entscheiden, beschliessen
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
By showing how all sight is grounded primarily in understanding (the circumspection of concern is understanding as common sense [Verständigkeit]), we have deprived pure intuition [Anschauen] of its priority, which corresponds noetically to the priority of the present-at-hand in traditional ontology. ‘Intuition’ and ‘thinking’ are both derivatives of understanding, and already rather remote ones. Even the phenomenological ‘intuition of essences’ [“Wesensschau”] is grounded in existential understanding. We can DECIDE about this kind of seeing only if we have obtained explicit conceptions of Being and of the structure of Being, such as only phenomena in the phenomenological sense can become. BTMR §31
Hearing and understanding have attached themselves beforehand to what is said-in-the-talk as such. The primary relationship-of-Being towards the entity talked about is not ‘imparted’ by communication; but Being-with-one-another takes place in talking with one another and in concern with what is said-in-the-talk. To this Being-with-one-another, the fact that talking is going on is a matter of consequence. The Being-said, the’ dictum, the pronouncement [Ausspruch] – all these now stand surety for the genuineness of the discourse and of the understanding which belongs to it, and for its appropriateness to the facts. And because this discoursing has lost its primary relationship-of-Being towards the entity talked about, or else has never achieved such a relationship, it does not communicate in such a way as to let this entity be appropriated in a primordial manner, but communicates rather by following the route of gossiping and passing the word along. What is said-in-the-talk as such, spreads in wider circles and takes on an authoritative character. Things are so because one says so. Idle talk is constituted by just such gossiping and passing the word along – a process by which its initial lack of grounds to stand on [Bodenständigkeit] becomes aggravated to complete groundlessness [Bodenlosigkeit]. And indeed this idle talk is not confined to vocal gossip, but even spreads to what we write, where it takes the form of ‘scribbling’ [das “Geschreibe”]. In this latter case the gossip is not based so much upon hearsay. It feeds upon superficial reading [dem Angelesenen]. The average understanding of the reader will never be able to DECIDE what has been’ drawn from primordial sources with a struggle and how much is just gossip. The average understanding, moreover, will not want any such distinction, and does not need it, because, of course, it understands everything. [SZ:169] BTMR §35
When, in our everyday Being-with-one-another, we encounter the sort of thing which is accessible to everyone, and about which anyone can say anything, it soon becomes impossible to DECIDE what is disclosed in a genuine understanding, and what is not. This ambiguity [Zweideutigkeit] extends not only to the world, but just as much to Being-with-one-another as such, and even to Dasein’s Being towards itself. BTMR §37
In the following considerations, the ‘variations’ in which we are chiefly interested are those of end and totality; these are ways in which Dasein gets a definite character ontologically, and as such they should lead to a primordial Interpretation of this entity. Keeping constantly in view the existential constitution of Dasein already set forth, we must try to DECIDE how inappropriate to Dasein ontologically are those conceptions of end and totality which first thrust themselves to the fore, no matter how categorially indefinite they may remain. The rejection [Zurückweisung] of such concepts must be developed into a positive assignment [Zuweisung] of them to their specific realms. In this way our understanding of end and totality in their variant forms as existentialia will be strengthened, and this [SZ:242] will guarantee the possibility of an ontological Interpretation of death. BTMR §48
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
We have defined “resoluteness” as a projecting of oneself upon one’s own Being-guilty – a projecting which is reticent and ready for anxiety. Resoluteness gains its authenticity as anticipatory resoluteness. In this, Dasein understands itself with regard to its potentiality-for-Being, and it does so in such a manner that it will go right under the eyes of Death in order thus to take over in its thrownness that entity which it is itself, and to take it over wholly. The resolute taking over of one’s factical ‘there’, signifies, at the same time, that the Situation is one which has been resolved upon. In the existential analysis we cannot, in principle, discuss what Dasein factically resolves in any particular case. Our investigation excludes even the existential projection of the factical possibilities of existence. Nevertheless, we must ask whence, in general, Dasein can draw those possibilities upon which it factically projects itself. One’s anticipatory projection of oneself on that possibility of existence which is not to be outstripped – on death – guarantees only the totality and authenticity of one’s resoluteness. But those possibilities of existence which have been factically disclosed are not to be gathered from death. And this is still less the case when one’s anticipation of this possibility does not signify that one is speculating about it, but signifies precisely that one is coming back to one’s factical “there”. Will taking over the thrownness of the Self into its world perhaps disclose an horizon from which existence snatches its factical possibilities away? Have we not said in addition that Dasein never comes back behind its thrownness? Before we DECIDE too quickly [SZ:383] whether Dasein draws it authentic possibilities of existence from thrownness or not, we must assure ourselves that we have a full conception of thrownness as a basic attribute of care. BTMR §74