Welch has provided a new annotated translation to Heidegger’s magnum opus. It is still almost impossible to penetrate. One major project for any reader is simply remembering how Heidegger defines his terms, “Ontology and phenomenology are not two differing disciplines among others belonging to philosophy. The two terms characterize philosophy itself, the one its object and the other the way it proceeds.”
Being-there (dasein) is the term that this work will circle around again and again, “The for-the-sake-of-which signifies (points toward) an in-order-to, this signifies a toward-what, this a near-what of letting-be-bound, this a with-what of the bound-up-ness. These interrelations are interlocked among themselves as a primordial wholeness; they are what they are as the signifying within which being-there provides itself precedently with its understanding of being-in-world. The relational whole of this signifying we call signification. This constitutes the structure of world—the structure in which being-there as such in any instance is…. Insofar as it is, being-there has in each instance already submitted itself to a “world” arising for encounter.” Being-there is intimately associated with his world. “Neither the seemingly self-evident procedure of starting with the things of the world, nor the orientation toward the supposedly most rigorous knowledge of beings, guarantees the achievement of a foothold allowing us to meet up phenomenally with the closest ontological constitutions of world, of being-there, and of inner-worldly beings.”
Next, Heidegger refines what exactly the means by the term being-there, “Being-there is a being that is in each instance I myself, its being is in each instance mine. This determination does indicate an ontological constitution…. One may well reject soul-substance as well as thing-likeness of consciousness and object-likeness of person; it remains the case that, ontologically, one starts out with something whose being retains, expressly or not, the meaning of on-hand-ness. Substantiality is then the ontological guideline for determining the being that serves as the answer to the question of who…. The ontic self-evidence of the assertion that it is I who am in each case being-there should not mislead us into the opinion that the path for an ontological interpretation of what is thus “given” has been mapped out.” Throwness is another term of importance for Heidegger, “This characteristic of being-there—one veiled in its wherefrom and its whereto, but in itself all the more unveiledly disclosed—, this “that it is”: this we call its thrownness into its there. This one being is thrown in such a way that, as being-in-world, it is the there. The term “thrownness” intends to suggest the facticity of consignment.”
It would not be an exaggeration to state that Heidegger, throughout this work, continues to refine his definition of being-there, “The fundamental ontological characteristics of this one being are existentiality, facticity, and collapsedness. These existential determinations do not belong to a composite as its pieces, such that one or another might on occasion be missing; rather, there is a primordial interconnection spun in them, one constituting the searched-for wholeness of the structural whole. In the unity of those essential determinations of being-there the being of being-there can be grasped as such, and ontologically.”
Next, Heidegger defines truth, “The “definition” of truth as uncovered-ness and being-uncovering is, moreover, not a mere clarification of a word. It rather grows out of the analysis of those comportments of being-there that we customarily call “true” in the first place…. Being-true, this as being-uncovering, is a manner in which being-there is. What makes such uncovering possible must necessarily be called “true” in a still more primordial sense. The most primordial phenomenon of truth first gets shown by the existential-ontological foundations of uncovering.”
Digging down further into the nature of being-there, Heidegger next defines the terms authentic and conscience, “When being-there thus gets brought back from the one, the one-self is modified in an existentiell manner so that it becomes authentic being-itself. This must be accomplished by making up for not choosing. But making up for not choosing signifies choosing to make this choice—deciding, from its very own self, for an ability-to-be. In choosing to make this choice, being-there makes possible, for the first time, its authentic ability-to-be…. But because being-there is lost in the “one,” it must first find itself. In order to find itself at all, it must be “shown” to itself in its possible authenticity…. We shall claim that this ability is attested by what, in the everyday interpretation of itself, being-there is familiar with as the “voice of conscience.”” He continues, “Conscience offers “something” to understand, it discloses. From this formal characteristic arises the directive to take this phenomenon back into the disclosedness of being-there. This fundamental constitution of the being that we ourselves in each case are is constituted by attunement, understanding, collapsing, and talk. A more penetrating analysis of conscience reveals it as a call. Calling is a mode of talk. The call of conscience has the character of summoning being-there to its ownmost ability-to-be-itself…. Conscience speaks solely and constantly in the mode of silence. Thus it not only loses none of its perceptibility, but forces being-there, thus summoned and called upon, into the reticence of itself…. The call we designate as conscience is a summons to the one-self in its self; as this summons, the summons is the call of the self to its ability-to-be-itself, and thus a calling forth of being-there into its possibilities.”
Other terms of import for Heidegger are dread, death, resoluteness, care, and temporality, “The reticent projecting of oneself upon one's ownmost being-guilty, prepared for dread—we call resoluteness…. Resoluteness is a pre-eminent mode of the disclosedness of being-there…. Henceforth, with resoluteness, [we can say] we have reached the most primordial, because authentic truth of being-there…. If resoluteness constitutes the mode of authentic care, and care itself is only possible through temporality, then the phenomenon at which we arrived when examining resoluteness must present only a modality of temporality—a modality that makes care at all possible. The essential wholeness of being-there as care means: ahead-of-itself-already-being-in (a world) as being-near (encountered inner-worldly beings)…. The primordial unity of the structure of care lies in temporality…. The primary meaning of existentiality is the future.”
Of course, it all circles back to being-there. Now how it explicitly relates to temporality, “Being-there is historical: this will be confirmed as an existential and ontological statement of foundational significance…. Being-there expends itself, as the being whose being is at issue for it, primarily and whether explicitly or not, for itself. Initially and mostly, care takes the form of circumspect taking care of things. Expending itself for the sake of itself, being-there “uses itself up.” Using itself up, being-there needs itself, i.e., it needs time…. Reckoning with time is constitutive for being-in-world. Reckoning with its time, the care-bound uncovering essential to circumspection allows beings to arise for encounter, to be discovered as at hand or on hand.”
Heidegger returns to the themes of fear and dread, “The forgetting that constitutes fear confuses being-there and lets it stray back and forth between ungrasped “worldly” possibilities. In contrast to this frantic finding-present, the presence engendered by dread is held in bringing one back to one's ownmost thrownness. In accordance with its existential meaning, dread cannot lose itself in anything taken care of…. Dread only brings one into the mood for a possible resolution. The present of dread holds the moment, as which the present itself is possible (and only so), in abeyance…. In the temporality peculiar to dread (that dread is primordially grounded in been-ness and that future and present fructify themselves only out of this been-ness) it becomes evident just how powerful the mood of dread can be, and how distinctive it is. In it, being-there is taken back fully to its naked uncanniness and taken over by it…. Fear is occasioned by beings taken care of in a circum-world. In contrast, dread arises from being-there itself. Fear comes over us from inner-worldly beings. Dread arises from being-in-world as thrown being-toward-death….. He who is resolute knows no fear, but understands the possibility of dread as the mood that does not hinder or confuse him. Dread frees us from “null” possibilities and sets us free for authentic ones.”
Finally, Heidegger concludes by returning once again to how it all relates to being-there, “As thrown, being-there is indeed consigned to itself and its ability-to-be, but still as being-in-world. As thrown, it is dependent upon a “world,” and ex-sists factically with others. Initially and mostly, the self is lost in the one. It understands itself in terms of the possibilities of ex-sistence that “circulate” in the “average” public interpretedness of being-there that reigns day by day…. Authentic existentiell understanding, far from extricating itself from the received interpretedness, always grasps its chosen possibility in a resolution from it, against it, and yet again for it…. The resoluteness in which being-there comes back to itself discloses the reigning factical possibilities of authentic ex-sisting from the inheritance it takes over as thrown…. The more authentically being-there resolves itself, i.e., understands itself unambiguously in terms of its ownmost pre-eminent possibility in readying for death, the more unequivocal and inevitable is the choice in finding the possibility of its ex-sistence…. Only being free for death gives being-there its one goal and casts ex-sistence into its finitude. The finitude of ex-sistence thus seized upon rips one back out of the endless multiplicity of possibilities offering themselves right off—those of comfort, taking things easy, shirking obligations—and brings being-there to the simplicity of its destiny. With this term we designate the primordial happening of being-there, a happening embedded in authentic resoluteness, one in which being-there consigns itself to itself, free for death, within a possibility inherited and yet chosen.”
