But the fact that 'empathy' is not a primordial existential phenomenon, any more than is knowing in general, does not mean that there is nothing problematical about it. The special hermeneutic of empathy will have to show how Being-with-one-another and Dasein's knowing of itself are led astray and obstructed by the various possibilities of Being which Dasein itself possesses, so that a genuine 'understanding' gets suppressed, and Dasein takes refuge in substitutes; the possibility of understanding the stranger correctly presupposes such a hermeneutic as its positive existential condition.1 Our analysis has shown that Being-with is an existential constituent of Being-in-the-world. Dasein-with has proved to be a kind of Being which entities encountered within-the-world have as their own. So far as Dasein is at all, it has Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being. This cannot be conceived as a summative result of the occurrence of several 'subjects'. Even to come across a number of 'subjects' [ einer Anzahl von "Subjekten"] becomes possible only if the Others who are concerned proximally in their Dasein-with are treated merely as 'numerals' ["Nummer"]. Such a number of'subjects' gets discovered only by a definite Being-with-and-towards-one-another. This 'inconsiderate' Being-with 'reckons' ["rechnet"] with the Others without seriously 'counting on them' ["auf sie zahlt"], or without even wanting to 'have anything to do' with them.
One's own Dasein, like the Dasein-with of Others, is encountered proximally and for the most part in terms of the with-world with which we are environmentally concerned. When Dasein is absorbed in the world of its concern—that is, at the same time, in its Being-with towards Others—it is not itself. Who is it, then, who has taken over Being as everyday Being-with-one-another?
¶ 27. Everyday Being-one's-Self and the "They"
[126] The ontologically relevant result of our analysis of Being-with is the insight that the 'subject character' of one's own Dasein and that of Others is to be defined existentially—that is, in terms of certain ways in which one may be. In that with which we concern ourselves environmentally the Others are encountered as what they are; they are what they do [sie sind das, was sie betreiben].
In one's concern with what one has taken hold of, whether with, for, or against, the Others, there is constant care as to the way one differs from them, whether that difference is merely one that is to be evened out, whether one's own Dasein has lagged behind the Others and wants to
1 '... welche positive existenziale Bedingung rechtes Fremdverstehen für seine Möglichkeit voraussetzt.' We have construed 'welche' as referring back to 'Hermeneutik', though this is not entirely clear.