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Problem of Ontological Difference [369-371]

which has as its opposite the wrong time, as when we say that someone comes at the wrong time or is on time. We have already had this peculiar character of time in view in another context when we characterized the concept of the world and saw that in it there is intended a whole of relations having the character of the in-order-to. We designated by the term "significance" this totality of relations of the in-order-to, for-the-sake-of, for-that-purpose, to-that-end. Time as right and wrong time has the character of significance, the character that characterizes the world as world in general. It is for this reason that we call the time with which we reckon, which we leave for ourselves, world-time. This does not mean that the time we read from the clock is something extant like intraworldly things. We know, of course, that the world is not an extant entity, not nature, but that which first makes possible the uncoveredness of nature. It is therefore also inappropriate, as frequently happens, to call this time nature-time or natural time. There is no nature-time, since all time belongs essentially to the Dasein. But there is indeed a world-time. We give time the name of world-time because it has the character of significance, which is overlooked in the Aristotelian definition of time and everywhere in the traditional determination of time.

A second factor along with the significance of time is its datability. Each now is expressed in an enpresenting of something in unity with an expecting and retaining. When I say "now" I am always tacitly adding "now, when such and such." When I say "then" I always mean "then, when." When I say "at the time" I mean "at the time when." To every now there belongs a "when"— now, when such and such. By the term "datability" we denote this relational structure of the now as now-when, of the at-the-time as atthe- time-when, and of the then as then-when. Every now dates itself as "now, when such and such is occurring, happening, or in existence." Even if I can no longer determine exactly and unequivocally the when of an at-thetime- when, the at-the-time has this relation. Only because the relation of dating belongs essentially to the at-the-time, now, and then, can the date be indefinite, hazy, and uncertain. The date itself does not need to be calendrical in the narrower sense. The calendar date is only one particular mode of everyday dating. The indefiniteness of the date does not imply a shortcoming in datability as essential structure of the now, at-the-time, and then. These must belong to it in order for it to be able to be indefinite as a date. We say, for example, "at the time when the French were in Germany," and we speak of the "French time." The dating can be calendrically indeterminate but it is nevertheless determined by a particular historical happening or some other event. No matter how broad, certain, and unequivocal the dating may be of a "now when," an "at-the-time when," and a "then when," the structural moment of datability belongs to the essential constitution of


Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA 24) by Martin Heidegger