Inauthentic understanding temporalizes itself as an awaiting which makes present [gegenwärtigendes Geswärtigen] – an awaiting to whose ecstatical unity there must belong a corresponding “having been”. The authentic coming-towards-oneself of anticipatory resoluteness is at the same time a coming-back to one’s ownmost Self, which has been thrown into its individualization. This ecstasis makes it possible for Dasein to be able to take over resolutely that entity which it already is. In anticipating, Dasein brings itself again forth into its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. If Being-as-having-been is authentic, we call it “REPETITION”. BTMR: §68
Understanding is grounded primarily in the future (whether in anticipation or in awaiting). States-of-mind temporalize themselves primarily in having been (whether in REPETITION or in having forgotten). Falling has its temporal roots primarily in the Present (whether in making-present or in the moment of vision). All the same, understanding is in every case a Present which ‘is in the process of having been’. All the same, one’s state-of-mind temporalizes itself as a future which is ‘making present’. And all the same, the Present ‘leaps away’ from a future that is in the process of having been, or else it is held on to by such a future. Thus we can see that in every ecstasis, temporality temporalizes itself as a whole; and this means that in the ecstatical unity with which temporality has fully temporalized itself currently, is grounded the totality of the structural whole of existence, facticity, and falling – that is, the unity of the care-structure. BTMR: §68
It is not necessary that in resoluteness one should explicitly know the origin of the possibilities upon which that resoluteness projects itself. It is rather in Dasein’s temporality, and there only, that there lies any possibility that the existentiell potentiality-for-Being upon which it projects itself can be gleaned explicitly from the way in which Dasein has been traditionally understood. The resoluteness which comes back to itself and hands itself down, then becomes the REPETITION of a possibility of existence that has come down to us. Repeating is handing down explicitly – that is to say, going back into the possibilities of the Dasein that has-been-there. The authentic REPETITION of a possibility of existence that has been – the possibility that Dasein may choose its hero – is grounded existentially in anticipatory resoluteness; for it is in resoluteness that one first chooses the choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated. But when one has, by REPETITION, handed down to oneself a possibility that has been, the Dasein that has-been-there is not disclosed in order to be actualized over again. The repeating of that which is possible does not bring again [Wiederbringen] something that is ‘past’, nor does it bind the ‘Present’ back to that which has already been ‘outstripped’. Arising, as it does, from a resolute projection of oneself, REPETITION does not let itself be persuaded of something by what is ‘past’, just in order that this, as something which was formerly actual, may recur. BTMR: §74
While we usually translate ‘wiederholen’ as ‘repeat’, this English word is hardly adequate to express Heidegger’s meaning. Etymologically, ‘wiederholen’ means ‘to fetch again’; in modern German usage, however, this is expressed by the cognate separable verb ‘wieder… holen’, while ‘wiederholen’ means simply ‘to repeat’ or ‘do over again’. Heidegger departs from both these meanings, as he is careful to point out. For him, ‘wiederholen’ does not mean either a mere mechanical REPETITION or an attempt to reconstitute the physical past; it means rather an attempt to go back to the past and retrieve former possibilities, which are thus ‘explicitly handed down’ or ‘transmitted’. BTMR: §74
Rather, the REPETITION makes a reciprocative rejoinder to the possibility of that existence which has-been-there. But when such a rejoinder is made to this possibility in a resolution, it is made in a moment of vision; and as such it is at the same time a disavowal of that which in the “today”, is working itself out as the ‘past’. Repetition does not abandon itself to that which is past, nor does it aim at progress. In the moment of vision authentic existence is indifferent to both these alternatives. BTMR: §74
We characterize REPETITION as a mode of that resoluteness which hands itself down – the mode by which Dasein exists explicitly as fate. But if fate constitutes the primordial historicality of Dasein, then history has its essential importance neither in what is past nor in the “today” and its ‘connection’ with what is past, but in that authentic historizing of existence which arises from Dasein’s future. As a way of Being for Dasein, history has its roots so essentially in the future that death, as that possibility of Dasein which we have already characterized, throws anticipatory existence back upon its factical thrownness, and so for the first time imparts to having-been its peculiarly privileged position in the historical. Authentic Being-towards-death – that is to say, the finitude of temporality – is the hidden basis of Dasein’s historicality. Dasein does not first become historical in REPETITION; but because it is historical as temporal, it can take itself over in its history by repeating. For this, no historiology is as yet needed. BTMR: §74
Resoluteness implies handing oneself down by anticipation to the “there” of the moment of vision; and this handing down we call “fate”. This is also the ground for destiny, by which we understand Dasein’s historizing in Being-with Others. In REPETITION, fateful destiny can be disclosed explicitly as bound up with the heritage which has come down to us. By REPETITION, Dasein first has its own history made manifest. Historizing is itself grounded existentially in the fact that Dasein, as temporal, is open ecstatically; so too is the disclosedness which belongs to historizing, or rather so too is the way in which we make this disclosedness our own. BTMR: §74
We have thus pointed out the source of the question of the ‘connectedness’ of Dasein in the sense of the unity with which Experiences are linked together between birth and death. At the same time, the origin of this question betrays that it is an inappropriate one if we are aiming at a primordial existential Interpretation of Dasein’s totality of historizing. On the other hand, despite the predominance of this ‘natural’ horizon for such questions, it becomes explicable why Dasein’s authentic historicality – fate and REPETITION – looks as if it, least of all, could supply the phenomenal basis for bringing into the shape of an ontologically grounded problem what is at bottom intended in the question of the ‘connectedness’ of life. BTMR: §75
This question does not ask how Dasein gains such a unity of connectedness that the sequence of ‘Experiences’ which has ensued and is still ensuing can subsequently be linked together; it asks rather in which of its own kinds of Being Dasein loses itself in such a manner that it must, as it were, only subsequently pull itself together out of its dispersal, and think up for itself a unity in which that “together” is embraced. Our lostness in the “they” and in the world-historical has earlier been revealed as a fleeing in the face of death. Such fleeing makes manifest that Being-towards-death is a basic attribute of care. Anticipatory resoluteness brings this Being-towards-death into authentic existence. The historizing of this resoluteness, however, is the REPETITION of the heritage of possibilities by handing these down to oneself in anticipation; and we have Interpreted this historizing as authentic historicality. Is perhaps the whole of existence stretched along in this historicality in a way which is primordial and not lost, and which has no need of connectedness? The Self’s resoluteness against the inconstancy of distraction, is in itself a steadiness which has been stretched along – the steadiness with which Dasein as fate ‘incorporates’ into its existence birth and death and their ‘between’, and holds them as thus ‘incorporated’, so that in such constancy Dasein is indeed in a moment of vision for what is world-historical in its current Situation. BTMR: §75
In the fateful REPETITION of possibilities that have been, Dasein brings itself back ‘immediately’ – that is to say, in a way that is temporally ecstatical – to what already has been before it. But when its heritage is thus handed down to itself, its ‘birth’ is caught up into its existence in coming back from the possibility of death (the possibility which is not to be outstripped), if only so that this existence may accept the thrownness of its own “there” in a way which is more free from Illusion. BTMR: §75
Resoluteness constitutes the loyalty of existence to its own Self. As resoluteness which is ready for anxiety, this loyalty is at the same time a possible way of revering the sole authority which a free existing can have – of revering the repeatable possibilities of existence. Resoluteness would be misunderstood ontologically if one were to suppose that it would be actual as ‘Experience’ only as long as the ‘act’ of resolving ‘lasts’. In resoluteness lies the existentiell constancy which, by its very essence, has already anticipated [vorweggenommen] every possible moment of vision that may arise from it. As fate, resoluteness is freedom to give up some definite resolution, and to give it up in accordance with the demands of some possible Situation or other. The steadiness of existence is not interrupted thereby but confirmed in the moment of vision. This steadiness is not first formed either through or by the adjoining of ‘moments’ one to another; but these arise from the temporality of that REPETITION which is futurally in the process-of-having-been – a temporality which has already been stretched along. BTMR: §75
In inauthentic historicality, on the other hand, the way in which fate has been primordially stretched along has been hidden. With the inconstancy of the they-self Dasein makes present its ‘today’. In awaiting the next new thing, it has already forgotten the old one. The “they” evades choice. Blind for possibilities, it cannot repeat what has been, but only retains and receives the ‘actual’ that is left over, the world-historical that has been, the leavings, and the information about them that is present-at-hand. Lost in the making present of the “today”, it understands the ‘past’ in terms of the ‘Present’. On the other hand, the temporality of authentic historicality, as the moment of vision of anticipatory REPETITION, deprives the “today” of its character as present, and weans one from the conventionalities of the “they”. When, however, one’s existence is inauthentically historical, it is loaded down with the legacy of a ‘past’ which has become unrecognizable, and it seeks the modern. But when historicality is authentic, it understands history as the ‘recurrence’ of the possible, and knows that a possibility will recur only if existence is open for it fatefully, in a moment of vision, in resolute REPETITION. BTMR: §75
If historiology is rooted in historicality in this manner, then it is from here that we must determine what the object of historiology ‘really’ is. The delimitation of the primordial theme of historiology will have to be carried through in conformity with the character of authentic historicality and its disclosure of “what-has-been-there” – that is to say, in conformity with REPETITION as this disclosure. In REPETITION the Dasein which has-been-there is understood in its authentic possibility which has been. The ‘birth’ of historiology from authentic historicality therefore signifies that in taking as our primary theme the historiological object we are projecting the Dasein which has-been-there upon its ownmost possibility of existence. Is historiology thus to have the possible for its theme? Does not its whole ‘meaning’ point solely to the ‘facts’ – to how something has factually been? BTMR: §76
If historiology, which itself arises from authentic historicality, reveals by REPETITION the Dasein which has-been-there and reveals it in its possibility, then historiology has already made manifest the ‘universal’ in the once-for-all. The question of whether the object of historiology is just to put once-for-all ‘individual’ events into a series, or whether it also has ‘laws’ as its objects, is one that is radically mistaken. The theme of historiology is neither that which has happened just once for all nor something universal that floats above it, but the possibility which has been factically existent. This possibility does not get repeated as such – that is to say, understood in an authentically historiological way – if it becomes perverted into the colourlessness of a supratemporal model. Only by historicality which is factical and authentic can the history of what has-been-there, as a resolute fate, be disclosed in such a manner that in REPETITION the ‘force’ of the possible gets struck home into one’s factical existence – in other words, that it comes towards that existence in its futural character. The historicality of unhistoriological Dasein does not take its departure from the ‘Present’ and from what is ‘actual’ only today, in order to grope its way back from there to something that is past; and neither does historiology. Even historiological disclosure temporalizes itself in terms of the future. The ‘selection’ of what is to become a possible object for historiology has already been met with in the factical existentiell choice of Dasein’s historicality, in which historiology first of all arises, and in which alone it is. BTMR: §76
The historiological disclosure of the ‘past’ is based on fateful REPETITION, and is so far from ‘subjective’ that it alone guarantees the ‘Objectivity’ of historiology. For the Objectivity of a science is regulated primarily in terms of whether that science can confront us with the entity which belongs to it as its theme, and can bring it, uncovered in the primordiality of its Being, to our understanding. In no science are the ‘universal validity’ of standards and the claims to ‘universality’ which the “they” and its common sense demand, less possible as criteria of ‘truth’ than in authentic historiology. BTMR: §76
As historical, Dasein is possible only by reason of its temporality, and temporality temporalizes itself in the ecstatico-horizonal unity of its raptures. Dasein exists authentically as futural in resolutely disclosing a possibility which it has chosen. Coming back resolutely to itself it is, by REPETITION, open for the ‘monumental’ possibilities of human existence. The historiology which arises from such historicality is ‘monumental’. As in the process of having been, Dasein has been delivered over to its thrownness. When the possible is made one’s own by REPETITION, there is adumbrated at the same time the possibility of reverently preserving the existence that has-been-there, in which the possibility seized upon has become manifest. Thus authentic historiology, as monumental, is ‘antiquarian’ too. Dasein temporalizes itself in the way the future and having been are united in the Present. The Present discloses the “today” authentically, and of course as the moment of vision. But in so far as this “today” has been interpreted in terms of understanding a possibility of existence which has been seized upon – an understanding which is repetitive in a futural manner – authentic historiology becomes a way in which the “today” gets deprived of its character as present; in other words, it becomes a way of painfully detaching oneself from the falling publicness of the ‘today”. As authentic, the historiology which is both monumental and antiquarian is necessarily a critique of the ‘Present’. Authentic historicality is the foundation for the possibility of uniting these three ways of historiology. But the ground on which authentic historiology is founded is temporality as the existential meaning of the Being of care. BTMR: §76