” of Dasein may now be defined more precisely. On no account, however, do the terms “inauthentic” and “non-authentic” signify ‘really not’, as if in this MODE of Being, Dasein were altogether to lose its Being. “Inauthenticity,” does not mean anything like Being-no-longer-in-the-world, but amounts rather to a quite distinctive kind of Being-in-the-world – the kind which is completely, fascinated by the ‘world’ and by the Daseinwith of Others in the “they”. Not-Being-its-self [Das Nicht-es-selbst-sein] functions as a positive possibility of that entity which, in its essential concern, is absorbed in a world. This kind of not-Being has to be conceived as that kind of Being which is closest to Dasein and in which Dasein maintains itself for the most part. [SZ:176] BTMR §38

Neither in our first allusion to Being-in-the-world as Dasein’s basic state, nor in our characterization of its constitutive structural items, did we go beyond an analysis of the constitution of this kind of Being and take note of its character as a phenomenon. We have indeed described concern and solicitude, as the possible basic kinds of Being-in. But we did not discuss the question of the everyday kind of Being of these ways in which one may be. We also showed that Being-in is something quite different from a mere confrontation, whether by way of observation or by way of action; that is, it is not the Being-present-at-hand-together of a subject and an Object. Nevertheless, it must still have seemed that Being-in-the-world has the function of a rigid framework, within which Dasein’s possible ways of comporting itself towards its world run their course without touching the ‘framework’ itself as regards its Being. But this supposed ‘framework’ itself helps make up the kind of Being which is Dasein’s. An existential MODE of Being-in-the-world is documented in the phenomenon of falling. BTMR §38

Idle talk discloses to Dasein a Being towards its world, towards Others, and towards itself – a Being in which these are understood, but in a MODE of groundless floating. Curiosity discloses everything and anything, yet in such a way that Being-in is everywhere and nowhere. Ambiguity hides nothing from Dasein’s understanding, but only in order that Being-in-the-world should be suppressed in this uprooted “everywhere and nowhere”. [SZ:177] BTMR §38

But now that falling has been exhibited, have we not set forth a phenomenon which speaks directly against the definition we have used in indicating the formal idea of existence? Can Dasein be conceived as an entity for which, in its Being, its potentiality-for-Being is an issue, if this entity, in its very everydayness, has lost itself, and, in falling, ‘lives’ away from itself? But falling into the world would be phenomenal ‘evidence’ against the existentiality of Dasein only if Dasein were regarded as an isolated “I” or subject, as a self-point from which it moves away. In that case, the world would be an Object. Falling into the world would then have to be re-Interpreted ontologically as Being-present-at-hand in the manner of an entity within-the-world. If, however, we keep in mind that Dasein’s Being is in the state of Being-in-the-world, as we have already pointed out, then it becomes manifest that falling, as a kind of Being of this Being-in, affords us rather the most elemental evidence for Dasein’s existentiality. In failing, nothing other than our potentiality-for-Being-in world is the issue, even if in the MODE of inauthenticity. Dasein can fall only because Being-in-the-world understandingly with a state-of-mind is an issue for it. On the other hand, authentic existence is not something which floats above falling everydayness; existentially, it is only a modified way in which such everydayness is seized upon. BTMR §38

Being-anxious discloses, primordially and directly, the world as world. It is not the case, say, that the world first gets thought of by deliberating about it, just by itself, without regard for the entities within-the-world, and that, in the face of this world, anxiety then arises; what is rather the case is that the world as world is disclosed first and foremost by anxiety, as a MODE of state-of-mind. This does not signify, however, that in anxiety the worldhood of the world gets conceptualized. BTMR §40

Again everyday discourse and the everyday interpretation of Dasein furnish our most unbiased evidence that anxiety as a basic state-of-mind is disclosive in the manner we have shown. As we have said earlier, a state-of-mind makes manifest ‘how one is’. In anxiety one feels ‘uncanny’. Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: the “nothing and nowhere”. But here “uncanniness” also means “not-being-at-home” [das Nichtzuhause-sein]. In our first indication of the phenomenal character of Dasein’s basic state and in our clarification of the existential meaning of “Being-in” as distinguished from the categorial signification of ‘insideness’, Being-in was defined as “residing alongside …”, “Being-familiar with …” This character of Being-in was then brought to view more concretely through the everyday publicness of the “they”, which brings tranquillized self-assurance – ‘Being-at-home’, with all its obviousness – into the average everydayness of Dasein. On the other hand, as Dasein falls, anxiety brings it back from its absorption in the ‘world’. Everyday familiarity collapses. Dasein has been individualized, but individualized as Being-in-the-world. Being-in enters into the existential ‘MODE’ of the “not-at-home”. Nothing else is meant by our talk about ‘uncanniness’. [SZ:189] BTMR §40

If we Interpret Dasein’s uncanniness from an existential-ontological point of view as a threat which reaches Dasein itself and which comes from Dasein itself, we are not contending that in factical anxiety too it has always been understood in this sense. When Dasein “understands” uncanniness in the everyday manner, it does so by turning away from it in falling; in this turning-away, the “not-at-home” gets ‘dimmed down’. Yet the everydayness of this fleeing shows phenomenally that anxiety, as a basic state-of-mind, belongs to Dasein’s essential state of Being-in-the-world, which, as one that is existential, is never present-at-hand but is itself always in a MODE of factical Being-there – that is, in the MODE of a state-of-mind. That kind of Being-in-the-world which is tranquillized and familiar is a MODE of Dasein’s uncanniness, not the reverse. From an existential-ontological point of view, the “not-at-home” must be conceived as the more primordial phenomenon. BTMR §40

All the same, this tranquillized ‘willing’ under the guidance of the “they”, does not signify that one’s Being towards one’s potentiality-for-Being has been extinguished, but only that it has been modified. In such a case, one’s Being towards possibilities shows itself for the most part as mere wishing. In the wish Dasein projects its Being upon possibilities which not only have not been taken hold of in concern, but whose fulfilment has not even been pondered over and expected. On the contrary, in the MODE of mere wishing, the ascendancy of Being-ahead-of-oneself brings with it a lack of understanding for the factical possibilities. When the world has been primarily projected as a wish-world, Being-in-the-world has lost itself inertly in what is at its disposal; but it has done so in such a way that, in the light of what is wished for, that which is at its disposal (and this is all that is ready-to-hand) is never enough. Wishing is an existential modification of projecting oneself understandingly, when such selfprojection has’ fallen forfeit to thrownness and just keeps hankering after possibilities. Such hankering closes off the possibilities; what is ‘there’ in wishful hankering turns into the ‘actual world’. Ontologically, wishing presupposes care. BTMR §41

These investigations, which take precedence over any possible ontological question about Reality, have been carried out in the foregoing existential analytic. According to this analytic, knowing is a founded MODE of access to the Real. The Real is essentially accessible only as entities within-the-world. All access to such entities is founded ontologically upon the basic state of Dasein, Being-in-the-world; and this in turn has care as its even more primordial state of Being (ahead of itself – Being already in a world – as Being alongside entities within-the-world). BTMR §43

To have faith in the Reality of the ‘external world’, whether rightly or wrongly; to “prove” this Reality for it, whether adequately or inadequately; to presuppose it, whether explicitly or not – attempts such as these which have not mastered their own basis with full transparency, presuppose a subject which is proximally worldless or unsure of its world, and which must, at bottom, first assure itself of a world. Thus from the very beginning, Being-in-a-world is disposed to “take things” in some way [Auffassen], to suppose, to be certain, to have faith – a way of behaving which itself is always a founded MODE of Being-in-the-world. BTMR §43

If the term “Reality” is meant to stand for the Being of entities presentat-hand within-the-world (res) (and nothing else is understood thereby), then when it comes to analysing this MODE of Being, this signifies that entities within-the-world are ontologically conceivable only if the phenomenon of within-the-world-ness has been clarified. But within-the-worldness is based upon the phenomenon of the world, which, for its part, as an essential item in the structure of Being-in-the-world, belongs to the basic constitution of Dasein. Being-in-the-world, in turn, is bound up ontologically in the structural totality of Dasein’s Being, and we have characterized care as such a totality. But in this way we have marked out the foundations and the horizons which must be clarified if an analysis of Reality is to be possible. Only in this connection, moreover, does the character of the “in-itself” become ontologically intelligible. By taking our orientation from this context of problems, we have in our earlier analyses Interpreted the Being of entities within-the-world. BTMR §43

3. To Dasein’s state of Being belongs projection – disclosive Being towards its potentiality-for-Being. As something that understands, Dasein can understand itself in terms of the ‘world’ and Others or in terms of its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The possibility just mentioned means that Dasein discloses itself to itself in and as its ownmost potentiality-for Being. This authentic disclosedncss shows the phenomenon of the most primordial truth in the MODE of authenticity. The most primordial, and indeed the most authentic, disclosedness in which Dasein, as a potentiality-for-Being, can be, is the truth of existence. This becomes existentially and ontologically definite only in connection with the analysis of Dasein’s authenticity. BTMR §44

4. To Dasein’s state of Being belongs falling. Proximally and for the most part Dasein is lost in its ‘world’. Its understanding, as a projection upon possibilities of Being, has diverted itself thither. Its absorption in the “they” signifies that it is dominated by the way things are publicly interpreted. That which has been uncovered and disclosed stands in a MODE in which it has been disguised and closed off by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Being towards entities h