relation to these phenomena, it may not be superfluous to remark that our own Interpretation is purely ontological in its aims, and is far removed from any moralizing critique of everyday Dasein, and from the aspirations of a 'philosophy of culture'.
¶ 35. Idle Talk
The expression 'idle talk' ["Gerede"] is not to be used here in a 'disparaging'1 signification. Terminologically, it signifies a positive phenomenon which constitutes the kind of Being of everyday Dasein's understanding and interpreting. For the most part, discourse is expressed by being spoken out, and has always been so expressed; it is language.2 But in that case understanding and interpretation already lie in what has thus been expressed. In language, as a way things have been expressed or spoken out [Ausgesprochenheit], there is hidden a way in which the understanding of Dasein has been interpreted. This way of interpreting it is no more just present-at-hand than language is; on the contrary, its Being is itself of the character of Dasein. Proximally, and with certain limits, Dasein is constantly delivered over to this interpretedness, which controls and distributes the possibilities of average understanding and of the state-of-mind [168] belonging to it. The way things have been expressed or spoken out is such that in the totality of contexts of signification into which it has been articulated, it preserves an understanding of the disclosed world and therewith, equiprimordially, an understanding of the Dasein-with of Others and of one's own Being-in. The understanding which has thus already been "deposited" in the way things have been expressed, pertains just as much to any traditional discoveredness of entities which may have been reached, as it does to one's current understanding of Being and to whatever possibilities and horizons for fresh interpretation and conceptual Articulation may be available. But now we must go beyond a bare allusion to the Fact of this interpretedness of Dasein, and must inquire about the existential kind of Being of that discourse which is expressed and which expresses itself. If this cannot be conceived as something present-at-hand, what is its Being, and what does this tell us in principle about Dasein's everyday kind of Being?
Discourse which expresses itself is communication. Its tendency of
1 These quotation marks are supplied only in the older editions. (It is not easy to translate 'Gerede' in a way which does not carry disparaging connotations. Fortunately Heidegger makes his meaning quite clear.)
2 'Die Rede spricht sich zumeist aus und hat sich schon immer ausgesprochen. Sie ist Sprache.' As we have pointed out earlier (see our note 1, p. 190 H. 149 above), it is often sufficient to translate 'aussprechen' as 'express'. In the present passage, however, the connotation of 'speaking out' or 'uttering' seems especially important; we shall occasionally make it explicit in our translation by hendiadys or other devices.