up of 'accidents' which it fails to recognize, deems its own achievement, and passes off as such.1
Resoluteness brings the Being of the "there" into the existence of its Situation. Indeed it delimits the existential structure of that authentic potentiality-for-Being which the conscience attests—wanting to have a conscience. In this potentiality we have recognized the appropriate way of understanding the appeal. This makes it entirely plain that when the call of conscience summons us to our potentiality-for-Being, it does not hold before us some empty ideal of existence, but calls us forth into the Situation. This existential positivity which the call of conscience possesses when rightly understood, gives us at the same time an insight: it makes us see to what extent we fail to recognize the disclosive character of the conscience if the tendency of the call is restricted to indebtednesses which have already occurred or which we have before us; it also makes us see to what extent the concrete understanding of the voice of conscience is only seemingly transmitted to us if this restriction is made. When our understanding of the appeal is Interpreted existentially as resoluteness, the conscience is revealed as that kind of Being—included in the very basis of Dasein2—in which Dasein makes possible for itself its factical existence, thus attesting its ownmost potentiality-for-Being.
This phenomenon which we have exhibited as "resoluteness' can hardly be confused with an empty 'habitus' or an indefinite 'velleity'. Resoluteness does not first take cognizance of a Situation and put that Situation before itself; it has put itself into that Situation already.3 As resolute, Dasein is already taking action. The term 'take action'4 is one which we are purposely avoiding. For in the first place this term must be taken so broadly that "activity" [Aktivität] will also embrace the passivity of resistance. In the second place, it suggests a misunderstanding in the ontology of Dasein, as if resoluteness were a special way of behaviour belonging to the practical faculty as contrasted with one that is theoretical. Care, however, as
1 'Es kennt nur die "allgemeine Lage", verliert sich an die nächsten "Gelegenheiten" und bestreitet das Dasein aus der Verrechnung der "Zufälle", die es, sie verkennend, für die eigene Leis tung hält und ausgibt.' We have preserved the grammatical ambiguity of the pronouns 'die' and 'es'.
2 '... als die im Grunde des Daseins beschlossene Seinsart ...' The participle 'beschlossene', which is etymologically akin to 'erschlossen', etc., may mean either 'included or 'decided upon', as we have seen on H. 299· Very likely both meanings are here intended.
3 'Die Entschlossenheit stellt sich nicht erst, kenntnisnehmend, eine Situation vor, sondern hat sich schon in sie gestellt.' Our rather literal translation brings out the contrast between 'sich stellen in ...' ('put itself in ...') and 'sich stellen ... vor ...' ('put before itself ...'), but fails to bring out the important sense of the latter expression: 'to represent' or 'to form an idea of'.
4 '"Handeln"'. Far from avoiding this term, Heidegger has used it quite frequently. But he is avoiding it as a possible substitute for the term 'Entschlossenheit'.