But quite apart from the specific problem of the world itself, can the Being of what we encounter proximally within-the-world be reached ontologically by this procedure? When we speak of material Thinghood, have we not tacitly posited a kind of Being – the constant PRESENCE-AT-HAND of Things – which is so far from having been rounded out ontologically by subsequently endowing entities with value-predicates, that these value-characters themselves are rather just ontical characteristics of those entities which have the kind of Being possessed by Things? Adding on value-predicates cannot tell us anything at all new about the Being of goods, but would merely presuppose again that goods have pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND as their kind of Being. Values would then be determinate characteristics which a Thing possesses, and they would be present-at-hand. They would have their sole ultimate ontological source in our previously laying down the actuality of Things as the fundamental stratum. But even prephenomenological experience shows that in an entity which is supposedly a Thing, there is something that will not become fully intelligible through Thinghood alone. Thus the Being of Things has to be rounded out. What, then does the Being of values or their ‘validity’ (“Geltung”) (which Lotze took as a mode of ‘affirmation’) really amount to ontologically? And what does it signify ontologically for Things to be ‘invested’ with values in this way? As long as these matters remain obscure, to reconstruct the Thing of use in terms of the Thing of Nature is an ontologically questionable undertaking, even if one disregards the way in which the problematic has been perverted in principle. And if we are to reconstruct this Thing of use, which supposedly comes to us in the first instance ‘with its skin off’, does not this always require that we previously take a positive look at the phenomenon whose totality such a reconstruction is to restore? But if we have not given a proper explanation beforehand of its ownmost state of Being, are we not building our reconstruction without a plan? Inasmuch as this reconstruction and ‘rounding-out’ of the traditional ontology of the ‘world’ results in our reaching the same entities with which we started when we analysed the readiness-to-hand of equipment and the totality of (SZ:100) involvements, it seems as if the Being of these entities ‘has in fact been clarified or has at least become a problem. But by taking extensio as a proprietas, Descartes can hardly reach the Being of substance; and by taking refuge in ‘value’-characteristics (“wertlichen” Beschaffenheiten) we are just as far from even catching a glimpse of Being as readiness-to-hand, let alone permitting it to become an ontological theme.Descartes has narrowed down the question of the world to that of Things of Nature (Naturdinglichkeit) as those entities within-the-world’ which are proximally accessible. He has confirmed the opinion that to know an entity in what is supposedly the most rigorous ontical manner is our only possible access to the primary Being of the entity which such knowledge reveals. But at the same time we must have the insight to see that in principle the ‘roundings-out’ of the Thing-ontology also operate on the same dogmatic basis as that which Descartes has adopted.We have already intimated in Section 14 that passing over the world and those ‘entities which we proximally encounter is not accidental, not an oversight which it would be’ simple to correct, but that it is grounded in a kind of Being which belongs essentially to Dasein itself. When our analytic of Dasein has given some transparency to those main structures of Dasein which are of the most importance in the framework of this problematic, and when we have assigned (zugewiesen) to the concept of BeinBeing in general the horizon within which its intelligibility becomes possible, so that readiness-to-hand and PRESENCE-AT-HAND also become primordially intelligible ontologically for the first time, only then can our critique of the Cartesian ontology of the world (an ontology which, in principle, is still the usual one today) come philosophically into its own.To do this, we must show several things. (See Part One, Division Three.) BTMR §21
In so far as Being constitutes what is asked about, and “Being” means the Being of entities, then entities themselves turn out to be what is interrogated. These are, so to speak, questioned as regards their Being. But if the characteristics of their Being can be yielded without falsification, then these entities must, on their part, have become accessible as they are in themselves. When we come to what is to be interrogated, the question of Being requires that the right way of access to entities shall have been obtained and secured in advance. But there are many things which we designate as ‘being’ (“seiend”), and we do so in various senses. Everything we talk about, everything we have in view, everything towards which we comport ourselves in any way, is being; what we are is being, and so is how we are. Being lies in the fact that something is, and in its Being as it is; in Reality; in PRESENCE-AT-HAND; in subsistence; in validity; in Dasein; in the ‘there is’. In which entities is the meaning of Being to be discerned? From which entities is the disclosure of Being to take its departure? Is the starting-point optional, or does some particular entity have priority when we come to work out the question of Being? Which entity shall we take for our example, and in what sense does it have priority? (SZ:7) BTMR §2
The problematic of Greek ontology, like that of any other, must take its clues from Dasein itself. In both ordinary and philosophical usage, Dasein, man’s Being, is ‘defined’ as the zoon logon echon – as that living thing whose Being is essentially determined by the potentiality for discourse. legein is the clue for arriving at those structures of Being which belong to the entities we encounter in addressing ourselves to anything or speaking about it (im Ansprechen und Besprechen). (Cf. Section 7 b.) This is why the ancient ontology as developed by Plato turns into ‘dialectic’. As the ontological clue gets progressively worked out – namely, in the ‘hermeneutic’ of the logos – it becomes increasingly possible to grasp the problem of Being in a more radical fashion. The ‘dialectic’, which has been a genuine philosophical embarrassment, becomes superfluous. That is why Aristotle ‘no longer has any understanding’ of it, for he has put it on a more radical footing and raised it to a new level (aufhob). legein itself – or rather noein, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer PRESENCE-AT-HAND, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being – has the Temporal structure of a pure ‘making-present’ of something. Those entities which show themselves in this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence (ousia). BTMR §6
1. The ‘essence’. (“Wesen”) of this entity lies in its “to be” (Zu-sein). Its Being-what-it-is (Was-sein) (essentia) must, so far as we can speak of it at all, be conceived in terms of its Being (existentia). But here our ontological task is to show that when we choose to designate the Being of this entity as “existence” (Existenz), this term does not and cannot have the ontological signification of the traditional term “existentia”; ontologically, existentia is tantamount to Being-present-at-hand, a kind of Being which is essentially inappropriate to entities of Dasein’s character. To avoid getting bewildered, we shall always use the Interpretative expression “PRESENCE-AT-HAND” for the term “existentia”, while the term “existence”, as a designation of Being, will be allotted solely to Dasein. BTMR §9
All explicata to which the analytic of Dasein gives rise are obtained by considering Dasein’s existence-structure. Because Dasein’s characters of Being are defined in terms of existentiality, we call them “existentialia”. These are to be sharply distinguished from what we call “categories” – characteristics of Being for entities whose character is not that of Dasein. Here we are taking the expression “category” in its primary ontological signification, and abiding by it. In the ontology of the ancients, the entities we encounter within the world are taken as the basic examples for the interpretation of Being. noein (or the logos, as the case may be) is accepted as a way of ‘access to them. Entities are encountered therein. But the Being of these entities must be something which can be grasped in a distinctive kind of legein (letting something be seen), so that this Being becomes intelligible in advance as that which it is – and as that which it is already in every entity. In any discussion (logos) of entities, we have previously addressed ourselves to Being; this addressing is kategoresthai. This signifies, in the first instance, making a public accusation, taking someone to task for something in the presence of everyone. When used ontologically, this term means taking an entity to task, as it were, for whatever it is as an entity – that is to say, letting everyone see it in its Being. The kategoriai are what is sighted and what is visible in such a seeing. They include the various ways in which the nature of those entities which can be addressed and discussed in a logos may be (SZ:45) determined a priori. Existentialia and categories are the two basic possibilities for characters of Being. The entities which correspond to them require different kinds of primary interrogation respectively: any entity is either a “who” (existence) or a “what” (PRESENCE-AT-HAND in the broadest sense). The connection between these two modes of the characters of Being cannot be handled until the horizon for the question of Being has been clarified. BTMR §9
As an existentiale, ‘Being alongside’ the world never means anything like the Being-present-at-hand-together of Things that occur. There is no such thing as the ‘side-by-side-ness’ of an entity called ‘Dasein’ with another entity called ‘world’. Of course when two things are present-at-hand together alongside one another, we are accustomed to express this occasionally by something like ‘The table stands “by” (‘bei’) the door’ or ‘The chair “touches” (‘berührt’) the wall’. Taken strictly, ‘touching’ is never what we are talking about in such cases, not because accurate reexamination will always eventually establish that there is a space between the chair and the wall, but because in principle the chair can never touch the wall, even if the space between them should be equal to zero. If the chair could touch the wall, this would presuppose that the wall is the sort of thing ‘for’ which a chair would be encounterable. An entity present-at-hand within the world can be touched by another entity only if by its very nature the latter entity has Being-in as its own kind of Being – only if, with its Being-there (Da-sein), something like the world is already revealed to it, so that from out of that world another entity can manifest itself in touching, and thus become accessible in its Being-present-at-hand. When two entities are present-at-hand within the world, and furthermore are worldless in themselves, they can never ‘touch’ each other, nor can either of them ‘be’ ‘alongside’ the other. The clause ‘furthermore are worldless’ must not be left out; for even entities which are not worldless – Dasein itself, for example – are present-at-hand ‘in’ the world, or, more exactly, can with some right and within certain limits be taken as merely present-at-hand. To do this, one must completely disregard or just not see the existential state of Being-in. But the fact that ‘Dasein’ can be taken as something which is present-at-hand and just present-at-hand, is not to be confused with a certain way of ‘PRESENCE-AT-HAND’ which is Dasein’s own. This latter kind of PRESENCE-AT-HAND becomes accessible not by disregarding Dasein’s specific structures but only by understanding them in advance. Dasein understands its ownmost Being in the sense of a certain ‘factual Being-present-at-hand’. And yet the ‘factuality’ of the fact (Tatsache) of one’s own Dasein is at bottom quite different ontologically from the factual occurrence of some kind of mineral, for example. Whenever Dasein is, it is as a Fact; and the factuality of such a Fact is what we shall call Dasein’s “facticity”. This is a definite way of Being (Seinsbestimmtheit), and it has a complicated structure which cannot even be grasped as a problem until Dasein’s basic existential states have been worked out. The concept of “facticity” implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its ‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world. (SZ:56) BTMR §12
Here, however, “Nature” is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind ‘in the sails’. As the ‘environment’ is discovered, the ‘Nature’ thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this ‘Nature’ itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND. But when this happens, the Nature which ‘stirs and strives’, which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist’s plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the ‘source’ which the geographer establishes for a river is not the ‘springhead in the dale’. BTMR §15
The kind of Being which belongs to these entities is readiness-to-hand. But this characteristic is not to be understood as merely a way of taking them, as if we were talking such ‘aspects’ into the ‘entities’ which we proximally encounter, or as if some world-stuff which is proximally present-at-hand in itself were ‘given subjective colouring’ in this way. Such an Interpretation would overlook the fact that in this case these entities would have to be understood and discovered beforehand as something purely present-at-hand, and must have priority and take the lead in the sequence of those dealings with the ‘world’ in which something is discovered and made one’s own. But this already runs counter to the ontological meaning of cognition, which we have exhibited as a founded mode of Being-in-the-world. To lay bare what is just present-at-hand and no more, cognition must first penetrate beyond what is ready-to-hand in our concern. Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are ‘in themselves’ are defined ontologico-categorially. Yet only by reason of something present-at-hand, ‘is there’ anything ready-to-hand. Does it follow, however, granting this thesis for the nonce, that readiness-to-hand is ontologically founded upon PRESENCE-AT-HAND? BTMR §15
But even if, as our ontological Interpretation proceeds further, readiness-to-hand should prove itself to be the kind of Being characteristic of those entities which are proximally discovered within-the-world, and even if its primordiality as compared with pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND can be demonstrated, have all these explications been of the slightest help towards understanding the phenomenon of the world ontologically? In Interpreting these entities within-the-world, however, we have always (SZ:72) BTMR §15
To the everydayness of Being-in-the-world there belong certain modes of concern. These permit the entities with which we concern ourselves to be encountered in such a way that the worldly character of what is within-the-world comes to the fore. When we concern ourselves with something, the entities which are most closely ready-to-hand may be met as something unusable, not properly adapted for the use we have decided upon. The tool turns out to be damaged, or the material unsuitable. In each of these cases equipment is here, ready-to-hand. We discover its unusability, however, not by looking at it and establishing its properties, but rather by the circumspection of the dealings in which we use it. When its unusability is thus discovered, equipment becomes conspicuous. This conspicuousness (SZ:73) presents the ready-to-hand equipment as in a certain un-readiness-to-hand. But this implies that what cannot be used just lies there; it shows itself as an equipmental Thing which looks so and so, and which, in its readiness-to-hand as looking that way, has constantly been present-at-hand too. Pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND announces itself in such equipment, but only to withdraw to the readiness-to-hand of something with which one concerns oneself – that is to say, of the sort of thing we find when we put it back into repair. This PRESENCE-AT-HAND of something that cannot be used is still not devoid of all readiness-to-hand whatsoever; equipment which is present-at-hand in this way which is still not just a Thing which occurs somewhere. The damage to the equipment is still not a mere alteration of a Thing – not a change of properties which just occurs in something present-at-hand. BTMR §16
In our dealings with the world of our concern, the un-ready-to-hand can be encountered not only in the sense of that which is unusable or simply missing, but as something un-ready-to-hand which is not missing at all and not unusable, but which ‘stands in the way’ of our concern. That to which our concern refuses to turn, that for which it has ‘no time’, is something un-ready-to-hand in the manner of what does not belong here, of what has not as yet been attended to. Anything which is unready-to-hand in this way is disturbing to us, and enables us to see the obstinacy of that with which we must concern ourselves in the first instance before we do anything else. With this obstinacy, the PRESENCE-AT-HAND of the ready-to-hand makes itself known in a new (SZ:74) way as the Being of that which still lies before us and calls for our attending to it. BTMR §16
The modes of conspicuousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinacy all have the function of bringing to the fore the characteristic of PRESENCE-AT-HAND in what is ready-to-hand. But the ready-to-hand is not thereby just observed and stared at as something present-at-hand; the PRESENCE-AT-HAND which makes itself known is still bound up in the readiness-to-hand of equipment. Such equipment still does not veil itself in the guise of mere Things. It becomes ‘equipment’ in the sense of something which one would like to shove out of the way. But in such a Tendency to shove things aside, the ready-to-hand shows itself as still ready-to-hand in its unswerving PRESENCE-AT-HAND. BTMR §16
Now that we have suggested, however, that the ready-to-hand is thus encountered under modifications in which its PRESENCE-AT-HAND is revealed, how far does this clarify the phenomenon of the world? Even in analysing these modifications we have not gone beyond the Being of what is within-the-world, and we have come no closer to the world-phenomenon than before. But though we have not as yet grasped it, we have brought ourselves to a point where we can bring it into view. BTMR §16
Being-in-the-world, according to our Interpretation hitherto, amounts to a non-thematic circumspective absorption in references or assignments constitutive for the readiness-to-hand of a totality of equipment. Any concern is already as it is, because of some familiarity with the world. In this familiarity Dasein can lose itself in what it encounters within-the-world and be fascinated with it. What is it that Dasein is familiar with? Why can the worldly character of what is within-the-world be lit up? The PRESENCE-AT-HAND of entities is thrust to the fore by the possible breaks in that referential totality in which circumspection ‘operates’; how are we to get a closer understanding of this totality? BTMR §16
We have indicated that the state which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand as equipment is one of reference or assignment. How can entities with this kind of Being be freed by the world with regard to their Being? Why are these the first entities to be encountered? As definite, kinds of references we have mentioned serviceability-for-, detrimentality (Abträglichkeit), usability, and the like. The “towards-which” (das Wozu) of a serviceability and the “for-which” (das Wofür) of a usability prescribed the ways in which such a reference or assignment can become concrete. But the ‘indicating’ of the sign and the ‘hammering’ of the hammer are not properties of entities. Indeed, they are not properties at all, if the ontological structure designated by the term ‘property’ is that of some definite character which it is possible for Things to possess (einer möglichen Bestimmtheit von Dingen). Anything ready-to-hand is, at the worst, appropriate for some purposes and inappropriate for others; and its ‘properties’ are, as it were, still bound up in these ways in which it is appropriate or inappropriate, just as PRESENCE-AT-HAND, as a possible kind of Being for something ready-to-hand, is bound up in readiness-to-hand. Serviceability too, however, as a constitutive state of equipment (and serviceability is a reference), is not an appropriateness of some entity; it is rather the condition (so far as Being is in question) which makes it possible for the character of such an entity to be defined by its appropriatenesses. But what, then, is “reference” or “assignment” to mean? To say that the Being of the ready-to-hand has the structure of assignment or reference means that it has in itself the character of having been assigned or referred (Verwiesenheit). An entity is discovered when it has been assigned or referred to something, and referred as that entity which it is. With any such entity there is an involvement which it has in something. The character of Being which belongs to the ready-to-hand is just such an involvement. If something has an involvement, this implies letting it be involved in something. The relationship of the “with … in …” shall be indicated by the term “assignment” or “reference” . BTMR §18
Within our present field of investigation the following structures and dimensions of ontological problematics, as we have repeatedly emphasized, must be kept in principle distinct: 1. the Being of those entities within-the-world which we proximally encounter – readiness-to-hand; 2. the Being of those entities which we can come across and whose nature we can determine if we discover them in their own right by going through the entities proximally encountered – PRESENCE-AT-HAND; 3. the Being of that ontical condition which makes it possible for entities within-the-world to be discovered at all – the worldhood of the world. This third kind of Being gives us an existential way of determining the nature of Being-in-the-world, that is, of Dasein. The other two concepts of Being are categories, and pertain to entities whose Being is not of the kind which Dasein possesses. The context of assignments or references, which, as significance, is constitutive for worldhood, can be taken formally in the sense of a system of Relations. But one must note that in such formalizations the phenomena get levelled off so much that their real phenomenal content may be lost, especially in the case of such ‘simple’ relationships as those which lurk in significance. The phenomenal content of these ‘Relations’ and ‘Relata’ BTMR §18
In our exposition of the problem of worldhood (Section 14), we suggested the importance of obtaining proper access to this phenomenon. So in criticizing the Cartesian point of departure, we must ask which kind of Being that belongs to Dasein we should fix upon as giving us an appropriate way of access to those entities with whose Being as extensio Descartes equates the Being of the ‘world’. The only genuine access to them lies in knowing ( Erkennen), intellectio, in the sense of the kind of knowledge ( Erkenntnis) we get in mathematics and physics. Mathematical knowledge is regarded by Descartes as the one manner of apprehending entities which can always give assurance that their Being has been securely grasped. If anything measures up in its own kind of Being to the Being that is accessible in mathematical knowledge, then it is in the authentic sense. Such entities are those which always are what they are. Accordingly, that which can be shown to have the character of something that constantly remains (as remanens capax mutationum), makes up the real Being of those entities of the world which get experienced. That which enduringly remains, really is. This is the sort of thing which mathematics knows. That which is accessible in an entity through mathematics, makes up its Being. Thus the Being of the ‘world’ is, as it were, dictated to it in terms of a definite idea of Being which lies veiled in the concept of substantiality, (SZ:96) and in terms of the idea of a knowledge by which such entities are cognized. The kind of Being which belongs to entities within-the-world is something which they themselves might have been permitted to present; but Descartes does not let them do so. Instead he prescribes for the world its ‘real’ Being, as it were, on the basis of an idea of Being whose source has not been unveiled and which has not been demonstrated in its own right – an idea in which Being is equated with constant PRESENCE-AT-HAND. Thus his ontology of the world is not primarily determined by his leaning towards mathematics, a science which he chances to esteem very highly, but rather by his ontological orientation in principle towards Being as constant PRESENCE-AT-HAND, which mathematical knowledge. is exceptionally well suited to grasp. In this way Descartes explicitly switches over philosophically from the development of traditional ontology to modern mathematical physics and its transcendental foundations. BTMR §21
Hardness gets taken as resistance. But neither hardness nor resistance is understood in a phenomenal sense, as something experienced in itself whose nature can be determined in such an experience. For Descartes, resistance amounts to no more than not yielding place – that is, not undergoing any change of location. So if a Thing resists, this means that it stays in a definite location relatively to some other Thing which is changing its location, or that it is changing its own location with a velocity which permits the other Thing to ‘catch up’ with it. But when the experience of hardness is Interpreted this way, the kind of Being which belongs to sensory perception is obliterated, and so is any possibility that the entities encountered in such perception should be grasped in their Being. Descartes takes the kind of Being which belongs to the perception of something, and translates it into the only kind he knows: the perception of something becomes a definite way of Being-present-at-hand-side-byside of two res extensae which are present-at-hand; the way in which their movements are related is itself a mode of that extensio by which the PRESENCE-AT-HAND of the corporeal Thing is primarily characterized. Of course no behaviour in which one feels one’s way by touch (eines tastenden Verhaltens) can be ‘completed’ unless what can thus be felt (des Betastbaren) has ‘closeness’ of a very special kind. But this does not mean that touching ( Berührung) and the hardness which makes itself known in touching consist ontologically in different velocities of two corporeal Things. Hardness and resistance do not show themselves at all unless an entity has the kind of Being which Dasein – or at least something living – possesses. BTMR §21
The idea of Being as permanent PRESENCE-AT-HAND not only gives Descartes a motive for identifying entities within-the-world with the world in general, and for providing so extreme a definition of their Being; it also keeps him from bringing Dasein’s ways of behaving into view’ in a manner which is ontologically appropriate. But thus the road is completely blocked to seeing the founded character of all sensory and intellective awareness, and to understanding these as possibilities of Being-in-the-world. On the contrary, he takes the Being of ‘Dasein’ (to whose basic constitution Being-in-the-world belongs) in the very same way as he takes the Being of the res extensa – namely, as substance. BTMR §21
But quite apart from the specific problem of the world itself, can the Being of what we encounter proximally within-the-world be reached ontologically by this procedure? When we speak of material Thinghood, have we not tacitly posited a kind of Being – the constant presence-at hand of Things – which is so far from having been rounded out ontologically by subsequently endowing entities with value-predicates, that these value-characters themselves are rather just ontical characteristics of those entities which have the kind of Being possessed by Things? Adding on value-predicates cannot tell us anything at all new about the Being of goods, but would merely presuppose again that goods have pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND as their kind of Being. Values would then be determinate characteristics which a Thing possesses, and they would be present-at-hand. They would have their sole ultimate ontological source in our previously laying down the actuality of Things as the fundamental stratum. But even prephenomenological experience shows that in an entity which is supposedly a Thing, there is something that will not become fully intelligible through Thinghood alone. Thus the Being of Things has to be rounded out. What, then does the Being of values or their ‘validity’ (“Geltung”) (which Lotze took as a mode of ‘affirmation’) really amount to ontologically? And what does it signify ontologically for Things to be ‘invested’ with values in this way? As long as these matters remain obscure, to reconstruct the Thing of use in terms of the Thing of Nature is an ontologically questionable undertaking, even if one disregards the way in which the problematic has been perverted in principle. And if we are to reconstruct this Thing of use, which supposedly comes to us in the first instance ‘with its skin off’, does not this always require that we previously take a positive look at the phenomenon whose totality such a reconstruction is to restore? But if we have not given a proper explanation beforehand of its ownmost state of Being, are we not building our reconstruction without a plan? Inasmuch as this reconstruction and ‘rounding-out’ of the traditional ontology of the ‘world’ results in our reaching the same entities with which we started when we analysed the readiness-to-hand of equipment and the totality of (SZ:100) involvements, it seems as if the Being of these entities ‘has in fact been clarified or has at least become a problem. But by taking extensio as a proprietas, Descartes can hardly reach the Being of substance; and by taking refuge in ‘value’-characteristics (“wertlichen” Beschaffenheiten) we are just as far from even catching a glimpse of Being as readiness-to-hand, let alone permitting it to become an ontological theme.Descartes has narrowed down the question of the world to that of Things of Nature (Naturdinglichkeit) as those entities within-the-world’ which are proximally accessible. He has confirmed the opinion that to know an entity in what is supposedly the most rigorous ontical manner is our only possible access to the primary Being of the entity which such knowledge reveals. But at the same time we must have the insight to see that in principle the ‘roundings-out’ of the Thing-ontology also operate on the same dogmatic basis as that which Descartes has adopted.We have already intimated in Section 14 that passing over the world and those ‘entities which we proximally encounter is not accidental, not an oversight which it would be’ simple to correct, but that it is grounded in a kind of Being which belongs essentially to Dasein itself. When our analytic of Dasein has given some transparency to those main structures of Dasein which are of the most importance in the framework of this problematic, and when we have assigned (zugewiesen) to the concept of BeinBeing in general the horizon within which its intelligibility becomes possible, so that readiness-to-hand and PRESENCE-AT-HAND also become primordially intelligible ontologically for the first time, only then can our critique of the Cartesian ontology of the world (an ontology which, in principle, is still the usual one today) come philosophically into its own.To do this, we must show several things. (See Part One, Division Three.) BTMR §21
The answer to the question of who Dasein is, is one that was seemingly given in Section 9, where we indicated formally the basic characteristics of Dasein. Dasein is an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each case mine. This definition indicates an ontologically constitutive state, but it does no more than indicate it. At the same time this tells us ontically (though in a rough and ready fashion) that in each case an “I” – not Others – is this entity. The question of the “who” answers itself in terms of the “I” itself, the ‘subject’, the ‘Self’. The “who” is what maintains itself as something identical throughout changes in its Experiences and ways of behaviour, and which relates itself to this changing multiplicity in so doing. Ontologically we understand it as something which is in each case already constantly present-at-hand, both in and for a closed realm, and which lies at the basis, in a very special sense, as the subjectum. As something selfsame in ‘manifold otherness, it has the character of the Self. Even if one rejects the “soul substance” and the Thinghood of consciousness, or denies that a person is an object, ontologically one is still positing something whose Being retains the meaning of present-at-hand, whether it does so explicitly or not. Substantiality is the ontological clue for determining which entity is to provide the answer to the question of the “who”. Dasein is tacitly conceived in advance as something presentat-hand. This meaning of Being is always implicated in any case where the Being of Dasein has been left indefinite. Yet PRESENCE-AT-HAND is the kind of Being which belongs to entities whose character is not that of Dasein. (SZ:115) BTMR §25
In our ‘description’ of that environment which is closest to us – the work-world of the craftsman, for example, – the outcome was that along with the equipment to be found when one is at work (in Arbeit), those Others for whom the ‘work’ (“Werk”) is destined are ‘encountered too’. If this is ready-to-hand, then there lies in the kind of Being which belongs to it (that is, in its involvement) an essential assignment or reference to possible wearers, for instance, for whom it should be ‘cut to the figure’. Similarly, when material is put to use, we encounter its producer or ‘supplier,’ as one who ‘serves’ well or badly. When, for example, we walk along the edge of a field but ‘outside it’, the field shows itself as belonging to such-and-such a person, and decently kept up by him; the book we have used was bought at So-and-so’s shop and given by such-and-such (SZ:118) a person, and so forth. The boat anchored at the shore is assigned in its Being-in-itself to an acquaintance who undertakes voyages with it; but even if it is a ‘boat which is strange to us’, it still is indicative of Others. The Others who are thus ‘encountered’ in a ready-to-hand, environmental context of equipment, are not somehow added on in thought to some Thing which is proximally just present-at-hand; such ‘Things’ are encountered from out of the world in which they are ready-to-hand for Others – a world which is always mine too in advance. In our previous analysis, the range of what is encountered within-the-world was, in the first instance, narrowed down to equipment ready-to-hand or Nature present-at-hand, and thus to entities with a’ character other than that of Dasein. This restriction was necessary not only for the purpose of simplifying our explication but above all because the kind of Being which belongs to the Dasein of Others, as we encounter it within-the-world, differs from readiness-to-hand and PRESENCE-AT-HAND. Thus Dasein’s world frees entities which not only are quite distinct from equipment and Things, but which also – in accordance with their kind of Being as Dasein themselves – are ‘in’ the world in which they are at the same time encountered within-the-world, and are ‘in’ it by way of Being-in-the-world. These entities are neither present-at-hand nor ready-to-hand; on the contrary, they are like the very Dasein which frees them, in that they are there too, and there with it. So if one should want to identify the world in general with entities within-the-world, one would have to say that Dasein too is ‘world’. BTMR §26
From the kind of Being which belongs to the “they” – the kind which is closest – everyday Dasein draws its pre-ontological way of interpreting its Being. In the first instance ontological Interpretation follows the tendency to interpret it this way: it understands Dasein in terms of the world and comes across it as an entity within-the-world. But that is not all: even that meaning of Being on the basis of which these ‘subject’ entities (diese scienden “Subjekte”) get understood, is one, which that ontology of Dasein which is ‘closest’ to us lets itself present in terms of the ‘world’. But because the phenomenon of the world itself gets gassed over in this absorption in the world, its place gets taken (tritt an seine Stelle) by what is present-at-hand within-the-world, namely, Things. The Being of those entities which are there with us, gets conceived as PRESENCE-AT-HAND. Thus by exhibiting the positive phenomenon of the closest everyday Being-in-the-world, we have made it possible to get an insight into the reason why an ontological Interpretation of this state of Being has been missing. This very state of Being, in its everyday kind of Being, is what proximally misses itself and covers itself up. (SZ:130) BTMR §27
If the Being of everyday Being-with-one-another is already different in principle from pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND – in spite of the fact that it is seemingly close to it ontologically – still less can the Being of the authentic Self be conceived as PRESENCE-AT-HAND. Authentic Being-one’s-Self does not rest upon an exceptional condition of the subject, a condition that has been detached from the “they”; it is rather an existentiell modification of the “thy” – of the “they” as an essential existentiale. BTMR §27
This characteristic of Dasein’s Being – this ‘that it is’ – is veiled in its “whence” and “whither”, yet disclosed in itself all the more unveiledly; we call it the “thrownness” of this entity into its “there”; indeed, it is thrown in such a way that, as Being-in-the-world, it is the “there”. The expression “thrownness” is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over. The ‘that it is and has to be’ which is disclosed in Dasein’s state-of-mind is not the same ‘that-it-is’ which expresses ontologico-categorially the factuality belonging to PRESENCE-AT-HAND. This factuality becomes accessible only if we ascertain it by looking at it. The “that-it-is” which is disclosed in Dasein’s state-of-mind must rather be conceived as an existential attribute of the entity which has Being-in-the-world as its way of Being. Facticity is not the factuality of the factum brutum of something present-at-hand, but a characteristic of Dasein’s Being – one which has been taken up into existence, even if proximally it has been thrust aside. The “that-it-is” of facticity never becomes something that we can come across by beholding it. BTMR §29
That in the face of which we fear, the ‘fearsome’, is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world and which may have either readiness-to-hand, PRESENCE-AT-HAND, or Dasein-with as its kind of Being. We are not going to make an ontical report on those entities which can often and for the most part be ‘fearsome’: we are to define the fearsome phenomenally in its fearsomeness. What do we encounter in fearing that belongs to the fearsome as such? That in the face of which we fear can be characterized as threatening. Here several points must be considered. 1. What we encounter has detrimentality as its kind of involvement. It shows itself within a context of involvements. 2. The target of this detrimentality is a definite range of what can be affected by it; thus the detrimentality is itself made definite, and comes from a definite region. 3. The region itself is well known as such, and so is that which is coming from it; but that which is coming from it has something ‘queer’ about it. 4. That which is detrimental, as something that threatens us, is not yet within striking distance (in beherrschbarer Nähe), but it is coming close. In such a drawing-close, the detrimentality radiates out, and therein lies its threatening character. 5. This drawing-close is within what is close by. Indeed, something may be detrimental in the highest degree and may even be coming constantly closer; but if it is still far off, its fearsomeness remains veiled. If, however, that which is detrimental draws close and is close by, then it is threatening: it can reach us, and yet it may not. As it draws close, this ‘it can, and yet in the end it may not’ becomes aggravated. We say, “It is fearsome”. 6. This implies that what is detrimental as coming-close close by carries with it the patent possibility that it may stay away and pass us by; but instead of lessening or extinguishing our fearing, this enhances it. (SZ:141) BTMR §30
When we are talking ontically we sometimes use the expression ‘understanding something’ with the signification of ‘being able to manage something’, ‘being a match for it’, ‘being competent to do something’. In understanding, as an existentiale, that which we have such competence over is not a “what”, but Being as existing. The kind of Being which Dasein has, as potentiality-for-Being, lies existentially in understanding. Dasein is not something present-at-hand which possesses its competence for something by way of an extra; it is primarily Being-possible. Dasein is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility. The Being-possible which is essential for Dasein, pertains to the ways of its solicitude for Others and of its concern with the ‘world’, as we have characterized them; and in all these, and always, it pertains to Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being towards itself, for the sake of itself. The Being-possible which Dasein is existentially in every case, is to be sharply distinguished both from empty logical possibility and from the contingency of something present-at-hand, so far as with the present-at-hand this or that can ‘come to pass’. As a modal category of PRESENCE-AT-HAND, possibility signifies what is not yet actual and what is not at any time necessary. It characterizes the merely possible. Ontologically it is on a lower level than actuality and necessity. On the other hand, possibility as an existentiale is the most primordial and ultimate positive way in which Dasein is characterized ontologically. As with existentiality in general, we can, in the first instance, only prepare for the problem of possibility. The phenomenal basis for seeing it at all is provided by the understanding as a disclosive potentiality-for-Being. (SZ:144) 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 of the “there”. ‘Seeing’ does not mean just perceiving with the bodily eyes, but neither does it mean pure nonsensory 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. (SZ:147) BTMR §31
The entity which is held in our fore-having – for instance, the hammer – is proximally ready-to-hand as equipment. If this entity becomes the ‘object’ of an assertion, then as soon as we begin this assertion, there is already a change-over in the fore-having. Something ready-to-hand with which we have to do or perform something, turns into something ‘about which’ the assertion that points it out is made. Our fore-sight is aimed at something present-at-hand in what is ready-to-hand. Both by and for this way of looking at it (Hin-sicht), the ready-to-hand becomes veiled as ready-to-hand. Within this discovering of PRESENCE-AT-HAND, which is at the same time a covering-up of read mess-to-hand, something present-at-hand which we encounter is given a definite character in its Being-presentat-hand-in-such-and-such-a-manner. Only now are we given any access to properties or the like. When an assertion has given a definite character to something present-at-hand, it says something about it as a “what”; and this “what” is drawn from that which is present-at-hand as such. The as-structure of interpretation has undergone a modification. In its function of appropriating what is understood, the ‘as’ no longer reaches out into a totality of involvements. As regards its possibilities for Articulating reference-relations, it has been cut off from that significance which, as such, constitutes environmentality. The ‘as’ gets pushed back into the (SZ:158) uniform plane of that which is merely present-at-hand. It dwindles to the structure of just letting one see what is present-at-hand, and letting one see it in a definite way. This levelling of the primordial ‘as’ of circumspective interpretation to the “as” with which PRESENCE-AT-HAND is given a definite character is the specialty of assertion. Only so does it obtain the possibility of exhibiting something in such a way that we just look at it. BTMR §33
By demonstrating that assertion is derived from interpretation and understanding, we have made it plain that the ‘logic’ of the logos is rooted in the existential analytic of Dasein; and provisionally this has been sufficient. At the same time, by knowing that the logos has been Interpreted in a way which is ontologically inadequate, we have gained a sharper insight into the fact that the methodological basis on which ancient ontology arose was not a primordial one. The logos gets experienced as something present-at-hand and Interpreted as such, while at the same time the entities which it points out have the meaning of PRESENCE-AT-HAND. This meaning of Being is left undifferentiated and uncontrasted with other possibilities of Being, so that Being in the sense of a formal Being-something becomes fused with it simultaneously, and we are unable even to obtain a clear-cut division between these two realms. BTMR §33
The analytic of Dasein, which is proceeding towards the phenomenon of care, is to prepare the way for the problematic of fundamental ontology – the question of the meaning of BeinBeing in general. In order that we may turn our glance explicitly upon this in the light of what we have gained, and go beyond the special task of an existentially a priori anthropology, we must look back and get a more penetrating grasp of the phenomena which are most intimately connected with our leading question – the question of Being. These phenomena are those very ways of Being which we have been hitherto explaining: readiness-to-hand and PRESENCE-AT-HAND, as attributes of entities within-the-world whose character is not that of Dasein. Because the ontological problematic of Being has heretofore been’ understood primarily in the sense of PRESENCE-AT-HAND (‘Reality’, ‘world-actuality’), while the nature of Dasein’s Being has remained ontologically undetermined, we need to discuss the ontological interconnections of care, worldhood, readiness-to-hand, and PRESENCE-AT-HAND (Reality). This will lead to a more precise characterization of the concept of Reality in the context of a discussion of the epistemological questions oriented by this idea which have been raised in realism and idealism. BTMR §39
We must in the first instance note explicitly that Kant uses the term ‘Dasein’ to designate that kind of Being which in the present investigation we have called ‘PRESENCE-AT-HAND’. ‘Consciousness of my Dasein’ means for Kant a consciousness of ‘my Being-present-at-hand in the sense of Descartes. When Kant uses the term ‘Dasein’ he has in mind the Being-present-at-hand of consciousness just as much as the Being-present-at-hand of Things. BTMR §43
Even if one should invoke the doctrine that the subject must presuppose and indeed always does unconsciously presuppose the PRESENCE-AT-HAND of the ‘external world’, one would still be starting with the construct of an isolated subject. The phenomenon of Being-in-the-world is something that one would no more meet in this way than one would by demonstrating that the physical and the psychical are present-at-hand together. With such presuppositions, Dasein always comes ‘too late’; for in so far as it does this presupposing as an entity (and otherwise this would be impossible), it is, as an entity, already in a world. ‘Earlier’ than any presupposition which Dasein makes, or any of its ways of behaving, is the ‘a priori’ character of its state of Being as one whose kind of Being is care. (SZ:206) BTMR §43
The ‘problem of Reality’ in the sense of the question whether an external world is present-at-hand and whether such a world can be proved, turns out to be an impossible one, not because its consequences lead to inextricable impasses, but because the very entity which serves as its theme, is one which, as it were, repudiates any such formulation of the question. Our task is not to prove that an ‘external world’ is present-at-hand or to show how it is present-at-hand, but to point out why Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, has the tendency to bury the ‘external world’ in nullity ‘epistemologically’ before going on to prove it. The reason for this lies in Dasein’s falling and in the way in which the primary understanding of Being has been diverted to Being as PRESENCE-AT-HAND – a diversion which is motivated by that falling itself. If one formulates the question ‘critically’ with such an ontological orientation, then what one finds present-at-hand as proximally and solely certain, is something merely ‘inner’. After the primordial phenomenon of Being-in-the-world has been shattered, the isolated subject is all that remains, and this becomes the basis on which it gets joined together with a ‘world’. BTMR §43
”Reality”, as an ontological term, is one which we have related to entities within-the-world. If it serves to designate this kind of Being in general, then readiness-to-hand and PRESENCE-AT-HAND function as modes of Reality. If, however, one lets this word have its traditional signification, then it stands for Being in the sense of the pure PRESENCE-AT-HAND of Things. But not all PRESENCE-AT-HAND is the PRESENCE-AT-HAND of Things. The ‘Nature’ by which we are ‘surrounded’ is, of course, an entity within-the-world; but the kind of Being which it shows belongs neither to the ready-to-hand nor to what is present-at-hand as ‘Things of Nature’. No matter how this Being of ‘Nature’ may be Interpreted, all the modes of Being of entities within-the-world are founded ontologically upon the worldhood of the world, and accordingly upon the phenomenon of Being-in-the-world. From this there arises the insight that among the modes of Being of entities within-the-world, Reality has no priority, and that Reality is a kind of Being which cannot even characterize anything like the world or Dasein in a way which is ontologically appropriate. BTMR §43
Of course only as long as Dasein is (that is, only as long as an understanding of Being is ontically possible), ‘is there’ Being. When Dasein does not exist, ‘independence’ ‘is’ not either, nor ‘is’ the ‘in-itself’. In such a case this sort of thing can be neither understood nor not understood. In such a case even entities within-the-world can neither be discovered nor lie hidden. In such a case it cannot be said that entities are, nor can it be said that they are not. But now, as long as there is an understanding of Being and therefore an understanding of PRESENCE-AT-HAND, it can indeed be said that in this case entities Will still continue to be. BTMR §43
Absorption in something that has been said belongs to the kind of Being which the “they” possesses. That which has been expressed as such takes over Being-towards those entities which have been uncovered in the assertion. If, however, these entities are to be appropriated explicitly with regard to their uncoveredness, this amounts to saying that the assertion is to be demonstrated as one that uncovers. But the assertion expressed is something ready-to-hand, and indeed in such a way that, as something by which uncoveredness is preserved, it has in itself a relation to the entities uncovered. Now to demonstrate that it is something which uncovers (ihres Entdeckend-seins) means to demonstrate how the assertion by which the uncoveredness is preserved is related to these entities. The assertion is something ready-to-hand. The entities to which it is related as something that uncovers, are either ready-to-hand or presentat-hand within-the-world. The relation itself presents itself thus, as one that is present-at-hand. But this relation lies in the fact that the uncoveredncss preserved in the assertion is in each case an uncoveredness o f something. The judgment ‘contains something which holds for the objects’ (Kant). But the relation itself now acquires the character of PRESENCE-AT-HAND by getting switched over to a relationship between things which are present-at-hand. The uncovcredness of something becomes the presentat-hand conformity of one thing which is present-at-hand – the assertion expressed – to something else which is present-at-hand – the entity under discussion. And if this conformity is seen only as a relationship between things which are present-at-hand – that is, if the kind of Being which belongs to the terms of this relationship has not been discriminated and is understood as something merely present-at-hand – then the relation shows itself as an agreement of two things which are present-at-hand, an agreement which is present-at-hand itself. BTMR §44
Yet that which is last in the order of the way things are connected in their foundations existentially and ontologically, is regarded ontically and factically as that which is first and closest to us. The necessity of this Fact, however, is based in turn upon the kind of Being which Dasein itself possesses. Dasein, in its concernful absorption, understands itself in terms of what it encounters within-the-world. The uncoveredncss which belongs to uncovering, is something that we come across proximally within-the-world in that which has been expressed (im Ausgesprochenen). Not only truth, however, is encountered as present-at-hand: in general our understanding of Being is such that every entity is understood in the first instance as present-at-hand. If the ‘truth’ which we encounter proximally in an ontical manner is considered ontologically in the way that is closest to us, then the logos (the assertion) gets understood as logos tinos – as an assertion about something, an uncoveredness of something; but the phenomenon gets Interpreted as something present-at-hand with regard to its possible PRESENCE-AT-HAND. Yet because PRESENCE-AT-HAND has been equated with the meaning of BeinBeing in general, the question of whether this kind of Being of truth is a primordial one, and whether there is anything primordial in that structure of it which we encounter as closest to us, can not come alive at all. The primordial phenomenon of truth has been covered up by Dasein’s very understanding of Being – that understanding which is proximally the one that prevails, and which even today has not been surmounted explicitly and in principle. BTMR §44
The answer to the question of the meaning of Being has yet to be given (steht … aus). What has our fundamental analysis of Dasein, as we have carried it out so far, contributed to working out this question? By laying bare the phenomenon of care, we have clarified the state of Being of that entity to whose Being something like an understanding of Being belongs. At the same time the Being of Dasein has thus been distinguished from modes of Being (readiness-to-hand, PRESENCE-AT-HAND, Reality) which. characterize entities with a character other than that of Dasein. Understanding has itself been elucidated; and at the same time the methodological transparency of the procedure of Interpreting Being by understanding it and interpreting it, has thus been guaranteed. BTMR §44
From the foregoing discussion of the ontological possibility of getting death into our grasp, it becomes clear at the same time that substructures of entities with another kind of Being (PRESENCE-AT-HAND or life) thrust themselves to the fore unnoticed, and threaten to bring confusion to the Interpretation of this phenomenon – even to the first suitable way of presenting it. We can encounter this phenomenon only by seeking, for our further analysis, an ontologically adequate way of defining the phenomena which are constitutive for it, such as “end” and “totality”. BTMR §47
If this is our goal, the idea of ‘Guilty!’ must be sufficiently formalized so that those ordinary phenomena of “guilt” which are related to our concernful Being with Others, will drop out. The idea of guilt must not only be raised above the domain of that concern in which we reckon things up, but it must also be detached from relationship to any law or “ought” such that by failing to comply with it one loads himself with guilt. For here too “guilt” is still necessarily defined as a lack – when something which ought to be and which can be is missing. To be missing, however, means not-Being-present-at-hand. A lack, as the not-Being-present-at-hand of something which ought to be, is a definite sort of Being which goes with the present-at-hand. In this sense it is essential that in existence there can be nothing lacking, not’ because it would then be perfect, but because its character of Being remains distinct from any PRESENCE-AT-HAND. BTMR §58
The third consideration which we have mentioned invokes the fact that the everyday experience of the conscience has no acquaintance with anything like getting summoned to Being-guilty. This must be conceded. But does this everyday experience thus give us any guarantee that the ‘full possible content of the call of the voice of conscience has been heard therein? Does it follow from this that theories of conscience which are based on the ordinary way of experiencing it have made certain that their ontological horizon for analysing this phenomenon is an appropriate one? Does not falling, which is an essential kind of Being for Dasein, show us rather that ontically this entity understands itself proximally and for the most part in terms of the horizon of concern, but that ontologically, it defines “Being” in the sense of PRESENCE-AT-HAND? This, however, leads to covering up the phenomenon in two ways: what one sees in this theory is a sequence of Experiences or ‘psychical processes’ – a sequence whose kind of Being is for the most part wholly indefinite. In such experience the conscience is encountered as an arbiter and admonisher, with whom Dasein reckons and pleads its cause. (SZ:293) BTMR §59
If the ascendancy of the falling understanding of Being (of Being as PRESENCE-AT-HAND) keeps Dasein far from the ontological character of its own Being, it keeps it still farther from the primordial foundations of that Being. So one must not be surprised if, at first glance, temporality does not correspond to that which is accessible to the ordinary understanding as ‘time’. Thus neither the way time is conceived in our ordinary experience of it, nor the problematic which arises from this experience, can function without examination as a criterion for the appropriateness of an Interpretation of time. Rather, we must, in our investigation, make ourselves familiar beforehand with the primordial phenomenon of temporality, so that in terms of this we may cast light on the necessity, the source, and the reason for the dominion of the way it is ordinarily understood. BTMR §61
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 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
How are we to conceive this unity? How can Dasein exist as a unity in the ways and possibilities of its Being which we have mentioned? Manifestly, it can so exist only in such a way that it is itself this Being in its essential possibilities – that in each case I am this entity. The ‘I’ seems to ‘hold together’ the totality of the structural whole. In the ‘ontology’ of this entity, the ‘I’ and the ‘Self’ have been conceived from the earliest times as the supporting ground (as substance or subject). Even in its preparatory characterization of everydayness, our analytic has already come up against the question of Dasein’s “who”. It has been shown that proximally and for the most part Dasein is not itself but is lost in the they-self, which is an existentiell modification of the authentic Self. The question of the ontological constitution of Selfhood has remained unanswered. In principle, of course, we have already fixed upon a clue for this problem; for if the Self belongs to the essential (wesenhaften) attributes of Dasein, while Dasein’s ‘Essence’ (“Essenz”) lies in existence, then “I”-hood and Selfhood must be conceived existentially. On the negative side, it has also been shown that our ontological characterization of the “they” prohibits us from making any use of categories of PRESENCE-AT-HAND (such as substance). It has become clear, in principle, that ontologically care is not to be derived from Reality or to be built up with the (SZ:318) categories of Reality. Care already harbours in itself the phenomenon of the Self, if indeed the thesis is correct that the expression ‘care for oneself’ (“Selbstsorge”), would be tautological if it were proposed in conformity with the term “solicitude” (Fürsorge) as care for Others. But in that case the problem of defining ontologically the Selfhood of Dasein gets sharpened to the question of the existential ‘connection’ between care and Selfhood. BTMR §64
In characterizing the ‘connection’ between care and Selfhood, our aim was not only to clarify the special problem of “I”-hood, but also to help in the final preparation for getting into our grasp phenomenally the totality of Dasein’s structural whole. We need the unwavering discipline of the existential way of putting the question, if, for our ontological point of view, Dasein’s kind of Being is not to be finally perverted into a mode of PRESENCE-AT-HAND, even one which is wholly undifferentiated. Dasein becomes ‘essentially’ Dasein in that authentic existence which constitutes itself as anticipatory resoluteness. Such resoluteness, as a mode of the authenticity of care, contains Dasein’s primordial Self-constancy and totality. We must take an undistracted look at these and understand them existentially if we are to lay bare the ontological meaning of Dasein’s Being. BTMR §65
In the case before us, the releasing from such environmental confinement belongs to the way one’s understanding of Being has been modified; and it becomes at the same time a delimitation of the ‘realm’ of the presentat-hand, if one now-takes as one’s guiding clue the understanding of Being in the sense of PRESENCE-AT-HAND. The more appropriately the Being of the entities to be explored is understood under the guidance of an understanding of Being, and the more the totality of entities has been Articulated in its basic attributes as a possible area of subject-matter for a science, all the more secure will be the perspective for one’s methodical inquiry. BTMR §69
If, moreover, thematizing modifies and Articulates the understanding of Being, then, in so far as Dasein, the entity which thematizes, exists, it must already understand something like Being. Such understanding of Being can remain neutral. In that case readiness-to-hand and PRESENCE-AT-HAND have not yet been distinguished; still less have they been conceived ontologically. But if Dasein is to be able to have any dealings with a context of equipment, it must understand something like an involvement, even if it does not do so thematically: a world must have been disclosed to it. With Dasein’s factical existence, this world has been disclosed, if Dasein indeed exists essentially as Being-in-the-world. And if Dasein’s Being is completely grounded in temporality, then temporality must make possible Being-in-the-world and therewith Dasein’s transcendence; this transcendence in turn provides the support for concernful Being alongside entities within-the-world, whether this Being is theoretical or practical. BTMR §69
We need only delimit that phenomenal range which we necessarily must also have in view ontologically when we talk of Dasein’s historicality. The transcendence of the world has a temporal foundation; and by reason of this, the world-historical is, in every case, already ‘Objectively’ there in the historizing of existing Being-in-the-world, without being grasped historiologically. And because factical Dasein, in falling, is absorbed in that with which it concerns itself, it understands its history worldhistorically in the first instance. And because, further, the ordinary understanding of Being understands ‘Being’ as PRESENCE-AT-HAND without further differentiation, the Being of the world-historical is experienced and interpreted in the sense of something present-at-hand which comes along, has presence, and then disappears. And finally, because the meaning of BeinBeing in general is held to be something simply self-evident, the question about the kind of Being of the world-historical and about the movement of historizing in general has ‘really’ just the barren circumstantiality of a verbal sophistry. BTMR §75
It is no accident that world-time thus gets levelled off and covered up by the way time is ordinarily understood. But just because the everyday interpretation of time maintains itself by looking solely in the direction of concernful common sense, and understands only what ‘shows’ itself within the common-sense horizon, these structures must escape it. That which gets counted when one measures time concernfully, the “now”, gets co-understood in one’s concern with the present-at-hand and the ready-to-hand. Now so far as this concern with time comes back to the time itself which has been co-understood, and in so far as it ‘considers’ that time, it sees the “nows” (which indeed are also somehow ‘there’) within the horizon of that understanding-of-Being by which this concern is itself constantly guided. Thus the “nows” are in a certain manner co-present-at-hand: that is, entities are encountered, and so too is the “now”. Although it is not said explicitly that the “nows” are present-at-hand in the same way as Things, they still get ‘seen’ ontologically within the horizon of the idea of PRESENCE-AT-HAND. The “nows” pass away, and those which have passed away make up the past. The “nows” come along, and those which are coming along define the ‘future’. The ordinary interpretation of world-time as now-time never avails itself of the horizon by which such things as world, significance, and datability can be made accessible. These structures necessarily remain covered up, all the more so because this covering-up is reinforced by the way in which the ordinary interpretation develops its characterization of time conceptually. (SZ:423) BTMR §81