which has been devised accidentally and at random. We can restrain this arbitrariness only by giving beforehand an ontological characterization of the kind of Being in which the 'end' enters into Dasein's average everydayness. To do so; we must fully envisage those structures of everydayness which we have earlier set forth. The fact that in an existential analysis of death, existentiell possibilities of Being-towards-death are consonant with it, is implied by the essence of all ontological investigation. All the more explicitly must the existential definition of concepts be unaccompanied by any existentiell commitments, 1 especially with relation to death, in which Dasein's character as possibility lets itself be revealed most precisely. The [249] existential problematic aims only at setting forth the ontological structure of Dasein's Being-towards-the-end.vi
¶ 50. Preliminary Sketch of the Existential-ontological Structure of Death
From our considerations of totality, end, and that which is still outstanding, there has emerged the necessity of Interpreting the phenomenon of death as Being-towards-the-end, and of doing so in terms of Dasein's basic state. Only so can it be made plain to what extent Being-a-whole, as constituted by Being towards-the-end, is possible in Dasein itself in conformity with the structure of its Being. We have seen that care is the basic state of Dasein. The ontological signification of the expression "care" has been expressed in the 'definition': "ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in (the world) as Being-alongside entities which we encounter (within-the-world)".vii In this are expressed the fundamental characteristics of Dasein's Being: existence, in the "ahead-of-itself"; facticity, in the [250] "Being-already-in"; falling, in the "Being-alongside". If indeed death belongs in a distinctive sense to the Being of Dasein, then death (or Being-towards-the-end) must be defined in terms of these characteristics.
We must, in the first instance, make plain in a preliminary sketch how Dasein's existence, facticity, and falling reveal themselves in the phenomenon of death.
The Interpretation in which the "not-yet—and with it even the uttermost "not-yet", the end of Dasein—was taken in the sense of something still outstanding, has been rejected as inappropriate in that it included the ontological perversion of making Dasein something present-at-hand. Being-at-an-end implies existentially Being-towards-the-end. The uttermost "not-yet" has the character of something towards which Dasein comports itself. The end is impending [steht . . . bevor] for Dasein. Death is not something not yet present-at-hand, nor is it that which is ultimately
1 'Um so ausdrücklicher muss mit der existenzialen Begriffsbestimmung die existenzielle Unverbindlichkeit zusammengehen . . .'