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Being and Time

for the existential analytic. Like any ontological Interpretation whatsoever, this analytic can only, so to speak, "listen in" to some previously disclosed entity as regards its Being. And it will attach itself to Dasein's distinctive and most far-reaching possibilities of disclosure, in order to get information about this entity from these. Phenomenological Interpretation [140] must make it possible for Dasein itself to disclose things primordially; it must, as it were, let Dasein interpret itself. Such Interpretation takes part in this disclosure only in order to raise to a conceptual level the phenomenal content of what has been disclosed, and to do so existentially.

Later (Cf. Section 40)1 I we shall provide an Interpretation of anxiety as such a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, and as one which is significant from the existential-ontological standpoint; with this in view, we shall now illustrate the phenomenon of state-of-mind even more concretely in its determinate mode of fear.


30. Fear as a Mode of State-of-Mind

There are three points of view from which the phenomenon of fear may be considered. We shall analyse: (1) that in the face of which we fear, (2) fearing, and (3) that about which we fear. These possible ways of looking at fear are not accidental; they belong together. With them the general structure of states-of-mind comes to the fore. We shall complete our analysis by alluding to the possible ways in which fear may be modified; each of these pertains to different items in the structure of fear.

That in the face of which we fear, the 'fearsome',2 is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world and which may have either readiness-to-hand, presence-at-hand, or Dasein-with as its kind of Being. We are not going to make an ontical report on those entities which can often and for the most part be 'fearsome': we are to define the fearsome phenomenally in its fearsomeness. What do we encounter in fearing that belongs to the fearsome as such? That in the face of which we fear can be characterized as threatening. Here several points must be considered. 1. What we encounter has detrimentality as its kind of involvement. It shows itself within a context of involvements. 2. The target of this detrimentality is a definite range of what can be affected by it; thus the detrimentality is itself made definite, and comes from a definite region. 3. The region itself is well known as such, and so is that which is coming from it; but that which is coming from it has something 'queer' about it.3 4. That which is detrimental, as something that threatens us, is not yet within


1 The earliest editions cite Section 39 rather than Section 40. This has been corrected in the list of errata.

2 'Das Wovor der Furcht, das Furchtbare ...'

3 '... mit dem es nicht "geheuer" ist.'


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger