has heard itself and has devoted itself to itself, but not as itself.1 As existent, it never comes back behind its thrownness in such a way that it might first release this 'that-it-is-and-has-to-be' from its Being-its-Self and lead it into the "there". Thrownness, however, does not lie behind it as some event which has happened to Dasein, which has factually befallen and fallen loose from Dasein again;2 on the contrary, as long as Dasein is, Dasein, as care, is constantly its 'that-it-is'. To this entity it has been delivered over, and as such it can exist solely as the entity which it is; and as this entity to which it has been thus delivered over, it is, in its existing, the basis of its potentiality-for-Being. Although it has not laid that basis itself, it reposes in the weight of it, which is made manifest to it as a burden by Dasein's mood.
And how is Dasein this thrown basis? Only in that it projects Itself upon possibilities into which it has been thrown. The Self, which as such has to lay the basis for itself, can never get that basis into its power; and yet, as existing, it must take over Being-a-basis. To be its own thrown basis is that potentiality-for-Being which is the issue for care.
In being a basis—that is, in existing as thrown—Dasein constantly lags behind its possibilities. It is never existent before its basis, but only from it and as this basis. Thus "Being-a-basis" means never to have power over one's ownmost Being from the ground up. This "not" belongs to the existential meaning of "thrownness". It itself, being a basis, is a nullity of itself.3 "Nullity" does not signify anything like not-Being-present-at-hand or not-subsisting; what one has in view here is rather a "not" which is constitutive for this Being of Dasein—its thrownness. The character of this "not" as a "not" may be defined existentially: in being its Self, Dasein is, [285] as a Self, the entity that has been thrown. It has been released from its basis, not through itself but to itself, so as to be as this basis. Dasein is not itself the basis of its Being, inasmuch as this basis first arises from its own projection; rather, as Being-its-Self, it is the Being of its basis.4 This basis
1 'Seiend ist es als Seinkönnen bestimmt, das sich selbst gehOrt und doch nicht als es selbst sich zu eigen gegeben hat. ' It is perhaps tempting to interpret 'gehört' as corning from the verb 'gehören' ('belong') rather than 'horen' ('hear'); we could then read 'belongs to itself' rather than 'has heard itself'. Our version, however, seems to be favoured by the grammar of this passage.
2 'Die Geworfenheit aber liegt nicht hinter ihm als ein tatsächlich vorgefallenes und vom Dasein wieder losgefallenes Ereignis, das mit ihm geschah . . '
3 'Es ist nie existent vor seinem Grunde, sondern je nur aus ihm und als dieser. Grundsein besagt demnach, des eigensten Seins von Grund auf nie mächtig sein. Dieses Nicht gehört zum existenzialen Sinn der Geworfenheit. Grund-seiend ist es selbst eine Nichtigkeit seiner selbst.' Presumably the 'not' to which Heidegger refers in this puzzling passage, is implied in the 'never' of the preceding sentence.
4 '... Selbst seiend ist das Dasein das geworfene Seiende als Selbst. Nicht durch es selbst, sondern an es selbst entlassen aus dem Grunde, urn als dieser zu sein. Das Dasein ist nicht insofern selbst der Grund seines Seins, als dieser aus eigenem Entwurf erst entspringt, wohl aber ist es als Selbstsein das Sein des Grundes.'