Being and Time

Being and Time \ Chapter One\ Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein\ The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein\ We are ourselves the entities to be analysed. The Being of any such entity is in each case mine. These entities, in their Being, comport themselves towards their Being. As entities with such Being, they are delivered over to their own Being. Being is that which is an issue for every such entity. This way of characterizing Dasein has a double consequence:\ I. 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.\ The 'essence' of Dasein lies in its existence. Accordingly those characteristics which can be exhibited in this entity are not 'properties' present-at-hand of some entity which 'looks' so and so and is itself present-at-hand; they are in each case possible ways for it to be, and no more than that. All the Being-as-it-is [So-sein] which this entity possesses is primarilyBeing. So when we designate this entity with the term 'Dasein', we are expressing not its "what" (as if it were a table, house or tree) but its Being.\ 2. That Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being, is in each case mine. Thus Dasein is never to be taken ontologically as an instance or special case of some genus of entities as things that are present-at-hand. To entities such as these, their Being is 'a matter of indifference'; or more precisely, they 'are' such that their Being can be neither a matter of indifference to them, nor the opposite. Because Dasein has in each case mineness [Femeinigkeit], one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it: 'I am', 'you are'.\ Furthermore, in each case Dasein is mine to be in one way or another. Dasein has always made some sort of decision as to the way in which it is in each case mine [je meines]. That entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue, comports itself towards its Being as its ownmost possibility. In each case Dasein is its possibility, and it 'has' this possibility, but not just as a property [eigenschaftlich], as something present-at-hand would. And because Dasein is in each case essentially its own possibility, it can, in its very Being, 'choose' itself and win itself; it can also lose itself and never win itself; or only 'seem' to do so. But only in so far as it is essentially something which can be authentic -- that is, something of its own -- can it have lost itself and not yet won itself. As modes of Being, authenticity and inauthenticity (these expressions have been chosen terminologically in a strict sense) are both grounded in the fact that any Dasein whatsoever is characterized by mineness. But the inauthenticity of Dasein does not signify any 'less' Being or any 'lower' degree of Being. Rather it is the case that even in its fullest concretion Dasein can be characterized by inauthenticity -- when busy, when excited, when interested, when ready for enjoyment.\ The two characteristics of Dasein which we have sketched -- the priority of 'existentia' over essentia, and the fact that Dasein is in each case mine [die Jemeinigkeit] -- have already indicated that in the analytic of this entity we are facing a peculiar phenomenal domain. Dasein does not have the kind of Being which belongs to something merely present-at-hand within the world, nor does it ever have it. So neither is it to be presented thematically as something we come across in the same way as we come across what is present-at-hand. The right way of presenting it is so far from self-evident that to determine what form it shall take is itself an essential part of the ontological analytic of this entity. Only by presenting this entity in the right way can we have any understanding of its Being. No matter how provisional our analysis may be, it always requires the assurance that we have started correctly.\ In determining itself as an entity, Dasein always does so in the light of a possibility which it is itself and which, in its very Being, it somehow understands. This is the formal meaning of Dasein's existential constitution. But this tells us that if we are to Interpret this entity ontologically, the problematic of its Being must be developed from the existentiality of its existence. This cannot mean, however, that "Dasein" is to be construed in terms of some concrete possible idea of existence. At the outset of our analysis it is particularly important that Dasein should not be Interpreted with the differentiated character [Differenz] of some definite way of existing, but that it should be uncovered [aufgedeckt] in the undifferentiated character which it has proximally and for the most part. This undifferentiated character of Dasein's everydayness is not nothing, but a positive phenomenal characteristic of this entity. Out of this kind of Being -- and back into it again -- is all existing, such as it is. We call this everyday undifferentiated character of Dasein "averageness" [Durchschnittlichkeit].\ And because this average everydayness makes up what is ontically proximal for this entity, it has again and again been passed over in...\ Being and Time. Copyright © by Martin Heidegger. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Foreword   Taylor Carman     xiiiTranslators' Preface     xxiiiAuthor's Preface to the Seventh German Edition     xxviiIntroduction: Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being     21The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being     21The necessity for explicitly restating the question of Being     21The formal structure of the question of Being     24The ontological priority of the question of Being     28The ontical priority of the question of Being     32The Twofold Task in Working Out the Question of Being. Method and Design of our investigation     36The ontological analytic of Dasein as laying bare the horizon for an Interpretation of the meaning of Being in general     36The task of Destroying the history of ontology     41The phenomenological method of investigation     49The concept of phenomenon     51The concept of the logos     55The preliminary conception of phenomenology     58Design of the treatise     63The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of BeingDivision One: Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of DaseinExposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysisof Dasein     67The theme of the analytic of Dasein     67How the analytic of Dasein is to be distinguished from anthropology, psychology, and biology     71The existential analytic and the Interpretation of primitive Dasein. The difficulties of achieving a 'natural conception of the world'     76Being-in-the-world in General as the basic state of Dasein     78A preliminary sketch of Being-in-the-world, in terms of an orientation towards Being-in as such     78A founded mode in which Being-in is exemplified. Knowing the world     86The Worldhood of the World     91The idea of the worldhood of the world in general     91Analysis of environmentality and worldhood in general     95The Being of the entities encountered in the environment     95How the worldly character of the environment announces itself in entities within-the-world     102Reference and signs     107Involvement and significance: the worldhood of the world     114A contrast between our analysis of worldhood and Descartes' Interpretation of the world     122The definition of the 'world' as res extensa     123Foundations of the ontological definition of the 'world'     125Hermeneutical discussion of the Cartesian ontology of the 'world'      128The aroundness of the environment, and Dasein's spatiality     134The spatiality of the ready-to-hand within-the-world     135The spatiality of Being-in-the-world     138Space, and Dasein's spatiality     145Being-in-the-world as Being-with and Being-one's-self. The 'They'     149An approach to the existential question of the "who" of Dasein     150The Dasein-with of Others, and everyday Being-with     153Everyday Being-one's-Self and the "they"     163Being-in as suchThe task of a thematic analysis of Being-in     169The existential Constitution of the "there"     172Being-there as state-of-mind     172Fear as a mode of state-of-mind     179Being-there as understanding     182Understanding and interpretation     188Assertion as a derivative mode of interpretation     195Being-there and discourse. Language     203The everyday Being of the "there", and the falling of Dasein     210Idle talk     211Curiosity     214Ambiguity     217Falling and thrownness     219Care as the Being of Dasein     225The question of the primordial totality of Dasein's structural whole     225The basic state-of-mind of anxiety as a distinctive way in which Dasein is disclosed     228Dasein's Being as care     235Confirmation of the existential Interpretation of Dasein as care in terms of Dasein's pre-ontological way of interpreting itself     241Dasein, worldhood, and reality     244Reality as a problem of Being, and whether the 'external world' can be proved     246Reality as an ontological problem     252Reality and care     254Dasein, disclosedness, and truth     256The traditional conception of truth, and its ontological foundations     257The primordial phenomenon of truth and the derivative character of the traditional conception of truth     262The kind of Being which truth possesses, and the presupposition of truth     269Division Two: Dasein and TemporalityThe outcome of the preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein, and the task of a primordial existential Interpretation of this entity     274Dasein's Possibility of Being-a-whole, and Being-towards-death     279The seeming impossibility of getting Dasein's Being-a-whole into our grasp ontologically and determining its character     279The possibility of experiencing the death of Others, and the possibility of getting a whole Dasein into our grasp      281That which is still outstanding; the end; totality     285How the existential analysis of death is distinguished from other possible Interpretations of this phenomenon     290Preliminary sketch of the existential-ontological structure of death     293Being-towards-death and the everydayness of Dasein     296Everyday Being-towards-the-end, and the full existential conception of death     299Existential projection of an authentic Being-towards-death     304Dasein's Attestation of an Authentic Potentiality-for-being, and Resoluteness     312The problem of how an authentic existentiell possibility is attested     312The existential-ontological foundations of conscience     315The character of conscience as a call     315Conscience as the call of care     319Understanding the appeal, and guilt     325The existential Interpretation of the conscience, and the way conscience is ordinarily interpreted     335The existential structure of the authentic potentiality-for-Being which is attested in the conscience     341Dasein's Authentic Potentiality-for-being-a-whole, and Temporality as the Ontological Meaning of Care     349A preliminary sketch of the methodological step from the definition of Dasein's authentic Being-a-whole to the laying-bare of temporality as a phenomenon     349Anticipatory resoluteness as the way in which Dasein's potentiality-for-Being-a-whole has existentiell authenticity     352The hermeneutical situation at which we have arrived for Interpreting the meaning of the Being of care; and the methodological character of the existential analytic in general     358Care and selfhood     364Temporality as the ontological meaning of care     370Dasein's temporality and the tasks arising there-from of repeating the existential analysis in a more primordial manner     380Temporality and Everydayness     383The basic content of Dasein's existential constitution, and a preliminary sketch of the temporal Interpretation of it     383The temporality of disclosedness in general     384The temporality of understanding     385The temporality of state-of-mind     389The temporality of falling     396The temporality of discourse     400The temporality of Being-in-the-world and the problem of the transcendence of the world     401The temporality of circumspective concern     403The temporal meaning of the way in which circumspective concern becomes modified into the theoretical discovery of the present-at-hand within-the-world     408The temporal problem of the transcendence of the world      415The temporality of the spatiality that is characteristic of Dasein     418The temporal meaning of Dasein's everydayness     421Temporality and Historicality     424Existential-ontological exposition of the problem of history     424The ordinary understanding of history, and Dasein's historizing     429The basic constitution of historicality     434Dasein's historicality, and world-history     439The existential source of historiology in Dasein's historicality     444The connection of the foregoing exposition of the problem of historicality with the researches of Wilhelm Dilthey and the ideas of Count Yorck     449Temporality and Within-time-ness as the source of the ordinary conception of time     456The incompleteness of the foregoing temporal analysis of Dasein     456Dasein's temporality, and our concern with time     458The time with which we concern ourselves, and within-time-ness     464Within-time-ness and the genesis of the ordinary conception of time     472A comparison of the existential-ontological connection of temporality, Dasein, and world-time, with Hegel's way of taking the relation between time and spirit     480Hegel's conception of time     480Hegel's Interpretation of the connection between time and spirit     484The existential-temporal analytic of Dasein, and the question of fundamental ontology as to the meaning of Being in general     486Author's Notes     489Glossary of German Terms     503Index     524

\ Richard Rorty"Powerful and original . . . Being and Time changed the course of philosophy."\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalOne of the landmarks of 20th-century philosophy, Heidegger's 1927 treatise is thought to have been the inspiration for such subjects as psychoanalysis, existentialism, ethics, hermeneutics, and more. This new translation by one of Heidegger's students offers the text in a more precise and understandable English than earlier editions.\ \