disclosedness

Erschlossenheit

Being, as the basic theme of philosophy, is no class or genus of entities; yet it pertains to every entity. Its ‘universality’ is to be sought higher up. Being and the structure of Being lie beyond every entity and every possible character which an entity may possess. Being is the transcendens pure and simple. And the transcendence of Dasein’s Being is distinctive in that it implies the possibility and the necessity of the most radical individuation. Every disclosure of Being as the transcendens is transcendental knowledge. Phenomenological truth (the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being) is veritas transcendentalis. BTMR: §7

Similarly, when something ready-to-hand is found missing, though its everyday presence (Zugegensein) has been so obvious that we have never taken any notice of it, this makes a break in those referential contexts which circumspection discovers. Our circumspection comes up against emptiness, and now sees for the first time what the missing article was ready-to-hand with, and what it was ready-to-hand for. The environment announces itself afresh. What is thus lit up is not itself just one thing ready-to-hand among others; still less is it something present-at-hand upon which equipment ready-to-hand is somehow founded: it is in the ‘there’ before anyone has observed or ascertained it. It is itself inaccessible to circumspection, so far as circumspection is always directed towards entities; but in each case it has already been disclosed for circumspection. ‘Disclose’ and ‘disclosedness (Erschlossenheit)’ will be used as technical terms in the passages that follow, and shall signify ‘to lay open’ and ‘the character of having been laid open.’ Thus ‘to disclose’ never means anything like ‘to obtain indirectly by inference’. BTMR: §16

In the act of understanding (Verstehen), which we shall analyse more thoroughly later (Compare Section 31), the relations indicated above must have been previously disclosed; the act of understanding holds them in this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). It holds itself in them with familiarity; and in so doing, it holds them before itself, for it is in these that its assignment operates. The understanding lets itself make assignments both in these relationships themselves and of them. The relational character which these relationships of assigning possess, we take as one of signifying. In its familiarity with these relationships, Dasein ‘signifies’ to itself: in a primordial manner it gives itself both its Being and its potentiality-for-Being as something which it is to understand with regard to its Being-in-the-world. The “for-the-sake-of-which” signifies an “in-order-to”; this in turn, a “towards-this”; the latter, an “in-which” of letting something be involved; and that in turn, the “with-which” of an involvement. These relationships are bound up with one another as a primordial totality; they are what they are as this signifying (Be-deuten) in which Dasein gives itself beforehand its Being-in-the-world as something to be understood. The relational totality of this signifying we call “significance”. This is what makes up the structure of the world – the structure of that wherein Dasein as such already is. Dasein, in its familiarity with significance, is the ontical condition for the possibility of discovering entities which are encountered in a world with involvement (readiness-to-hand) as their kind of Being, and which can thus make themselves known as they are in themselves (in seinem An-sich). BTMR: §18

The space which is thus disclosed with the worldhood of the world still lacks the pure multiplicity of the three dimensions. In this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which is closest to us, space, as the pure “wherein” in which positions are ordered by measurement and the situations of things are determined, still remains hidden. In the phenomenon of the region we have already indicated that on the basis of which space is discovered beforehand in Dasein. By a ‘region” we have understood the “whither” to which an equipment-context ready-to-hand might possibly belong, when that context is of such a sort that it can be encountered as directionally desevered – that is, as having been placed. This belongingness (Gehörigkeit) is determined in terms of the significance which is constitutive for the world, and it Articulates the “hither” and “thither” within the possible “whither”. In general the “whither” gets prescribed by a referential totality which has been made fast in a “for-the-sake-of-which” of concern, and within which letting something be involved by freeing it, assigns itself. With anything encountered as ready-to-hand there is always an involvement in (bei) a region. To the totality of involvements which makes up the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world, there belongs a spatial involvement which has the character of a region. By reason of such an involvement, the ready-to-hand becomes something which we can come across and ascertain as having form and direction. With the factical Being of Dasein, what is ready-to-hand within-the-world is desevered and given directionality, depending upon the degree of transparency that is possible for concernful circumspection. BTMR: §24

According to the analysis which we have now completed, Being with Others belongs to the Being of Dasein, which is an issue for Dasein in its very Being. Thus as Being-with, Dasein ‘is’ essentially for the sake of Others. This must be understood as an existential statement as to its essence. Even if the particular factical Dasein does not turn to Others, and supposes that it has no need of them or manages to get along without them, it is in the way of Being-with. In Being-with, as the existential “for-the-sake-of” of Others, these have already been disclosed in their Dasein. With their Being-with, their disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) has been constituted beforehand; accordingly, this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) also goes to make up significance – that is to say, worldhood. And, significance, as worldhood, is tied up with the existential “for-the-sake-of-which”. Since the worldhood of that world in which every Dasein essentially is already, is thus constituted, it accordingly lets us encounter what is environmentally ready-to-hand as something with which we are circumspectively concerned, and it does so in such a way that together with it we encounter the Dasein-with of Others. The structure of the world’s worldhood is such that Others are not proximally present-at-hand as free-floating subjects along with other Things, but show themselves in the world in their special environmental Being, and do so in terms of what is ready-to-hand in that world. BTMR: §26

Being-with is such that the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the Dasein-with of Others belongs to it; this means that because Dasein’s Being is Being-with, its understanding of BeinBeing already implies the understanding of Others. This understanding, like any understanding, is not an acquaintance derived from knowledge about them, but a primordially existential kind of Being, which, more than anything else, makes such knowledge and acquaintance possible. Knowing oneself (Sichkennen) is grounded in Being-with, which understands primordially. It operates proximally in accordance with the kind of Being which is closest to us – Being-in-the-world as Being-with; and it does so by an acquaintance with that which Dasein, along with the Others, comes across in its environmental circumspection and concerns itself with – an acquaintance in which Dasein understands. Solicitous concern is understood in terms of what we are concerned with, and along with our understanding of it. Thus in concernful solicitude the Other is proximally disclosed. BTMR: §26

The entity which is essentially constituted by Being-in-the-world is itself in every case its ‘there’. According to the familiar signification of the word, the ‘there’ points to a ‘here’ and a ‘yonder’. The ‘here’ of an ‘I-here’ is always understood in relation to a ‘yonder’ ready-to-hand, in the sense of a Being towards this ‘yonder’ – a Being which is de-severant, directional, and concernful. Dasein’s existential spatiality, which thus determines its ‘location’, is itself grounded in Being-in-the-world. The “yonder” belongs definitely to something encountered within-the-world. ‘Here’ and ‘yonder’ are possible only in a ‘there’ – that is to say, only if there is an entity which has made a disclosure of spatiality as the Being of the ‘there’. This entity carries in its ownmost Being the character of not being closed off. In the expression ‘there’ we have in view this essential disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). By reason of this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), this entity (Dasein), together with the Being-there of the world, is ‘there’ for itself. BTMR: §28

When we talk in an ontically figurative way of the lumen naturale in man, we have in mind nothing other than the existential-ontological structure of this entity, that it is in such a way as to be its “there”. To say that it is ‘illuminated’ (“erleuchtet”) means that as Being-in-the-world it is cleared (gelichtet) in itself, not through any other entity, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing. Only for an entity which is existentially cleared in this way does that which is present-at-hand become accessible in the light or hidden in the dark. By its very nature, Dasein brings its “there” along with it. If it lacks its “there”, it is not factically the entity which is essentially Dasein; indeed, it is not this entity at all. Dasein is its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). BTMR: §28

We are to set forth the Constitution of this Being. But in so far as the essence of this entity is existence, the existential proposition, ‘Dasein is its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit)’, means at the same time that the Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being is to be its ‘there’. In addition to characterizing the primary Constitution of the Being of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), we will require, in conformity with the course of the analysis, an Interpretation of the kind of Being in which this entity is its “there” in an everyday manner. BTMR: §28

This is shown by bad moods. In these, Dasein becomes blind to itself, the environment with which it is concerned veils itself, the circumspection of concern gets led astray. States-of-mind are so far from being reflected upon, that precisely what they do is to assail Dasein in its unreflecting devotion to the ‘world’ with which it is concerned and on which it expends itself. A mood assails us. It comes neither from ‘outside’ nor from ‘inside’, but arises out of Being-in-the-world, as a way of such Being. But with the negative distinction between state-of-mind and the reflective apprehending of something ‘within’, we have thus reached a positive insight into their character as disclosure. The mood has already disclosed, in every case, Being-in-the-world as a whole, and makes it possible first of all to direct oneself towards something. Having a mood is not related to the psychical in the first instance, and is not itself an inner condition which then reaches forth in an enigmatical way and puts its mark on Things and persons. It is in this that the second essential characteristic of states-of-mind shows itself. We have seen that the world, Dasein-with, and existence are equiprimordially disclosed; and state-of-mind is a basic existential species of their dislosedness, because this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) itself is essentially Being-in-the-world. BTMR: §29

Besides these two essential characteristics of states-of-mind which have been explained – the disclosing of thrownness and the current disclosing of Being-in-the-world as a whole – we have to notice a third, which contributes above all towards a more penetrating understanding of the worldhood of the world. As we have said earlier, the world which has already been disclosed beforehand permits what is within-the-world to be encountered. This prior disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world belongs to Being-in and is partly constituted by one’s state-of-mind. Letting something be encountered is primarily circumspective; it is not just sensing something, or staring at it. It implies circumspective concern, and has the character of becoming affected in some way (Betroffenwerdens); we can see this more precisely from the standpoint of state-of-mind. But to be affected by the unserviceable, resistant, or threatening character (Bedrohlichkeit) of that which is ready-to-hand, becomes ontologically possible only in so far as Being-in as such has been determined existentially beforehand in such a manner that what it encounters within-the-world can “matter” to it in this way. The fact that this sort of thing can “matter” to it is grounded in one’s state-of-mind; and as a state-of-mind it has already disclosed the world – as something by which it can be threatened, for instance. Only something which is in the state-of-mind of fearing (or fearlessness) can discover that what is environmentally ready-to-hand is threatening. Dasein’s openness to the world is constituted existentially by the attunement of a state-of-mind. BTMR: §29

We have, after all, already come up against this primordial understanding in our previous investigations, though we did not allow it to be included explicitly in the theme under discussion. To say that in existing, Dasein is its “there”, is equivalent to saying that the world is ‘there’; its Being-there is Being-in. And the latter is likewise ‘there’, as that for the sake of which Dasein is. In the “for-the-sake-of-which”, existing Being-in-the-world is disclosed as such, and this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) we have called “understanding”. In the understanding of the “for-the-sake-of-which”, the significance which is grounded therein, is disclosed along with it. The disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of understanding, as the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “for-the-sake-of-which” and of significance equiprimordially, pertains to the entirety of Being-in-the-world. Significance is that on the basis of which the world is disclosed as such. To say that the “for-the-sake-of-which” and significance are both disclosed in Dasein, means that Dasein is that entity which, as Being-in-the-world, is an issue for itself. BTMR: §31

Why does the understanding – whatever may be the essential dimensions of that which can be disclosed in it – always press forward into possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself the existential structure which we call “projection”. With equal primordiality the understanding projects Dasein’s Being both upon its “for-the-sake-of-which” and upon significance, as the worldhood of its current world. The character of understanding as projection is constitutive for Being-in-the-world with regard to the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of its existentially constitutive state-of-Being by which the factical potentiality-for-Being gets its leeway (Spielraum). And as thrown, Dasein is thrown into the kind of Being which we call “projecting”. Projecting has nothing to do with comporting oneself towards a plan that has been thought out, and in accordance with which Dasein arranges its Being. On the contrary, any Dasein has, as Dasein, already projected itself; and as long as it is, it is projecting. As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the character of understanding as projection is such that the understanding does not grasp thematically that upon which it projects – that is to say, possibilities. Grasping it in such a manner would take away from what is projected its very character as a possibility, and would reduce it to the given contents which we have in mind; whereas projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such. As projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities. BTMR: §31

Projection always pertains to the full disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world; as potentiality-for-Being, understanding has itself possibilities, which are sketched out beforehand within the range of what is essentially disclosable in it. Understanding can devote itself primarily to the dislosedness of the world; that is, Dasein can, proximally and for the most part, understand itself in terms of its world. Or else understanding throws itself primarily into the “for-the-sake-of-which”; that is, Dasein exists as itself. Understanding is either authentic, arising out of one’s own Self as such, or inauthentic. The ‘in-’ of “inauthentic” does not mean that Dasein cuts itself off from its Self and understands ‘only’ the world. The world belongs to Being-one’s-Self as Being-in-the-world. On the other hand, authentic understanding, no less than that which is inauthentic, can be either genuine or not genuine. As potentiality-for-Being, understanding is altogether permeated with possibility. When one is diverted into (Sichverlegen in) one of these basic possibilities of understanding, the other is not laid aside (legt… nicht ab). Because understanding, in every case, pertains rather to Dasein’s full disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) as Being-in-the-world, this diversion of the understanding is an existential modification of projection as a whole. In understanding the world, Being-in is always understood along with it, while understanding of existence as such is always an understanding of the world. BTMR: §31

In its projective character, understanding goes to make up existentially what we call Dasein’s “sight” (Sicht). With the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”, this sight is existentially (existenzial seiende); and Dasein is this sight equiprimordially in each of those basic ways of its Being which we have already noted: as the circumspection (Umsicht) of concern, as the considerateness (Rücksicht) of solicitude, and as that sight which is directed upon Being as such (Sicht auf das Sein als solches), for the sake of which any Dasein is as it is. The sight which is related primarily and on the whole to existence we call “transparency” (Durchsichiigkeit). We choose this term to designate ‘knowledge of the Self in a sense which is well understood, so as to indicate that here it is not a matter of perceptually tracking down and inspecting a point called the “Self”, but rather one of seizing upon the full disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world throughout all the constitutive items which are essential to it, and doing so with understanding. In existing, entities sight ‘themselves’ (sichtet “sich”) only in so far as they have become transparent to themselves with equal primordiality in those items which are constitutive for their existence: their Being-alongside the world and their Being-with Others. BTMR: §31

We must, to be sure, guard against a misunderstanding of the expression ‘sight’. It corresponds to the “clearedness” (Gelichtetheit) which we took as characterizing the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”. ‘Seeing’ does not mean just perceiving with the bodily eyes, but neither does it mean pure non-sensory awareness of something present-at-hand in its presence-at-hand. In giving an existential signification to “sight”, we have merely drawn upon the peculiar feature of seeing, that it lets entities which are accessible to it be encountered unconcealedly in themselves. Of course, every ‘sense’ does this within that domain of discovery which is genuinely its own. But from the beginning onwards the tradition of philosophy has been oriented primarily towards ‘seeing’ as a way of access to entities and to Being. To keep the connection with this tradition, we may formalize “sight” and “seeing” enough to obtain therewith a universal term for characterizing any access to entities or to Being, as access in general. BTMR: §31

The disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there” in understanding is itself a way of Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being. In the way in which its Being is projected both upon the “for-the-sake-of-which” and upon significance (the world), there lies the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being in general. Understanding of Being has already been taken for granted in projecting upon possibilities. In projection, Being is understood, though not ontologically conceived. An entity whose kind of Being is the essential projection of Being-in-the-world has understanding of Being, and has this as constitutive for its Being. What was posited dogmatically at an earlier stage now gets exhibited in terms of the Constitution of the Being in which Dasein as understanding is its “there”. The existential meaning of this understanding of Being cannot be satisfactorily clarified within the limits of this investigation except on the basis of the Temporal Interpretation of Being. BTMR: §31

As existentialia, states-of-mind and understanding characterize the primordial disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world. By way of having a mood, Dasein ‘sees’ possibilities, in terms of which it is. In the projective disclosure of such possibilities, it already has a mood in every case. The projection of its ownmost potentiality-for-Being has been delivered over to the Fact of its thrownness into the “there”. Has not Dasein’s Being become more enigmatical now that we have explicated the existential constitution of the Being of the “there” in the sense of thrown projection? It has indeed. We must first let the full enigmatical character of this Being emerge, even if all we can do is to come to a genuine breakdown over its ‘solution’, and to formulate anew the question about the Being of thrown projective Being-in-the-world. BTMR: §31

But in the first instance, even if we are just to bring into view the everyday kind of Being in which there is understanding with a state-of-mind, and if we are to do so in a way which is phenomenally adequate to the full disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”, we must work out these existentialia concretely. BTMR: §31

In the projecting of the understanding, entities are disclosed in their possibility. The character of the possibility corresponds, on each occasion, with the kind of Being of the entity which is understood. Entities within-the-world generally are projected upon the world – that is, upon a whole of significance, to whose reference-relations concern, as Being-in-the-world, has been tied up in advance. When entities within-the-world are discovered along with the Being of Dasein – that is, when they have come to be understood – we say that they have meaning (Sinn). But that which is understood, taken strictly, is not the meaning but the entity, or alternatively, Being. Meaning is that wherein the intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) of something maintains itself. That which can be Articulated in a disclosure by which we understand, we call “meaning”. The concept of meaning embraces the formal existential framework of what necessarily belongs to that which an understanding interpretation Articulates. Meaning is the “upon-which” of a projection in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something; it gets its structure from a fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception. In so far as understanding and interpretation make up the existential state of Being of the “there”, “meaning” must be conceived as the formal-existential framework of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which belongs to understanding. Meaning is an existentiale of Dasein, not a property attaching to entities, lying ‘behind’ them, or floating somewhere as an ‘intermediate domain’. Dasein only ‘has’ meaning, so far as the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world can be ‘filled in’ by the entities discoverable in that disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). Hence only Dasein can be meaningful (sinnvoll) or meaningless (sinnlos). That is to say, its own Being and the entities disclosed with its Being can be appropriated in understanding, or can remain relegated to non-understanding. BTMR: §32

As the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”, understanding always pertains to the whole of Being-in-the-world. In every understanding of the world, existence is understood with it, and vice versa. All interpretation, moreover, operates in the fore-structure, which we have already characterized. Any interpretation which is to contribute understanding, must already have understood what is to be interpreted. This is a fact that has always been remarked, even if only in the area of derivative ways of understanding and interpretation, such as philological Interpretation. The latter belongs within the range of scientific knowledge. Such knowledge demands the rigour of a demonstration to provide grounds for it. In a scientific proof, we may not presuppose what it is our task to provide grounds for. But if interpretation must in any case already operate in that which is understood, and if it must draw its nurture from this, how is it to bring any scientific results to maturity without moving in a circle, especially if, moreover, the understanding which is presupposed still operates within our common information about man and the world? Yet according to the most elementary rules of logic, this circle is a circulus vitiosus. If that be so, however, the business of historiological interpretation is excluded a priori from the domain of rigorous knowledge. In so far as the Fact of this circle in understanding is not eliminated, historiology must then be resigned to less rigorous possibilities of knowing. Historiology is permitted to compensate for this defect to some extent through the ‘spiritual signification’ of its ‘objects’. But even in the opinion of the historian himself, it would admittedly be more ideal if the circle could be avoided and if there remained the hope of creating some time a historiology which would be as independent of the standpoint of the observer as our knowledge of Nature is supposed to be. BTMR: §32

The fundamental existentialia which constitute the Being of the “there”, the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world, are states-of-mind and understanding. In understanding, there lurks the possibility of interpretation – that is, of appropriating what is understood. In so far as a state-of-mind is equiprimordial with an act of understanding, it maintains itself in a certain understanding. Thus there corresponds to it a certain capacity for getting interpreted. We have seen that assertion is derived from interpretation, and is an extreme case of it. In clarifying the third signification of assertion as communication (speaking forth), we were led to the concepts of “saying” and “speaking”, to which we had purposely given no attention up to that point. The fact that language now becomes our theme for the first time will indicate that this phenomenon has its roots in the existential constitution of Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). The existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse or talk. This phenomenon is one of which we have been making constant use already in our foregoing Interpretation of state-of-mind, understanding, interpretation, and assertion; but we have, as it were, kept it suppressed in our thematic analysis. BTMR: §34

Discourse is existentially equiprimordial with state-of-mind and understanding. The intelligibility of something has always been articulated, even before there is any appropriative interpretation of it. Discourse is the Articulation of intelligibility. Therefore it underlies both interpretation and assertion. That which can be Articulated in interpretation, and thus even more primordially in discourse, is what we have called “meaning”. That which gets articulated as such in discursive Articulation, we call the “totality-of-significations” (Bedeutungsganze). This can be dissolved or broken up into significations. Significations, as what has been Articulated from that which can be Articulated, always carry meaning (…sind… sinnhaft). If discourse, as the Articulation of the intelligibility of the “there”, is a primordial existentiale of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), and if disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is primarily constituted by Being-in-the-world, then discourse too must have essentially a kind of Being which is specifically worldly. The intelligibility of Being-in-the-world – an intelligibility which goes with a state-of-mind – expresses itself as discourse. The totality-of-significations of intelligibility is put into words. To significations, words accrue. But word-Things do not get supplied with significations. BTMR: §34

The way in which discourse gets expressed is languge. Language is a totality of words – a totality in which discourse has a ‘worldly’ Being of its own; and as an entity within-the-world, this totality thus becomes something which we may come across as ready-to-hand. Language can be broken up into word-Things which are present-at-hand. Discourse is existentially language, because that entity whose disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) it Articulates according to significations, has, as its kind of Being, Being-in-the-world – a Being which has been thrown and submitted to the ‘world’. BTMR: §34

Discoursing or talking is the way in which we articulate ‘significantly’ the intelligibility of Being-in-the-world. Being-with belongs to Being-in-the-world, which in every case maintains itself in some definite way of concernful Being-with-one-another. Such Being-with-one-another is discursive as assenting or refusing, as demanding or warning, as pronouncing, consulting, or interceding, as ‘making assertions’, and as talking in the way of ‘giving a talk’. Talking is talk about something. That which the discourse is about (das Worüber der Rede) does not necessarily or even for the most part serve as the theme for an assertion in which one gives something a definite character. Even a command is given about something; a wish is about something. And so is intercession. What the discourse is about is a structural item that it necessarily possesses; for discourse helps to constitute the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world, and in its own structure it is modelled upon this basic state of Dasein. What is talked about (das Beredete) in talk is always ‘talked to’ (“angeredet”) in a definite regard and within certain limits. In any talk or discourse, there is something said-in-the-talk as such (ein Geredetes as solches) – something said as such (das… Gesagte als solches) whenever one wishes, asks, or expresses oneself about something. In this “something said”, discourse communicates. BTMR: §34

Whenever something is communicated in what is said-in-the-talk, all talk about anything has at the same time the character of expressing itself (Sichaussprechens). In talking, Dasein expresses itself (spricht sich… aus) not because it has, in the first instance, been encapsulated as something ‘internal’ over against something outside, but because as Being-in-the-world it is already ‘outside’ when it understands. What is expressed is precisely this Being-outside – that is to say, the way in which one currently has a state-of-mind (mood), which we have shown to pertain to the full disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in. Being-in and its state-of-mind are made known in discourse and indicated in language by intonation, modulation, the tempo of talk, ‘the way of speaking’. In ‘poetical’ discourse, the communication of the existential possibilities of one’s state-of-mind can become an aim in itself, and this amounts to a disclosing of existence. BTMR: §34

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 (Erschlossenheit) 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. BTMR: §34

In going back to the existential structures of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world, our Interpretation has, in a way, lost sight of Dasein’s everydayness. In our analysis, we must now regain this phenomenal horizon which was our thematical starting-point. The question now arises: what are the existential characteristics of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world, so far as the latter, as something which is everyday, maintains itself in the kind of Being of the “they”? Does the “they” have a state-of-mind which is specific to it, a special way of understanding, talking, and interpreting? It becomes all the more urgent to answer these questions when we remember that proximally and for the most part Dasein is absorbed in the “they” and is mastered by it. Is not Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, thrown proximally right into the publicness of the “they”? And what does this publicness mean, other than the specific disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “they”? BTMR: §34

In the first instance what is required is that the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “they” – that is, the everyday kind of Being of discourse, sight, and interpretation – should be made visible in certain definite phenomena. In relation to these phenomena, it may not be superfluous to remark that our own Interpretation is purely ontological in its aims, and is far removed from any moralizing critique of everyday Dasein, and from the aspirations of a ‘philosophy of culture’. BTMR: §34

Discourse, which belongs to the essential state of Dasein’s Being and has a share in constituting Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), has the possibility of becoming idle talk. And when it does so, it serves not so much to keep Being-in-the-world open for us in an articulated understanding, as rather to close it off, and cover up the entities within-the-world. To do this, one need not aim to deceive. Idle talk does not have the kind of Being which belongs to consciously passing off something as something else. The fact that something has been said groundlessly, and then gets passed along in further retelling, amounts to perverting the act of disclosing (Erschliessen) into an act of closing off (Verschliessen). For what is said is always understood proximally as ‘saying’ something – that is, an uncovering something. Thus, by its very nature, idle talk is a closing-off, since to go back to the ground of what is talked about is something which it leaves undone. BTMR: §35

Idle talk, which closes things off in the way we have designated, is the kind of Being which belongs to Dasein’s understanding when that understanding has been uprooted. But idle talk does not occur as a condition which is present-at-hand in something present-at-hand: idle talk has been uprooted existentially, and this uprooting is constant. Ontologically this means that when Dasein maintains itself in idle talk, it is – as Being-in-the-world – cut off from its primary and primordially genuine relationships-of-Being towards the world, towards Dasein-with, and towards its very Being-in. Such a Dasein keeps floating unattached (in einer Schwebe); yet in so doing, it is always alongside the world, with Others, and towards itself. To be uprooted in this manner is a possibility-of-Being only for an entity whose disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is constituted by discourse as characterized by understanding and states-of-mind – that is to say, for an entity whose disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), in such an ontologically constitutive state, is its “there”, its ‘in-the-world’. Far from amounting to a “not-Being” of Dasein, this uprooting is rather Dasein’s most everyday and most stubborn ‘Reality’. BTMR: §35

In our analysis of understanding and of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there” in general, we have alluded to the lumen naturale, and designated the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in as Dasein’s “clearing”, in which it first becomes possible to have something like sight. Our conception of “sight” has been gained by looking at the basic kind of disclosure which is characteristic of Dasein – namely, understanding, in the sense of the genuine appropriation of those entities towards which Dasein can comport itself in accordance with its essential possibilities of Being. BTMR: §36

Idle talk controls even the ways in which one may be curious. It says what one “must” have read and seen. In being everywhere and nowhere, curiosity is delivered over to idle talk. These two everyday modes of Being for discourse and sight are not just present-at-hand side by side in their tendency to uproot, but either of these ways-to-be drags the other one with it. Curiosity, for which nothing is closed off, and idle talk, for which there is nothing that is not understood, provide themselves (that is, the Dasein which is in this manner (dem so seienden Dasein)) with the guarantee of a ‘life’ which, supposedly, is genuinely ‘lively’. But with this supposition a third phenomenon now shows itself, by which the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of everyday Dasein is characterized. BTMR: §36

In the ambiguity of the way things have been publicly interpreted, talking about things ahead of the game and making surmises about them curiously, gets passed off as what is really happening, while taking action and carrying something through get stamped as something merely subsequent and unimportant. Thus Dasein’s understanding in the “they” is constantly going wrong (versieht sich) in its projects, as regards the genuine possibilities of Being. Dasein is always ambiguously ‘there’ – that is to say, in that public disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-with-one-another where the loudest idle talk and the most ingenious curiosity keep ‘things moving’, where, in an everyday manner, everything (and at bottom nothing) is happening. BTMR: §37

But this kind of Being of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world dominates also Being-with-one-another as such. The Other is proximally ‘there’ in terms of what “they” have heard about him, what “they” say in their talk about him, and what “they” know about him. Into primordial Being-with-one-another, idle talk first slips itself in between. Everyone keeps his eye on the Other first and next, watching how he will comport himself and what he will say in reply. Being-with-one-another in the “they” is by no means an indifferent side-by-side-ness in which everything has been settled, but rather an intent, ambiguous watching of one another, a secret and reciprocal listening-in. Under the mask of “for-one-another”, an “against-one-another” is in play. BTMR: §37

Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity characterize the way in which, in an everyday manner, Dasein is its ‘there’ – the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Being-in-the-world. As definite existential characteristics, these are not present-at-hand in Dasein, but help to make up its Being. In these, and in the way they are interconnected in their Being, there is revealed a basic kind of Being which belongs to everydayness; we call this the “falling” of Dasein. BTMR: §38

Since the way in which things have been publicly interpreted has already become a temptation to itself in this manner, it holds Dasein fast in its fallenness. Idle talk and ambiguity, having seen everything, having understood everything, develop the supposition that Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), which is so available and so prevalent, can guarantee to Dasein that all the possibilities of its Being will be secure, genuine, and full. Through the self-certainty and decidedness of the “they”, it gets spread abroad increasingly that there is no need of authentic understanding or the state-of-mind that goes with it. The supposition of the “they” that one is leading and sustaining a full and genuine ‘life’, brings Dasein a tranquillity, for which everything is ‘in the best of order’ and all doors are open. Falling Being-in-the-world, which tempts itself, is at the same time tranquillizing (beruhigend). BTMR: §38

The leading question of this chapter has been about the Being of the “there”. Our theme has been the ontological Constitution of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which essentially belongs to Dasein. The Being of that disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is constituted by states-of-mind, understanding, and discourse. Its everyday kind of Being is characterized by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. These show us the movement of falling, with temptation, tranquillizing, alienation, and entanglement as its essential characteristics. BTMR: §38

An understanding of Being belongs to Dasein’s ontological structure. As something that i s (Seiend), it is disclosed to itself in its Being. The kind of Being which belongs to this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is constituted by state-of-mind and understanding. Is there in Dasein an understanding state-of-mind in which Dasein has been disclosed to itself in some distinctive way? BTMR: §39

Entities are, quite independently of the experience by which they are disclosed, the acquaintance in which they are discovered, and the grasping in which their nature is ascertained. But Being ‘is’ only in the understanding of those entities to whose Being something like an understanding of Being belongs. Hence Being can be something unconceptualized, but it never completely fails to be understood. In ontological problematics Being and truth have, from time immemorial, been brought together if not entirely identified. This is evidence that there is a necessary connection between Being and understanding, even if it may perhaps be hidden in its primordial grounds. If we are to give an adequate preparation for the question of Being, the phenomenon of truth must be ontologically clarified. This will be accomplished in the first instance on the basis of what we have gained in our foregoing Interpretation, in connection with the phenomena of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) and discoveredness, interpretation and assertion. BTMR: §39

Thus our preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein will conclude with the following themes: the basic state-of-mind of anxiety as a distinctive way in which Dasein is disclosed (Section 40); Dasein’s Being as care (Section 41); the confirmation of the existential Interpretation of Dasein as care in terms of Dasein’s pre-ontological way of interpreting itself (Section 42); Dasein, worldhood, and Reality (Section 43); Dasein, disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), and truth (Section 44). BTMR: §39

One of Dasein’s possibilities of Being is to give us ontical ‘information’ about Dasein itself as an entity. Such information is possible only in that disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which belongs to Dasein and which is grounded in state-of-mind and understanding. How far is anxiety a state-of-mind which is distinctive? How is it that in anxiety Dasein gets brought before itself through its own Being, so that we can define phenomenologically the character of the entity disclosed in anxiety, and define it as such in its Being, or make adequate preparations for doing so? BTMR: §40

From an existentiell point of view, the authenticity of Being-one’s-Self has of course been closed off and thrust aside in falling; but to be thus closed off is merely the privation of a disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which manifests itself phenomenally in the fact that Dasein’s fleeing is a fleeing in the face of itself. That in the face of which Dasein flees, is precisely what Dasein comes up ‘behind’. Only to the extent that Dasein has been brought before itself in an ontologically essential manner through whatever disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) belongs to it, can it flee in the face of that in the face of which it flees. To be sure, that in the face of which it flees is not grasped in thus turning away (Abkehr) in falling; nor is it experienced even in turning thither (Hinkehr). Rather, in turning away from it, it is disclosed ‘there’. This existentiell-ontical turning-away, by reason of its character as a disclosure, makes it phenomenally possible to grasp existential-ontologically that in the face of which Dasein flees, and to grasp it as such. Within the ontical ‘away-from’ which such turning-away implies, that in the face of which Dasein flees can be understood and conceptualized by ‘turning thither’ in a way which is phenomenologically Interpretative. BTMR: §40

Accordingly, when something threatening brings itself close, anxiety does not ‘see’ any definite ‘here’ or ‘yonder’ from which it comes. That in the face of which one has anxiety is characterized by the fact that what threatens is nowhere. Anxiety ‘does not know’ what that in the face of which it is anxious is. ‘Nowhere’, however, does not signify nothing: this is where any region lies, and there too lies any disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world for essentially spatial Being-in. Therefore that which threatens cannot bring itself close from a definite direction within what is close by; it is already ‘there’, and yet nowhere; it is so close that it is oppressive and stifles one’s breath, and yet it is nowhere. BTMR: §40

That very potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which Dasein is, has Being-in-the-world as its kind of Being. Thus it implies ontologically a relation to entities within-the-world. Care is always concern and solicitude, even if only privatively. In willing, an entity which is understood – that is, one which has been projected upon its possibility – gets seized upon, either as something with which one may concern oneself, or as something which is to be brought into its Being through solicitude. Hence, to any willing there belongs something willed, which has already made itself definite in terms of a “for-the-sake-of-which”. If willing is to be possible ontologically, the following items are constitutive for it: the prior disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “for-the-sake-of-which” in general (Being-ahead-of-itself); the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of something with which one can concern oneself (the world as the “wherein” of Being-already); Dasein’s projection of itself understandingly upon a potentiality-for-Being towards a possibility of the entity ‘willed’. In the phenomenon of willing, the underlying totality of care shows through. BTMR: §41

In our pursuit of the tasks of a preparatory existential analytic of Dasein, there emerged an Interpretation of understanding, meaning, and interpretation. Our analysis of Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) showed further that, with this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), Dasein, in its basic state of Being-in-the-world, has been revealed equiprimordially with regard to the world, Being-in, and the Self. Furthermore, in the factical disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world, entities within-the-world are discovered too. This implies that the Being of these entities is always understood in a certain manner, even if it is not conceived in a way which is appropriately ontological. To be sure, the pre-ontological understanding of Being embraces all entities which are essentially disclosed in Dasein; but the understanding of Being has not yet Articulated itself in a way which corresponds to the various modes of Being. BTMR: §43

The question of whether there is a world at all and whether its Being can be proved, makes no sense if it is raised by Dasein as Being-in-the-world; and who else would raise it? Furthermore, it is encumbered with a double signification. The world as the “wherein” (das Worin) of Being-in, and the ‘world’ as entities within-the-world (that in which (das Wobei) one is concernfully absorbed) either have been confused or are not distinguished at all. But the world is disclosed essentially along with the Being of Dasein; with the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world, the ‘world’ has in each case been discovered too. Of course entities within-the-world in the sense of the Real as merely present-at-hand, are the very things that can remain concealed. But even the Real can be discovered only on the basis of a world which has already been disclosed. And only on this basis can anything Real still remain hidden. The question of the ‘Reality’ of the ‘external world’ gets raised without any previous clarification of the phenomenon of the world as such. Factically, the ‘problem of the external world’ is constantly oriented with regard to entities within-the-world (Things and Objects). So these discussions drift along into a problematic which it is almost impossible to disentangle ontologically. BTMR: §43

What we have already said about the ontological indefiniteness of Dilthey’s foundations holds in principle for this theory too. Nor can the fundamental ontological analysis of ‘life’ be slipped in afterwards as a substructure. Such a fundamental analysis provides the supporting conditions for the analysis of Reality – for the entire explication of the character of resisting and its phenomenal presuppositions. Resistance is encountered in a not-coming-through, and it is encountered as a hindrance to willing to come through. With such willing, however, something must already have been disclosed which one’s drive and one’s will are out for. But what they are out for is ontically indefinite, and this indefiniteness must not be overlooked ontologically or taken as if it were nothing. When Being-out-for-something comes up against resistance, and can do nothing but ‘come up against it’, it is itself already alongside a totality of involvements. But the fact that this totality has been discovered is grounded in the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the referential totality of significance. The experiencing of resistance – that is, the discovery of what is resistant to one’s endeavours – is possible ontologically only by reason of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world. The character of resisting is one that belongs to entities with-the-world. Factically, experiences of resistance determine only the extent and the direction in which entities encountered within-the-world are discovered. The summation of such experiences does not introduce the disclosure of the world for the first time, but presupposes it. The ‘against’ and the ‘counter to’ as ontological possibilities, are supported by disclosed Being-in-the-world. BTMR: §43

Our earlier analysis of the worldhood of the world and of entities within-the-world has shown, however, that the uncoveredness of entities within-the-world is grounded in the world’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). But disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is that basic character of Dasein according to which it is its “there”. Disclosedness is constituted by state-of-mind, understanding, and discourse, and pertains equiprimordially to the world, to Being-in, and to the Self. In its very structure, care is ahead of itself – Being already in a world – as Being alongside entities within-the-world; and in this structure the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein lies hidden. With and through it is uncoveredness; hence only with Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is the most primordial phenomenon of truth attained. What we have pointed out earlier with regard to the existential Constitution of the “there” and in relation to the everyday Being of the “there”, pertains to the most primordial phenomenon of truth, nothing less. In so far as Dasein is its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) essentially, and discloses and uncovers as something disclosed to this extent it is essentially ‘true’. Dasein is ‘in the truth’. This assertion has meaning ontologically. It does not purport to say that ontically Dasein is introduced ‘to all the truth’ either always or just in every case, but rather that the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of its ownmost Being belongs to its existential constitution. BTMR: §44

To Dasein’s state of Being, disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) in general essentially belongs. It embraces the whole of that structure-of-Being which has become explicit through the phenomenon of care. To care belongs not only Being-in-the-world but also Being alongside entities within-the-world. The uncoveredness of such entities is equiprimordial with the Being of Dasein and its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). BTMR: §44

To Dasein’s state of Being belongs thrownness; indeed it is constitutive for Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). In thrownness is revealed that in each case Dasein, as m y Dasein and this Dasein, is already in a definite world and alongside a definite range of definite entities within-the-world. Disclosedness is essentially factical. BTMR: §44

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 disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) shows the phenomenon of the most primordial truth in the mode of authenticity. The most primordial, and indeed the most authentic, disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) 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

The upshot of our existential-ontological Interpretation of the phenomenon of truth is that truth, in the most primordial sense, is Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), to which the uncoveredness of entities within-the-world belongs; and that Dasein is equiprimordially both in the truth and in untruth. BTMR: §44

Within the horizon of the traditional Interpretation of the phenomenon of truth, our insight into these principles will not be complete until it can be shown: that truth, understood as agreement, originates from disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) by way of definite modification; that the kind of Being which belongs to disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) itself is such that its derivative modification first comes into view and leads the way for the theoretical explication of the structure of truth. BTMR: §44

Assertion and its structure (namely, the apophantical “as”) are founded upon interpretation and its structure (viz, the hermeneutical “as”) and also upon understanding – upon Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). Truth, however, is regarded as a distinctive character of assertion as so derived. Thus the roots of the truth of assertion reach back to the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the understanding.(xl) But over and above these indications of how the truth of assertion has originated, the phenomenon of agreement must now be exhibited explicitly in its derivative character. BTMR: §44

Our Being alongside entities within-the-world is concern, and this is Being which uncovers. To Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), however, discourse belongs essentially.(xli) Dasein expresses itself (spricht sich aus): it expresses itself as a Being-towards entities – a Being-towards which uncovers. And in assertion it expresses itself as such about entities which have been uncovered. Assertion communicates entities in the “how” of their uncoveredness. When Dasein is aware of the communication, it brings itself in its awareness into an uncovering Being-towards the entities discussed. The assertion which is expressed is about something, and in what it is about (in ihrem Worüber) it contains the uncoveredness of these entities. This uncoveredness is preserved in what is expressed. What is expressed becomes, as it were, something ready-to-hand within-the-world which can be taken up and spoken again. Because the uncoveredness has been preserved, that which is expressed (which thus is ready-to-hand) has in itself a relation to any entities about which it is an assertion. Any uncoveredness is an uncoveredness of something. Even when Dasein speaks over again what someone else has said, it comes into a Being-towards the very entities which have been discussed. But it has been exempted from having to uncover them again, primordially, and it holds that it has been thus exempted. BTMR: §44

Though it is founded upon Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), the existential phenomenon of uncoveredness becomes a property which is present-at-hand but in which there still lurks a relational character; and as such a property, it gets broken asunder into a relationship which is present-at-hand. Truth as disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) and as a Being-towards uncovered entities – a Being which itself uncovers – has become truth as agreement between things which are present-at-hand within-the-world. And thus we have pointed out the ontologically derivative character of the traditional conception of truth. BTMR: §44

Not only is it wrong to invoke Aristotle for the thesis that the genuine ‘locus’ of truth lies in the judgment; even in its content this thesis fails to recognize the structure of truth. Assertion is not the primary ‘locus’ of truth. On the contrary, whether as a mode in which uncoveredness is appropriated or as a way of Being-in-the-world, assertion is grounded in Dasein’s uncovering, or rather in its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). The most primordial ‘truth’ is the ‘locus’ of assertion; it is the ontological condition for the possibility that assertions can be either true or false – that they may uncover or cover things up. BTMR: §44

Dasein, as constituted by disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), is essentially in the truth. Disclosedness is a kind of Being which is essential to Dasein. ‘There is’ truth only in so far as Dasein is and so long as Dasein i s. Entities are uncovered only when Dasein is; and only as long as Dasein is, are they disclosed. Newton’s laws, the principle of contradiction, any truth whatever – these are true only as long as Dasein is. Before there was any Dasein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after Dasein is no more. For in such a case truth as disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), uncovering, and uncoveredness, cannot be. Before Newton’s laws were discovered, they were not ‘true’; it does not follow that they were false, or even that they would become false if ontically no discoveredness were any longer possible. Just as little does this ‘restriction’ imply that the Being-true of ‘truths’ has in any way been diminished. BTMR: §44

What does it mean to ‘presuppose’? It is to understand something as the ground for the Being of some other entity. Such understanding of an entity in its interconnections of Being, is possible only on the ground of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) – that is, on the ground of Dasein’s Being something which uncovers. Thus to presuppose ‘truth’ means to understand it as something for the sake of which Dasein i s. But Dasein is already ahead of itself in each case; this is implied in its state-of-Being as care. It is an entity for which, in its Being, its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is an issue. To Dasein’s Being and its potentiality-for-Being as Being-in-the-world, disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) and uncovering belong essentially. To Dasein its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world is an issue, and this includes concerning itself with entities within-the-world and uncovering them circumspectively. In Dasein’s state-of-Being as care, in Being-ahead-of-itself, lies the most primordial ‘presupposing’. Because this presupposing of itself belongs to Dasein’s Being, ‘we’ must also presuppose ‘ourselves’ as having the attribute of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). There are also entities with a character other than that of Dasein, but the ‘presupposing’ which lies in Dasein’s Being does not relate itself to these; it relates itself solely to Dasein itself. The truth which has been presupposed, or the ‘there is’ by which its Being is to be defined, has that kind of Being – or meaning of Being – which belongs to Dasein itself. We must ‘make’ the presupposition of truth because it is one that has been ‘made’ already with the Being of the ‘we’. BTMR: §44

We must presuppose truth. Dasein itself, as in each case m y Dasein and this Dasein, must be; and in the same way the truth, as Daseins disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), must be. This belongs to Dasein’s essential thrownness into the world. Has Dasein as itself ever decided freely whether it wants to come into ‘Dasein’ or not, and will it ever be able to make such a decision? ‘In itself’ it is quite incomprehensible why entities are to be uncovered, why truth and Dasein must be. The usual refutation of that scepticism which denies either the Being of ‘truth’ or its cognizability, stops half way. What it shows, as a formal argument, is simply that if anything gets judged, truth has been presupposed. This suggests that ‘truth’ belongs to assertion – that pointing something out is, by its very meaning, an uncovering. But when one says this, one has to clarify why that in which there lies the ontological ground for this necessary connection between assertion and truth as regards their Being, must be as it is. The kind of Being which belongs to truth is likewise left completely obscure, and so is the meaning of presupposing, and that of its ontological foundation in Dasein itself. Moreover, one here fails to recognize that even when nobody judges, truth already gets presupposed in so far as Dasein is at all. BTMR: §44

The Being of truth is connected primordially with Dasein. And only because Dasein is as constituted by disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) (that is, by understanding), can anything like Being be understood; only so is it possible to understand Being. BTMR: §44

WHAT have we gained by our preparatory analysis of Dasein, and what are we seeking? In Being-in-the-world, whose essential structures centre in disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), we have found the basic state of the entity we have taken as our theme. The totality of Being-in-the-world as a structural whole has revealed itself as care. In care the Being of Dasein is included. When we came to analyse this Being, we took as our clue existence, which, in anticipation, we had designated as the essence of Dasein. This term “existence” formally indicates that Dasein is as an understanding potentiality-for-Being, which, in its Being, makes an issue of that Being itself. In every case, I myself am the entity which is in such a manner (dergestalt seiend). By working out the phenomenon of care, we have given ourselves an insight into the concrete constitution of existence – that is, an insight into its equiprimordial connection with Dasein’s facticity and its falling. BTMR: §45

This ownmost possibility, however, non-relational and not to be outstripped, is not one which Dasein procures for itself subsequently and occasionally in the course of its Being. On the contrary, if Dasein exists, it has already been thrown into this possibility. Dasein does not, proximally and for the most part, have any explicit or even any theoretical knowledge of the fact that it has been delivered over to its death, and that death thus belongs to Being-in-the-world. Thrownness into death reveals itself to Dasein in a more primordial and impressive manner in that state-of-mind which we have called “anxiety”. Anxiety in the face of death is anxiety ‘in the face of’ that potentiality-for-Being which is one’s ownmost, non-relational, and not to be outstripped. That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world itself. That about which one has this anxiety is simply Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being. Anxiety in the face of death must not be confused with fear in the face of one’s demise. This anxiety is not an accidental or random mood of ‘weakness’ in some individual; but, as a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, it amounts to the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end. Thus the existential conception of “dying” is made clear as thrown Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped. Precision is gained by distinguishing this from pure disappearance, and also from merely perishing, and finally from the ‘Experiencing’ of a demise. BTMR: §50

To be certain of an entity means to hold it for true as something true. But “truth” signifies the uncoveredness of some entity, and all uncoveredness is grounded ontologically in the most primordial truth, the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein. As an entity which is both disclosed and disclosing, and one which uncovers, Dasein is essentially ‘in the truth’. But certainly is grounded in the truth, or belongs to it equiprimordially. The expression ‘certainty’, like the term ‘truth’, has a double signification. Primordially “truth” means the same as “Being-disclosive”, as a way in which Dasein behaves. From this comes the derivative signification: “the uncoveredness of entities”. Correspondingly, “certainty”, in its primordial signification, is tantamount to “Being-certain”, as a kind of Being which belongs to Dasein. However, in a derivative signification, any entity of which Dasein can be certain will also get called something ‘certain’. BTMR: §52

Dasein is constituted by disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) – that is, by an understanding with a state-of-mind. Authentic Being-towards-death can not evade its own-most non-relational possibility, or cover up this possibility by thus fleeing from it, or give a new explanation for it to accord with the common sense of the “they”. In our existential projection of an authentic Being-towards-death, therefore, we must set forth those items in such a Being which are constitutive for it as an understanding of death – and as such an understanding in the sense of Being towards this possibility without either fleeing it or covering it up. BTMR: §53

The ownmost, non-relational possibility, which is not to be outstripped, is certain. The way to be certain of it is determined by the kind of truth which corresponds to it (disclosedness (Erschlossenheit)). The certain possibility of death, however, discloses Dasein as a possibility, but does so only in such a way that, in anticipating this possibility, Dasein makes this possibility possible for itself as its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The possibility is disclosed because it is made possible in anticipation. To maintain oneself in this truth – that is, to be certain of what has been disclosed – demands all the more that one should anticipate. We cannot compute the certainty of death by ascertaining how many cases of death we encounter. This certainty is by no means of the kind which maintains itself in the truth of the present-at-hand. When something present-at-hand has been uncovered, it is encountered most purely if we just look at the entity and let it be encountered in itself. Dasein must first have lost itself in the factual circumstances (Sachverhalte) (this can be one of care’s own tasks and possibilities) if it is to obtain the pure objectivity – that is to say, the indifference – of apodictic evidence. If Being-certain in relation to death does not have this character, this does not mean that it is of a lower grade, but that it does not belong at all to the graded order of the kinds of evidence we can have about the present-at-hand. BTMR: §53

Conscience gives us ‘something’ to understand; it discloses. By characterizing this phenomenon formally in this way, we find ourselves enjoined to take it back into the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein. This disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), as a basic state of that entity which we ourselves are, is constituted by state-of-mind, understanding, falling, and discourse. If we analyse conscience more penetratingly, it is revealed as a call (Ruf). Calling is a mode of discourse. The call of conscience has the character of an appeal to Dasein by calling it to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self; and this is done by way of summoning it to its ownmost Being-guilty. BTMR: §54

In the phenomenon of conscience we find, without further differentiation, that in some way it gives us something to understand. Our analysis of it takes its departure from this finding. Conscience discloses, and thus belongs within the range of those existential phenomena which constitute the Being of the “there” as disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). We have analysed the most universal structures of state-of-mind, understanding, discourse and falling. If we now bring conscience into this phenomenal context, this is not a matter of applying these structures schematically to a special ‘case’ of Dasein’s disclosure. On the contrary, our Interpretation of conscience not only will carry further our earlier analysis of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”, but it will also grasp it more primordially with regard to Dasein’s authentic Being. BTMR: §55

Through disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), that entity which we call “Dasein” is in the possibility of being its “there”. With its world, it is there for itself, and indeed – proximally and for the most part – in such a way that it has disclosed to itself its potentiality-for-Being in terms of the ‘world’ of its concern. Dasein exists as a potentiality-for-Being which has, in each case, already abandoned itself to definite possibilities. And it has abandoned itself to these possibilities because it is an entity which has been thrown, and an entity whose thrownness gets disclosed more or less plainly and impressively by its having a mood. To any state-of-mind or mood, understanding belongs equiprimordially. In this way Dasein ‘knows’ what it is itself capable of (woran es mit ihm selbst ist), inasmuch as it has either projected itself upon possibilities of its own or has been so absorbed in the “they” that it has let such possibilities be presented to it by the way in which the “they” has publicly interpreted things. The presenting of these possibilities, however, is made possible existentially through the fact that Dasein, as a Being-with which understands, can listen to Others. BTMR: §55

But by this characterization of the conscience we have only traced the phenomenal horizon for analysing its existential structure. We are not comparing this phenomenon with a call; we are understanding it as a kind of discourse – in terms of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) that is constitutive for Dasein. In considering this we have from the beginning avoided the first route which offers itself for an Interpretation of conscience – that of tracing it back to some psychical faculty such as understanding, will, or feeling, or of explaining it as some sort of mixture of these. When one is confronted with such a phenomenon as conscience, one is struck by the ontologico-anthropological inadequacy of a free-floating framework of psychical faculties or personal actions all duly classified. BTMR: §55

In the call of conscience, what is it that is talked about – in other words, to what is the appeal made? Manifestly Dasein itself. This answer is as incontestable as it is indefinite. If the call has so vague a target, then it might at most remain an occasion for Dasein to pay attention to itself. But it is essential to Dasein that along with the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of its world it has been disclosed to itself, so that it always understands itself. The call reaches Dasein in this understanding of itself which it always has, and which is concernful in an everyday, average manner. The call reaches the they-self of concernful Being with Others. BTMR: §56

That it is factically, may be obscure and hidden as regards the “why” of it; but the “that-it-is” has itself been disclosed to Dasein. The thrownness of this entity belongs to the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the ‘there’ and reveals itself constantly in its current state-of-mind. This state-of-mind brings Dasein, more or less explicitly and authentically, face to face with the fact ‘that it is, and that it has to be something with a potentiality-for-Being as the entity which it is’. For the most part, however, its mood is such that its thrownness gets closed off. In the face of its thrownness Dasein flees to the relief which comes with the supposed freedom of the they-self. This fleeing has been described as a fleeing in the face of the uncanniness which is basically determinative for individualized Being-in-the-world. Uncanniness reveals itself authentically in the basic state-of-mind of anxiety; and, as the most elemental way in which thrown Dasein is disclosed, it puts Dasein’s Being-in-the-world face to face with the “nothing” of the world; in the face of this “nothing”, Dasein is anxious with anxiety about its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. What if this Dasein, which finds itself (sich befindet) in the very depths of its uncanniness, should be the caller of the call of conscience? BTMR: §57

Wanting to have a conscience is, as an understanding of oneself in one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being, a way in which Dasein has been disclosed. This disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is constituted by discourse and state-of-mind, as well as by understanding. To understand in an existentiell manner implies projecting oneself in each case upon one’s ownmost factical possibility of having the potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. But the potentiality-for-Being is understood only by existing in this possibility. BTMR: §60

The third essential item in disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is discourse. The call itself is a primordial kind of discourse for Dasein; but there is no corresponding counter-discourse in which, let us say, one talks about what the conscience has said, and pleads one’s cause. In hearing the call understandingly, one denies oneself any counter-discourse, not because one has been assailed by some ‘obscure power’, which suppresses one’s hearing, but because this hearing has appropriated the content of the call unconcealedly. In the call one’s constant Being-guilty is represented, and in this way the Self is brought back from the loud idle talk which goes with the common sense of the “they”. Thus the mode of Articulative discourse which belongs to wanting to have a conscience, is one of reticence. Keeping silent has been characterized as an essential possibility of discourse. Anyone who keeps silent when he wants to give us to understand something, must ‘have something to say’. In the appeal Dasein gives itself to understand its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. This calling is therefore a keeping-silent. The discourse of the conscience never comes to utterance. Only in keeping silent does the conscience call; that is to say, the call comes from the soundlessness of uncanniness, and the Dasein which it summons is called back into the stillness of itself, and called back as something that is to become still. Only in reticence, therefore, is this silent discourse understood appropriately in wanting to have a conscience. It takes the words away from the common-sense idle talk of the “they”. BTMR: §60

The disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein in wanting to have a conscience, is thus constituted by anxiety as state-of-mind, by understanding as a projection of oneself upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, and by discourse as reticence. This distinctive and authentic disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), which is attested in Dasein itself by its conscience – this reticent self-projection upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, in which one is ready for anxiety – we call “resoluteness”. BTMR: §60

Resoluteness is a distinctive mode of Dasein’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). In an earlier passage, however, we have Interpreted disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) existentially as the primordial truth. Such truth is primarily not a quality of ‘judgment’ nor of any definite way of behaving, but something essentially constitutive for Being-in-the-world as such. Truth must be conceived as a fundamental existentiale. In our ontological clarification of the proposition that ‘Dasein is in the truth’ we have called attention to the primordial disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of this entity as the truth of existence; and for the delimitation of its character we have referred to the analysis of Dasein’s authenticity. BTMR: §60

Whenever the world is disclosed, entities within-the-world have been discovered already. The discoveredness of the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand is based on the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world for if the current totality of involvements is to be freed, this requires that significance be understood beforehand. In understanding significance, concernful Dasein submits itself circumspectively to what it encounters as ready-to-hand. Any discovering of a totality of involvements goes back to a “for-the-sake-of-which”; and on the understanding of such a “for-the-sake-of-which” is based in turn the understanding of significance as the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the current world. In seeking shelter, sustenance, livelihood, we do so “for the sake of” constant possibilities of Dasein which are very close to it; upon these the entity for which its own Being is an issue, has already projected itself. Thrown into its ‘there’, every Dasein has been factically submitted to a definite ‘world’ – its ‘world’. At the same time those factical projections which are closest to it, have been guided by its concernful lostness in the “they”. To this lostness, one’s own Dasein can appeal, and this appeal can be understood in the way of resoluteness. But in that case this authentic disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) modifies with equal primordiality both the way in which the ‘world’ is discovered (and this is founded upon that disclosedness (Erschlossenheit)) and the way in which the Dasein-with of Others is disclosed. The ‘world’ which is ready-to-hand does not become another one ‘in its content’, nor does the circle of Others get exchanged for a new one; but both one’s Being towards the ready-to-hand understandingly and concernfully, and one’s solicitous Being with Others, are now given a definite character in terms of their ownmost potentiality-for-Being-their-Selves. BTMR: §60

Resoluteness, as authentic Being-one’s-Self, does not detach Dasein from its world, nor does it isolate it so that it becomes a free-floating “I”. And how should it, when resoluteness as authentic disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), is authentically nothing else than Being-in-the-world? Resoluteness brings the Self right into its current concernful Being-alongside what is ready-to-hand, and pushes it into solicitous Being with Others. BTMR: §60

In the term “Situation” (“situation” – ‘to be in a situation’) there is an overtone of a signification that is spatial. We shall not try to eliminate this from the existential conception, for such an overtone is also implied in the ‘there’ of Dasein. Being-in-the-world has a spatiality of its own, characterized by the phenomena of de-severance and directionality. Dasein ‘makes room’ in so far as it factically exists. But spatiality of the kind which belongs to Dasein, and on the basis of which existence always determines its ‘location’, is grounded in the state of Being-in-the-world, for which disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is primarily constitutive. Just as the spatiality of the “there” is grounded in disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), the Situation has its foundations in resoluteness. The Situation is the “there” which is disclosed in resoluteness – the “there” as which the existent entity is there. It is not a framework present-at-hand in which Dasein occurs, or into which it might even just bring itself. Far removed from any present-at-hand mixture of circumstances and accidents which we encounter, the Situation is only through resoluteness and in it. The current factical involvement-character of the circumstances discloses itself to the Self only when that involvement-character is such that one has resolved upon the “there” as which that Self, in existing, has to be. When what we call “accidents” befall from the with-world and the environment, they can be-fall only resoluteness. BTMR: §60

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 BeinBeing in general, is the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) 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

Our next task is to go beyond the temporal analysis of Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole and a general characterization of the temporality of care so that Dasein’s inauthenticity may be made visible in its own specific temporality. Temporality first showed itself in anticipatory resoluteness. This is the authentic mode of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), though disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) maintains itself for the most part in the inauthenticity with which the “they” fallingly interprets itself. In characterizing the temporality of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) in general, we are led to the temporal understanding of that concernful Being-in-the-world which lies closest to us, and therefore of the average undifferentiatedness of Dasein from which the existential analytic first took its start. We have called Dasein’s average kind of Being, in which it maintains itself proximally and for the most part, “everydayness”. By repeating the earlier analysis, we must reveal everydayness in its temporal meaning, so that the problematic included in temporality may come to light, and the seemingly ‘obvious’ character of the preparatory analyses may completely disappear. Indeed, confirmation is to be found for temporality in all the essential structures of Dasein’s basic constitution. Yet this will not lead to running through our analyses again superficially and schematically in the same sequence of presentation. The course of our temporal analysis is directed otherwise: it is to make plainer the interconnection of our earlier considerations and to do away with whatever is accidental and seemingly arbitrary. Beyond these necessities of method, however, the phenomenon itself gives us motives which compel us to articulate our analysis in a different way when we repeat it. BTMR: §66

If we are to bring back into our phenomenological purview the phenomena at which we have arrived in our preparatory analysis, an allusion to the stages through which we have passed must be sufficient. Our definition of “care” emerged from our analysis of the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which constitutes the Being of the ‘there’. The clarification of this phenomenon signified that we must give a provisional Interpretation of Being-in-the-world – the basic state of Dasein. Our investigation set out to describe Being-in-the-world, so that from the beginning we could secure an adequate phenomenological horizon as opposed to those inappropriate and mostly inexplicit ways in which the nature of Dasein has been determined beforehand ontologically. Being-in-the-world was first characterized with regard to the phenomenon of the world. And in our explication this was done by characterizing ontico-ontologically what is ready-to-hand and present-at-hand ‘in’ the environment, and then bringing within-the-world-ness into relief, so that by this the phenomenon of worldhood in general could be made visible. But understanding belongs essentially to disclosedness (Erschlossenheit); and the structure of worldhood, significance, turned out to be bound up with that upon which understanding projects itself – namely that potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which Dasein exists. BTMR: §67

The temporal Interpretation of everyday Dasein must start with those structures in which disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) constitutes itself: understanding, state-of-mind, falling, and discourse. The modes in which temporality temporalizes are to be laid bare with regard to these phenomena, and will give us a basis for defining the temporality of Being-in-the-world. This leads us back to the phenomenon of the world, and permits us to delimit the specifically temporal problematic of worldhood. This must be confirmed by characterizing that kind of Being-in-the-world which in an everyday manner is closest to us – circumspective, falling concern. The temporality of this concern makes it possible for circumspection to be modified into a perceiving which looks at things, and the theoretical cognition which is grounded in such perceiving. The temporality of Being-in-the-world thus emerges, and it turns out, at the same time, to be the foundation for that spatiality which is specific for Dasein. We must also show the temporal Constitution of deseverance and directionality. Taken as a whole, these analyses will reveal a possibility for the temporalizing of temporality in which Dasein’s inauthenticity is ontologically grounded; and they will lead us face to face with the question of how the temporal character of everydayness – the temporal meaning of the phrase ‘proximally and for the most part’, which we have been using constantly hitherto – is to be understood. By fixing upon this problem we shall have made it plain that the clarification of this phenomenon which we have so far attained is insufficient, and we shall have shown the extent of this insufficiency. BTMR: §67

The present chapter is thus divided up as follows: the temporality of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) in general (Section 68); the temporality of Being-in-the-world and the problem of transcendence (Section 69); the temporality of the spatiality characteristic of Dasein (Section 70); the temporal meaning of Dasein’s everydayness (Section 71). BTMR: §67

Resoluteness, which we have characterized with regard to its temporal meaning, represents an authentic disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein – a disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) which constitutes an entity of such a kind that in existing, it can be its very ‘there’. Care has been characterized with regard to its temporal meaning, but only in its basic features. To exhibit its concrete temporal Constitution, means to give a temporal Interpretation of the items of its structure, taking them each singly: understanding, state-of-mind, falling, and discourse. Every understanding has its mood. Every state-of-mind is one in which one understands. The understanding which one has in such a state-of-mind has the character of falling. The understanding which has its mood attuned in falling, Articulates itself with relation to its intelligibility in discourse. The current temporal Constitution of these phenomena leads back in each case to that one kind of temporality which serves as such to guarantee the possibility that understanding, state-of-mind, falling, and discourse, are united in their structure. BTMR: §68

In understanding, one’s own potentiality-for-Being is disclosed in such a way that one’s Dasein always knows understandingly what it is capable of. It ‘knows’ this, however, not by having discovered some fact, but by maintaining itself in an existentiell possibility. The kind of ignorance which corresponds to this, does not consist in an absence or cessation of understanding, but must be regarded as a deficient mode of the projectedness of one’s potentiality-for-Being. Existence can be questionable. If it is to be possible for something ‘to be in question’ (das “In-Frage-stehcn”), a disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is needed. When one understands oneself projectively in an existentiell possibility, the future underlies this understanding, and it does so as a coming-towards-oneself out of that current possibility as which one’s Dasein exists. The future makes ontologically possible an entity which is in such a way that it exists understandingly in its potentiality-for-Being. Projection is basically futural; it does not primarily grasp the projected possibility thematically just by having it in view, but it throws itself into it as a possibility. In each case Dasein is understandingly in the way that it can be. Resoluteness has turned out to be a kind of existing which is primordial and authentic. Proximally and for the most part, to be sure, Dasein remains irresolute; that is to say, it remains closed off in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, to which it brings itself only when it has been individualized. This implies that temporality does not temporalize itself constantly out of the authentic future. This inconstancy, however, does not mean that temporality sometimes lacks a future, but rather that the temporalizing of the future takes various forms. BTMR: §68

When the “there” has been completely disclosed, its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) is constituted by understanding, state-of-mind, and falling; and this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) becomes Articulated by discourse. Thus discourse does not temporalize itself primarily in any definite ecstasis. Factically, however, discourse expresses itself for the most part in language, and speaks proximally in the way of addressing itself to the ‘environment’ by talking about things concernfully; because of this, making-present has, of course, a privileged constitutive function. BTMR: §68

Both the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there” and Dasein’s basic existentiell possibilities, authenticity and inauthenticity, are founded upon temporality. But disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) always pertains with equal primordiality to the entirety of Being-in-the-world – to Being-in as well as to the world. So if we orient ourselves by the temporal Constitution of disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), the ontological condition for the possibility that there can be entities which exist as Being-in-the-world, must be something that may also be exhibited. BTMR: §68

The ecstatical unity of temporality – that is, the unity of the ‘outside-of-itself’ in the raptures of the future, of what has been, and of the Present – is the condition for the possibility that there can be an entity which exists as its “there”. The entity which bears the title “Being-there” is one that has been ‘cleared’. The light which constitutes this clearedness (Gelichtetheit) of Dasein, is not something ontically present-at-hand as a power or source for a radiant brightness occurring in the entity on occasion. That by which this entity is essentially cleared – in other words, that which makes it both ‘open’ for itself and ‘bright’ for itself – is what we have defined as “care”, in advance of any ‘temporal’ Interpretation. In care is grounded the full disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”. Only by this clearedness is any illuminating or illumining, any awareness, ‘seeing’, or having of something, made possible. We understand the light of this clearedness only if we are not seeking some power implanted in us and present-at-hand, but are interrogating the whole constitution of Dasein’s-Being – namely, care – and are interrogating it as to the unitary basis for its existential possibility. Ecstatical temporality clears the “there” primordially. It is what primarily regulates the possible unity of all Dasein’s existential structures. BTMR: §69

We have defined Dasein’s Being as “care”. The ontological meaning of “care” is temporality. We have shown that temporality constitutes the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”, and we have shown how it does so. In the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there” the world is disclosed along with it. The unity of significance – that is, the ontological constitution of the world – must then likewise be grounded in temporality. The existential-temporal condition for the possibility of the world lies in the fact that temporality, as an ecstatical unity, has something like a horizon. Ecstases are not simply raptures in which one gets carried away. Rather, there belongs to each ecstasis a ‘whither’ to which one is carried away. This “whither” of the ecstasis we call the “horizonal schema”. In each of the three ecstases the ecstatical horizon is different. The schema in which Dasein comes towards itself futurally, whether authentically or inauthentically, is the “for-the-sake-of-itself”. The schema in which Dasein is disclosed to itself in a state-of-mind as thrown, is to be taken as that in the face of which it has been thrown and that to which it has been abandoned. This characterizes the horizonal schema of what has been. In existing for the sake of itself in abandonment to itself as something that has been thrown, Dasein, as Being-alongside, is at the same time making present. The horizonal schema for the Present is defined by the “in-order-to”. BTMR: §69

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 (Erschlossenheit) which belongs to historizing, or rather so too is the way in which we make this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) our own. BTMR: §74

The existential-historical source of historiology may be presented concretely by analysing the thematization which is constitutive for this science. In historiological thematizing, the main point is the cultivation of the hermeneutical Situation which – once the historically existent Dasein has made its resolution – opens itself to the repetitive disclosure of what has-been-there. The possibility and the structure of historiological truth are to be expounded in terms of the authentic disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) (‘truth’) of historical existence. But since the basic concepts of the historiological sciences – whether they pertain to the Objects of these sciences or to the way in which these are treated – are concepts of existence, the theory of the humane science presupposes an existential Interpretation which has as its theme the historicality of Dasein. Such an Interpretation is the constant goal to which the researches of Wilhelm Dilthey seek to bring us closer, and which gets illumined in a more penetrating fashion by the ideas of Count Yorck von Wartenburg. BTMR: §76

The fact that the structure of datability belongs essentially to what has been interpreted with the ‘now’, the ‘then’, and the ‘on that former occasion’, becomes the most elemental proof that what has thus been interpreted has originated in the temporality which interprets itself. When we say ‘now’, we always understand a ‘now that so and so…’ though we do not say all this. Why? Because the “now” interprets a making-present of entities. In the ‘now that…’ lies the ecstatical character of the Present. The datability of the ‘now’, the ‘then’, and the ‘on that former occasion’, reflects the ecstatical constitution of temporality, and is therefore essential for the time itself that has been expressed. The structure of the datability of the ‘now’, the ‘then’, and the ‘on that former occasion’, is evidence that these, stemming from temporality, are themselves time. The interpretative expressing of the ‘now’, the ‘then’, and the ‘on that former occasion’, is the most primordial way of assigning a time. In the ecstatical unity of temporality – which gets understood along with datability, but unthematically and without being recognizable as such – Dasein has already been disclosed to itself as Being-in-the-world, and entities within-the-world have been discovered along with it; because of this, interpreted time has already been given a dating in terms of those entities which are encountered in the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”: “now that – the door slams”; “now that – my book is missing”, and so forth. BTMR: §79

The Being of Dasein is care. This entity exists fallingly as something that has been thrown. Abandoned to the ‘world’ which is discovered with its factical “there”, and concernfully submitted to it, Dasein awaits its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world; it awaits it in such a manner that it ‘reckons’ on and ‘reckons’ with whatever has an involvement for the sake of this potentiality-for-Being – an involvement which, in the end, is a distinctive one. Everyday circumspective Being-in-the-world needs the possibility of sight (and this means that it needs brightness) if it is to deal concernfully with what is ready-to-hand within the present-at-hand. With the factical disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein’s world, Nature has been uncovered for Dasein. In its thrownness Dasein has been surrendered to the changes of day and night. Day with its brightness gives it the possibility of sight; night takes this away. BTMR: §80

The disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the natural clock belongs to the Dasein which exists as thrown and falling; and in this disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) factical Dasein has at the same time already given a distinctive public character to the time with which it concerns itself. As time-reckoning is perfected and the use of clocks becomes more refined, this making-public gets enhanced and strengthened. We shall not give here a historiological presentation of the historical evolution of time-reckoning and the use of clocks, with all its possible variations. We must rather ask in an existential-ontological way what mode of the temporalizing of Dasein’s temporality becomes manifest in the direction which the development of time-reckoning and clock-using has taken. When this question is answered, there must arise a more primordial understanding of the fact that the measurement of time – and this means also the explicit making-public of time as an object of concern – is grounded in the temporality of Dasein, and indeed in a quite definite temporalizing of that temporality. BTMR: §80

Comparison shows that for the ‘advanced’ Dasein the day and the presence of sunlight no longer have such a special function as they have for the ‘primitive’ Dasein on which our analysis of ‘natural’ time-reckoning has been based; for the ‘advanced’ Dasein has the ‘advantage’ of even being able to turn night into day. Similarly we no longer need to glance explicitly and immediately at the sun and its position to ascertain the time. The manufacture and use of measuring-equipment of one’s own permits one to read off the time directly by a clock produced especially for this purpose. The “what o’clock is it?” is the ‘what time is it?’ Because the clock – in the sense of that which makes possible a public way of time-reckoning – must be regulated by the ‘natural’ clock, even the use of clocks as equipment is based upon Dasein’s temporality, which, with the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the “there”, first makes possible a dating of the time with which we concern ourselves; this is a fact, even if it is covered up when the time is read off. Our understanding of the natural clock develops with the advancing discovery of Nature, and instructs us as to new possibilities for a kind of time-measurement which is relatively independent of the day and of any explicit observation of the sky. BTMR: §80

The measurement of time gives it a marked public character, so that only in this way does what we generally call ‘the time’ become well known. In concern every Thing has ‘its time’ attributed to it. It ‘has’ it, and, like every entity within-the-world, it can ‘have’ it only because after all it is ‘in time’. That time ‘wherein’ entities within-the-world are encountered, we know as “world-time”. By reason of the ecstatico-horizonal constitution of the temporality which belongs to it, this has the same transcendence as the world itself. With the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world, world-time has been made public, so that every temporally concernful Being alongside entities within-the-world understands these entities circumspectively as encountered ‘in time’. BTMR: §80

The time ‘in which’ the present-at-hand is in motion or at rest is not ‘Objective’, if what we mean by that is the Being-present-at-hand-in-itself of entities encountered within-the-world. But just as little is time ‘subjective’, if by this we understand Being-present-at-hand and occurring in a ‘subject’. World-time is ‘more Objective’ than any possible Object because, with the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world, it already becomes ‘Objectified’ in an ecstatico-horizonal manner as the condition for the possibility of entities within-the-world. Thus, contrary to Kant’s opinion, one comes across world-time just as immediately in the physical as in the psychical, and not just roundabout by way of the psychical. ‘Time’ first shows itself in the sky – precisely where one comes across it when one regulates oneself naturally according to it – so that ‘time’ even becomes identified with the sky. BTMR: §80

How does something like ‘time’ first show itself for everyday circumspective concern? In what kind of concernful equipment-using dealings does it become explicitly accessible? If it has been made public with the disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of the world, if it has always been already a matter of concern with the discoveredness of entities within-the-world – a discoveredness which belongs to the world’s disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) – and if it has been a matter of such concern in so far as Dasein calculates time in reckoning with itself, then the kind of behaviour in which ‘one’ explicitly regulates oneself according to time, lies in the use of clocks. The existential-temporal meaning of this turns out to be a making-present of the travelling pointer. By following the positions of the pointer in a way which makes present, one counts them. This making-present temporalizes itself in the ecstatical unity of a retention which awaits. To retain the ‘on that former occasion’ and to retain it by making it present, signifies that in saying “now” one is open for the horizon of the earlier – that is, of the “now-no-longer”. To await the ‘then’ by making it present, means that in saying “now” one is open for the horizon of the later – that is, of the “now-not-yet”. Time is what shows itself in such a making-present. How then, are we to define the time which is manifest within the horizon of the circumspective concernful clock-using in which one takes one’s time? This time is that which is counted and which shows itself when one follows the travelling pointer, counting and making present in such a way that this making-present temporalizes itself in an ecstatical unity with the retaining and awaiting which are horizonally open according to the “earlier” and “later”. This, however, is nothing else than an existential-ontological interpretation of Aristotle’s definition of “time”: touto gar estin ho chronos, arithmos kineseos kata to proteron kai hysteron. “For this is time: that which is counted in the movement which we encounter within the horizon of the earlier and later.” This definition may seem strange at first glance; but if one defines the existential-ontological horizon from which Aristotle has taken it, one sees that it is as ‘obvious’ as it at first seems strange, and has been genuinely derived. The source of the time which is thus manifest does not become a problem for Aristotle. His Interpretation of time moves rather in the direction of the ‘natural’ way of understanding Being. Yet because this very understanding and the Being which is thus understood have in principle been made a problem for the investigation which lies before us, it is only after we have found a solution for the question of Being that the Aristotelian analysis of time can be Interpreted thematically in such a way that it may indeed gain some signification in principle, if the formulation of this question in ancient ontology, with all its critical limitations, is to be appropriated in a positive manner. BTMR: §81