Martin Heidegger

The spiritual world of a Volk is not its cultural superstructure, just as little as it is its arsenal of useful knowledge [Kenntnisse] and values; rather, it is the power that comes from preserving at the most profound level the forces that are rooted in the soil and blood of a Volk, the power to arouse most inwardly and to shake most extensively the Volk's existence.

Asking the question of being is one of the essential and fundamental conditions for the awakening of spirit and hence for an originary world of historical Dasein. It is indispensable if the peril of world-darkening [Weltverdüsterung] is to be forestalled and if our Volk at the center of the West is to take on its historical mission.

Temporality temporalizes as a future which makes present in the process of having been.

Even in expecting, one leaps away from the possible and gets a footing in the real. It is for its reality that what is expected is expected. By the very nature of expecting, the possible is drawn into the real, arising from it and returning to it.

But what help is it to us to look into the constellation of truth? We look into the danger and see the growth of the saving power.Through this we are not yet saved. But we are thereupon summoned to hope in the growing light of the saving power. How can this happen? Here and now and in little things, that we may foster the saving power in its increase. This includes holding always before our eyes the extreme danger.

truth is that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong.

Every questioning is a seeking. Every seeking takes its direction beforehand from what is sought. Questioning is a knowing search for beings in their thatness and whatness.

In provisionally characterizing the object which serves as the theme of our investigation (the Being of entities, or the meaning of Being in general), it seems that we have also delineated the method to be employed. The task of ontology is to explain Being itself and to make the Being of entities stand out in full relief. And the method of ontology remains questionable in the highest degree as long as we merely consult those ontologies which have come down to us historically, or other essays of that character. Since the term "ontology" is used in this investigation in a sense which is formally broad, any attempt to clarify the method of ontology by tracing its history is automatically ruled out. When, moreover, we use the term "ontology," we are not talking about some definite philosophical discipline standing in interconnection with the others. Here one does not have to measure up to the tasks of some discipline that has been presented beforehand; on the contrary, only in terms of the objective necessities of definite questions and the kind of treatment which the 'things themselves' require, can one develop such a discipline. With the question of the meaning of Being, our investigation comes up against the fundamental question of philosophy. This is one that must be treated *phenomenologically*. Thus our treatise does not subscribe to a 'standpoint' or represent any special 'direction'; for phenomenology is nothing of either sort, nor can it become so as long as it understands itself. The expression 'phenomenology' signifies primarily a *methodological conception*. This expression does not characterize the what of the objects of philosophical research as subject-matter, but rather the *how* of that research. The more genuinely a methodological concept is worked out and the more comprehensively it determines the principles on which a science is to be conducted, all the more primordially is it rooted in the way we come to terms with the things themselves, and the farther is it removed from what we call "technical devices," though there are many such devices even in the theoretical disciplines. Thus the term 'phenomenology' expresses a maxim which can be formulated as 'To the things themselves!' It is opposed to all free-floating constructions and accidental findings; it is opposed to taking over any conceptions which only seem to have been demonstrated; it is opposed to those pseudo-questions which parade themselves as 'problems', often for generations at a time. Yet this maxim, one may rejoin, is abundantly self-evident, and it expresses, moreover, the underlying principle of any scientific knowledge whatsoever. Why should anything so self-evident be taken up explicitly in giving a title to a branch of research? In point of fact, the issue here is a kind of 'self-evidence' which we should like to bring closer to us, so far as it is important to do so in casting light upon the procedure of our treatise. We shall expound only the preliminary conception [Vorbegriff] of phenomenology. This expression has two components: "phenomenon" and "logos." Both of these go back to terms from the Greek: _αιν_μενον and λ_γο_. Taken superficially, the term "phenomenology" is formed like "theology," "biology," "sociology"__ames which may be translated as "science of God," "science of life," "science of society." This would make phenomenology the *science of phenomena*. We shall set forth the preliminary conception of phenomenology by characterizing what one has in mind in the term's two components, 'phenomenon' and 'logos', and by establishing the meaning of the name in which these are *put together*. The history of the word itself, which presumably arose in the Wolffian school, is here of no significance."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 49-51

Curiosity is everywhere and nowhere. This mode of Being-in-the-world reveals a new kind of Being of everyday Dasein__ kind in which Dasein is constantly uprooting itself.Idle talk controls even the ways in which one may be curious. It says what one "must" have read and seen. In being everywhere and nowhere, curiosity is delivered over to idle talk. These two everyday modes of Being for discourse and sight are not just present-at-hand side by side in their tendency to uproot, but *either* of these ways-to-be drags the *other* one with it. Curiosity, for which nothing is closed off, and idle talk, for which there is nothing that is not understood, provide themselves (that is, the Dasein which is in this manner [*dem so seienden Dasein*]) with the guarantee of a 'life' which, supposedly, is genuinely 'lively'. But with this supposition a third phenomenon now shows itself, by which the disclosedness of everyday Dasein is characterized."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, p. 217

We assert now that Being is the proper and sole theme of philosophy. This is not our own invention; it is a way of putting the theme which comes to life at the beginning of philosophy in antiquity, and it assumes its most grandiose form in Hegel's logic. At present we are merely asserting that Being is the proper and sole theme of philosophy. Negatively, this means that philosophy is not a science of beings but of Being or, as the Greek expression goes, ontology. We take this expression in the widest possible sense and not in the narrower one it has, say, in Scholasticism or in modern philosophy in Descartes and Leibniz.A discussion of the basic problems of phenomenology then is tantamount to providing fundamental substantiation for this assertion that philosophy is the science of Being and establishing how it is such. The discussion should show the possibility and necessity of the absolute science of Being and demonstrate its character in the very process of the inquiry. Philosophy is the theoretical conceptual interpretation of Being, of Being's structure and its possibilities. Philosophy is ontological." __rom_The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_

Thus with the question of the Being of truth and the necessity of presupposing it, just as with the question of the essence of knowledge, an 'ideal subject' has generally been posited. The motive for this, whether explicit or tacit, lies in the requirement that philosophy should have the '*a priori*' as its theme, rather than 'empirical facts' as such. There is some justification for this requirement, though it still needs to be grounded ontologically. Yet is this requirement satisfied by positing an 'ideal subject'? Is not such a subject *a fanciful idealization*? With such a conception have we not missed precisely the *a priori* character of that merely 'factual' subject, Dasein? Is it not an attribute of the *a priori* character of the factical subject (that is, an attribute of Dasein's facticity) that it is in the truth and in untruth equiprimordially?The ideas of a 'pure "I"' and of a 'consciousness in general' are so far from including the *a priori* character of 'actual' subjectivity that the ontological characters of Dasein's facticity and its state of being are either passed over or not seen at all. Rejection of a 'consciousness in general' does not signify that the *a priori* is negated, any more than the positing of an idealized subject guarantees that Dasein has an *a priori* character grounded upon fact.Both the contention that there are 'eternal truths' and the jumbling together of Dasein's phenomenally grounded 'ideality' with an idealized absolute subject, belong to those residues of Christian theology within philosophical problematics which have not as yet been radically extruded.The Being of truth is connected primordially with Dasein. And only because Dasein is as constituted by disclosedness (that is, by understanding), can anything like Being be understood; only so is it possible to understand Being."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, p. 272

Our conduct of the ontological investigation in the first and second parts opens up for us at the same time a view of the way in which these phenomenological investigations proceed. This raises the question of the character of method in ontology. Thus we come to the third part of the course: the scientific method of ontology and the idea of phenomenology. The method of ontology, that is, of philosophy in general, is distinguished by the fact that ontology has nothing in common with any method of any of the other sciences, all of which as positive sciences deal with beings. On the other hand, it is precisely the analysis of the truth-character of Being which shows that Being also is, as it were, based in a being, namely, in the Dasein. Being is given only if the understanding of Being, hence the Dasein, exists. This being accordingly lays claim to a distinctive priority in ontological inquiry. It makes itself manifest in all discussions of the basic problems of ontology and above all in the fundamental question of the meaning of Being in general. The elaboration of this question and its answer requires a general analytic of the Dasein. Ontology has for its fundamental discipline the analytic of the Dasein. This implies at the same time that ontology cannot be established in a purely ontological manner. Its possibility is referred back to a being, that is, to something ontical__he Dasein. Ontology has an ontical foundation, a fact which is manifest over and over again in the history of philosophy down to the present. For example, it is expressed as early as Aristotle's dictum that the first science, the science of Being, is theology. As the work of the freedom of the human Dasein, the possibilities and destinies of philosophy are bound up with man's existence, and thus with temporality and with historicality, and indeed in a more original sense than is any other science. Consequently, in clarifying the scientific character of ontology, *the first task is the demonstration of its ontical foundation* and the characterisation of this foundation itself."__rom_The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_

Dasein *is authentically itself* in the primordial individualization of the reticent resoluteness which exacts anxiety of itself. *As something that keeps *silent*, authentic *Being*-one__-Self is just the sort of thing that does not keep on saying ___; but in its reticence it _*is*_ that thrown entity as which it can authentically be. The Self which the reticence of resolute existence unveils is the primordial phenomenal basis for the question as to the Being of the ___. Only if we are oriented phenomenally by the meaning of the Being of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-one__-Self are we put in a position to discuss what ontological justification there is for treating substantiality, simplicity, and personality as characteristics of Selfhood. In the prevalent way of saying __,_ it is constantly suggested that what we have in advance is a Self-Thing, persistently present-at-hand; the ontological question of the Being of the Self must turn away from any such suggestion.*Care does not need to be founded in a Self. But existentiality, as constitutive for care, provides the ontological constitution of Dasein__ Self-constancy, to which there belongs, in accordance with the full structural content of care, its Being-fallen factically into non-Self-constancy*. When fully conceived, the care-structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood. This phenomenon is clarified by Interpreting the meaning of care; and it is as care that Dasein__ totality of Being has been defined.___rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 369-370

What is the motive for this __ugitive_ way of saying ___? It is motivated by Dasein__ falling; for as falling, it *flees* in the face of itself into the __hey._ When the ___ talks in the __atural_ manner, this is performed by the they-self. What expresses itself in the ___ is that Self which, proximally and for the most part, I am *not* authentically. When one is absorbed in the everyday multiplicity and the rapid succession [*Sich-jagen] of that with which one is concerned, the Self of the self-forgetful __ am concerned_ shows itself as something simple which is constantly selfsame but indefinite and empty. Yet one *is* that with which one concerns oneself. In the __atural_ ontical way in which the ___ talks, the phenomenal content of the Dasein which one has in view in the "I" gets overlooked; but this gives *no justification for our joining in this overlooking of it*, or for forcing upon the problematic of the Self an inappropriate __ategorial_ horizon when we Interpret the ___ ontologically.Of course by thus refusing to follow the everyday way in which the ___ talks, our ontological Interpretation of the ___ has by no means *solved* the problem; but it has indeed *prescribed the direction* for any further inquiries. In the __,_ we have in view that entity which one is in __eing-in-the-world_.Being-already-in-a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the ___, what we have in view is that entity for which the *issue* is the Being of the entity that it is. With the ___, care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the __ugitive_ way in which the ___ talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying ___ most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it *is not authentically* itself, and evades its authentic potentiality-for-Being. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an ___-substance or to a __ubject_, but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying ___ must be understood in terms of our *authentic* potentiality-for-Being, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Selfhood is to be discerned existentially only in one__ authentic potentiality-for-Being-one__-Self__hat is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein__ Being *as care*. In terms of care the *constancy of the Self*, as the supposed persistence of the *subjectum*, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being also opens our eyes for the *constancy of the Self*, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the *authentic* counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling. Existentially, _*Self-constancy*_ signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self__ Selfhood."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 368-369

The ___ is a bare consciousness, accompanying all concepts. In the ___, __othing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts_. __onsciousness in itself (is) not so much a representation_as it is a form of representation in general._ The __ think_ is __he form of apperception, which clings to every experience and precedes it.__ant grasps the phenomenal content of the ___ correctly in the expression __ think_, or__f one also pays heed to including the __ractical person_ when one speaks of __ntelligence___n the expression __ take action_. In Kant__ sense we must take saying ___ as saying __ think._ Kant tries to establish the phenomenal content of the ___ as *res cogitans*. If in doing so he calls this ___ a __ogical subject_, that does not mean that the ___ in general is a concept obtained merely by way of logic. The ___ is rather the subject of logical behavior, of binding together. __ think_ means __ bind together_. All binding together is an _*I* bind together_. In any taking-together or relating, the ___ always underlies__he _οκείμενον [hypokeimenon; subjectum; subject]. The *subjectum* is therefore __onsciousness in itself_, not a representation but rather the __orm_ of representation. That is to say, the __ think_ is not something represented, but the formal structure of representing as such, and this formal structure alone makes it possible for anything to have been represented. When we speak of the __orm_ of representation, we have in view neither a framework nor a universal concept, but that which, as εἶδο [eidos], makes every representing and everything represented be what it is. If the ___ is understood as the form of representation, this amounts to saying that it is the __ogical subject_.Kant__ analysis has two positive aspects. For one thing, he sees the impossibility of ontically reducing the ___ to a substance; for another thing, he holds fast to the ___ as __ think_. Nevertheless, he takes this ___ as subject again, and he does so in a sense which is ontologically inappropriate. For the ontological concept of the subject *characterizes not the Selfhood of the ___ qua Self, but the self-sameness and steadiness of something that is always present-at-hand*. To define the ___ ontologically as _*subject*_ means to regard it as something always present-at-hand. The Being of the ___ is understood as the Reality of the *res cogitans*."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 366-367

To clarify the existentiality of the Self, we take as our __atural_ point of departure Dasein__ everyday interpretation of the Self. In *saying* _*I*,_ Dasein expresses itself about __tself_. It is not necessary that in doing so Dasein should make any utterance. With the ___, this entity has itself in view. The content of this expression is regarded as something utterly simple. In each case, it just stands for me and nothing further. Also, this ___, as something simple, is not an attribute of other Things; it is not *itself* a predicate, but the absolute __ubject_. What is expressed and what is addressed in saying __,_ is always met as the same persisting something. The characteristics of __implicity_, __ubstantiality_, and __ersonality_, which Kant, for instance, made the basis for his doctrine __f the paralogisms of pure reason_, arise from a genuine pre-phenomenological experience. The question remains whether that which we have experienced ontically in this way may be Interpreted ontologically with the help of the __ategories_ mentioned.Kant, indeed, in strict conformity with the phenomenal content given in saying __,_ shows that the ontical theses about the soul-substance which have been inferred [*erschlossenen*] from these characteristics, are without justification. But in so doing, he merely rejects a wrong *ontical* explanation of the ___; he has by no means achieved an *ontological* Interpretation of Selfhood, nor has he even obtained some assurance of it and made positive preparation for it. Kant makes a more rigorous attempt than his predecessors to keep hold of the phenomenal content of saying ___; yet even though in theory he has denied that the ontical foundations of the ontology of the substantial apply to the __,_ he still slips back into *this same* inappropriate ontology. This will be shown more exactly, in order that we may establish what it means ontologically to take saying ___ as the starting point for the analysis of Selfhood. The Kantian analysis of the __ think_ is now to be added as an illustration, but only so far as is demanded for clarifying these problems."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, p. 366

But how does it come about that while the __ think_ gives Kant a genuine phenomenal starting-point, he cannot exploit it ontologically, and has to fall back on the __ubject___hat is to say, something *substantial*? The ___ is not just an __ think_, but an __ think something_. And does not Kant himself keep on stressing that the ___ remains related to its representations, and would be nothing without them?For Kant, however, these representations are the __mpirical_, which is __ccompanied_ by the _____he appearances to which the ___ __lings_. Kant nowhere shows the kind of Being of this __linging_ and __ccompanying_. At bottom, however, their kind of Being is understood as the constant Being-present-at-hand of the ___ along with its representations. Kant has indeed avoided cutting the ___ adrift from thinking; but he has done so without starting with the __ think_ itself in its full essential content as an __ think something_, and above all, without seeing what is ontologically __resupposed_ in taking the __ think something_ as a basic characteristic of the Self. For even the __ think something_ is not definite enough ontologically as a starting-point, because the __omething_ remains indefinite. If by this __omething_ we understand an entity *within-the-world*, then it tacitly implies that the *world* has been presupposed; and this very phenomenon of the world co-determines the state of Being of the __,_ if indeed it is to be possible for the ___ to be something like an __ think something_. In saying __,_ I have in view the entity which in each case I am as an __-am-in-a-world_. Kant did not see the phenomenon of the world, and was consistent enough to keep the __epresentations_ apart from the *a priori* content of the __ think_. But as a consequence the ___ was again forced back to an *isolated* subject, accompanying representations in a way which is ontologically quite indefinite.*In saying __,_ Dasein expresses itself as Being-in-the-world*. But does saying ___ in the everyday manner have *itself* in view *as* being-in-the-world [*in-der-Welt-seiend*]? Here we must make a distinction. When saying __,_ Dasein surely has in view the entity which, in every case, it is itself. The everyday interpretation of the Self, however, has a tendency to understand itself in terms of the __orld_ with which it is concerned. When Dasein has itself in view ontically, it *fails to see* itself in relation to the kind of Being of that entity which it is itself. And this holds especially for the basic state of Dasein, Being-in-the-world."__rom_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 367-370

Thinking only begins at the point where we have come to know that Reason, glorified for centuries, is the most obstinate adversary of thinking.