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¶ 45. The Outcome of the Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein, and the Task of a Primordial Existential Interpretation of this Entity
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, 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 i , which, in anticipation, we had designated as the essence of Dasein. This term "existence" formally indicates that Dasein is as an understanding potentialityfor-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 sciend]. 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.
What we are seeking is the answer to the question about the meaning of Being in general, and, prior to that, the possibility of working out in a radical manner this basic question of all ontology. But to lay bare the horizon within which something like Being in general becomes intelligible, is tantamount to clarifying the possibility of having any understanding of Being at all—an understanding which itself belongs to the constitution of the entity called Dasein. ii The understanding of Being, however, cannot be radically clarified as an essential element in Dasein's Being, unless the entity to whose Being it belongs, has been Interpreted primordially in itself with regard to its Being.
Are we entitled to the claim that in characterizing Dasein ontologically qua care we have given a primordial Interpretation of this entity? By what criterion is the existential analytic of Dasein to be assessed as regards its
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'Dasein und Zeitlichkeit'. In this heading and in others which follow in this Division, we have capitalized such words as 'temporal' and 'constitution' in accordance with normal practice in titles, even when this violates the orthographic conventions of our translation. |
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primordiality, or the lack of it? What, indeed, do we mean by the "pirimordiality" of an ontological Interpretation?
Ontological investigation is a possible kind of interpreting, which we have described as the working-out and appropriation of an understanding. iii Every interpretation has its fore-having, its fore-sight, and its fore-conception. If such an interpretation, as Interpretation, becomes an explicit task for research, then the totality of these 'presuppositions' (which we call the "hermeneutical Situation") needs to be clarified and made secure beforehand, both in a basic experience of the 'object' to be disclosed, and in terms of such an experience. In ontological Interpretation an entity is to be laid bare with regard to its own state of Being; such an Interpretation obliges us first to give a phenomenal characterization of the entity we have taken as our theme, and thus to bring it into the scope of our fore-having, with which all the subsequent steps of our analysis are to conform. But at the same time these steps need to be guided by whatever fore-sight is possible as to the kind of Being which the entity may possess. Our fore-having and our fore-sight will then give us at the same time a sketch of that way of conceiving (or fore-conception) to the level of which all structures of Being are to be raised. |
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If, however, the ontological Interpretation is to be a primordial one, this not only demands that in general the hermeneutical Situation shall be one which has been made secure in conformity with the phenomena; it also requires explicit assurance that the whole of the entity which it has taken as its theme has been brought into the fore-having. Similarly, it is not enough just to make a first sketch of the Being of this entity, even if our sketch is grounded in the phenomena. If we are to have a fore-sight of Being, we must see it in such a way as not to miss the unity of those structural items which belong to it and are possible. Only then can the question of the meaning of the unity which belongs to the whole entity's totality of Being, be formulated and answered with any phenomenal assurance.
Has the existential analysis of Dasein which we have carried out, arisen from such a hermeneutical Situation as will guarantee the primordiality which fundamental ontology demands? Can we progress from the result we have obtained—that the being of Dasein is care—to the question of the primordial unity of this structural whole?
What is the status of the fore-sight by which our ontological procedure has hitherto been guided? We have defined the idea of existence as a potentiality-for-Being—a potentiality which understands, and for which its own Being is an issue. But this potentiality-for-Being, as one which is in each case mine, is free either for authenticity or for inauthenticity or for a mode in which neither of these has been differentiated. iv In starting with
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average everydayness, our Interpretation has heretofore been confined to the analysis of such existing as is either undifferentiated or inauthentic. Of course, even along this path, it was possible and indeed necessary to reach a concrete determination of the existentiality of existence. Nevertheless, our ontological characterization of the constitution of existence still lacked something essential. "Existence" means a potentiality-for-Being —but also one which is authentic. As lofig as the existential structure of an authentic potentiality-for-Being has not been brought into the idea of existence, the fore-sight by which an existential Interpretation is guided will lack primordiality. |
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And how about what we have had in advance in our hermeneutical Situation hitherto? How about its fore-having? When and how has our existential analysis received any assurance that by starting with everydayness, it has forced the whole of Dasein—this entity from its 'beginning' to its 'end'—into the phenomenological view which gives us our theme? We have indeed contended that care is the totality of the structural whole of Dasein's constitution. v But have we not at the very outset of our Interpretation renounced the possibility of bringing Dasein into view as a whole? Everydayness is precisely that Being which is 'between' birth and death. And if existence is definitive for Dasein's Being and if its essence is consituated in part by potentiality-for-Being, then, as long as Dasein exists, it must in each case, as such a potentiality, not yet be something. Any entity whose Essence is made up of existence, is essentially opposed to the possibility of our getting it in our grasp as an entity which is a whole. Not only has the hermeneutical Situation hitherto given us no assurance of 'having' the whole entity: one may even question whether "having" the whole entity is attainable at all, and whether a primordial ontological Interpretation of Dasein will not founder on the kind of Being which belongs to the very entity we have taken as our theme.
One thing has become unmistakable: our existential analysis of Dasein up till now cannot lay claim to primordiality. Its fore-having never included more than the inauthentic Being of Dasein, and of Dasein as less than a whole [als unganzes]. If the Interpretation of Dasein's Being is to become primordial, as a foundation for working out the basic question of ontology, then it must first have brought to light existentially the Being of Dasein in its possibilities of authenticity and totality.
Thus arises the task of putting Dasein as a whole into our fore-having. This signifies, however, that we must first of all raise the question of this entity's potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. As long as Dasein is, there is in every case something still outstanding, which Dasein can be and will be. But to that which is thus outstanding, the 'end' itself belongs. The 'end' |
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of Being-in-the-world is death. This end, which belongs to the potent-. iality-for-Being—that is to say, to existence—limits and determines in every case whatever totality is possible for Dasein. If, however, Dasein's Being-at-an-end 1 in death, and therewith its Being-a-whole, are to be included in the discussion of its possibly Being-a-whole, and if this is to be done in a way which is appropriate to the phenomena, then we must have obtained an ontologically adequate conception of death—that is to say an existential conception of it. But as something of the character of Dasein, death is only in an existentiell Being towards death [Sein zum Tode]. The existential structure of such Being proves to be the ontologically constitutive state of Dasein's potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. Thus the whole existing Dasein allows itself to be brought into our existential fore-having. But can Dasein also exist authentically as a whole? How is the authenticity of existence to be determined at all, if not with regard to authentic existing? Where do we get our criterion for this? Manifestly, Dasein itself must, in its Being, present us with the possibility and the manner of its authentic existence, unless such existence is something that can be imposed upon it ontically, or ontologically fabricated. But an authentic potentiality-for-Being is attested by the conscience. And conscience, as a phenomenon of Dasein, demands, like death, a genuinely existential Interpretation. Such an Interpretation leads to the insight that Dasein has an authentic potentiality-for-Being in that it wants to have a conscience. But this is an existentiell possibility which tends, from the very meaning of its Being, to be made definite in an existentiell way by Being-towards-death.
By pointing out that Dasein has an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, the existential analytic acquires assurance as to the constitution of Dasein's primordial Being. But at the same time the authentic potentiality-for-Beinga-whole becomes visible as a mode of care. And therewith the phenomenally adequate ground for a primordial Interpretation of the meaning of Dasein's Being has also been assured.
But the primordial ontological basis for, Dasein's existentiality is temporality. In terms of temporality, the articulated structural totality of Dasein's Being as care first becomes existentially intelligible. The Interpretation of the meaning of Dasein's Being cannot stop with this demonstration. The existential-temporal analysis of this entity needs to be confirmed concretely. We must go back and lay bare in their temporal meaning the ontological structures of Dasein which we have previously obtained. Everydayness reveals itself as a mode of temporality. But by thus recapitulating our preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein, we
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'Zu-Ende-sein' This expression is to be distinguished from 'Sein-zum-Ende', which we shall translate as 'Being-towards-the-end'. |
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will at the same time make the phenomenon of temporality itself more transparent. In terms of temporality, it then becomes intelligible why Dasein is, and can be, historical in the basis of its Being, and why, as historical, it can develop historiology. |
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If temporality makes up the primordial meaning of Dasein's Being, and if moreover this entity is one for which, in its Being, this very Being is an issue, then care must use 'time' and therefore must reckon with 'time'. 'Time-reckoning' is developed by Dasein's temporality. The 'time' which is experienced in such reckoning is that phenomenal aspect of temporality which is closest to us. Out of it arises the ordinary everyday understanding of time. And this understanding evolves into the traditional conception of time.
By casting light on the source of the 'time' 'in which' entities withinthe-world are encountered—time as "within-time-ness"—we shall make manifest an essential possibility of the temporalizing of temporality. 1 Therewith the understanding prepares itself for an even more primordial temporalizing of temporality. In this 2 is grounded that understanding of Being which is constitutive for the Being of Dasein. Within the horizon of time the projection of a meaning of Being in general can be accomplished.
Thus the investigation comprised in the division which lies before us will now traverse the following stages: Dasein's possibility of Being-awhole, and Being-towards-death (Chapter 1); Dasein's attestation of an authentic potentiality-for-Being, and resoluteness (Chapter 2); Dasein's authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, and temporality as the ontological meaning of care (Chapter 3); temporality and everydayness (Chapter 4); temporality and historicality (Chapter 5); temporality and within-time-ness as the source of the ordinary conception of time (Chapter 6). vi
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'Die Aufhellung des Ursprungs der "Zeit", "in der" in der" innerweltliches Seiendes begegnet, der Zeit als Innerzeitigkeit, offenbart eine wesenhafte Zeitigungsmöglichkeit der Zeitlichkeit.' On 'zeitigen' see H. 304 below. |
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'In ihr . . .' It is not clear whether the pronoun 'ihr' refers to 'Zeitigung' ('temporalizing') or 'Zeitlichkeit' ('temporality'). |
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