the there of a potentiality of being. Project is the existential constitution of being in the realm of factical potentiality of being. And, as thrown, Dasein is thrown into the mode of being of projecting. Projecting has nothing to do with being related to a plan thought out, according to which Dasein arranges its being, but, as Dasein, it has always already projected itself and is, as long as it is, projecting. As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself and will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the project character of understanding means that understanding does not thematically grasp that upon which it projects, namely, possibilities themselves. Such a grasp precisely takes its character of possibility away from what is projected, it degrades it to the level of a given, intended content, whereas, in projecting, project throws possibility before itself as possibility, and as such lets it be. As projecting, understanding is the mode of being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities.
Because of the kind of being which is constituted by the existential of projecting, Dasein is constantly "more" than it actually is, assuming that one wanted to, and if one could, give an inventory of it as something objectively present in its content of being. But it is never more than it factically is because its potentiality of being belongs essentially to its facticity. But, as being-possible, Dasein is also never less. It is existentially that which it is not yet in its potentiality of being. And only because the being of the there gets its constitution through understanding and its character of project, only because it is what it becomes or does not become, can it say understandingly to itself: "become what you are!"*
Project always concerns the complete disclosedness of being-in-the-world. [146] As a potentiality of being, understanding itself has possibilities which are prefigured by the scope of what can be essentially disclosed to it. Understanding can turn primarily to the disclosedness of the world, that is, Dasein can understand itself initially and for the most part in terms of the world. Or else understanding throws itself primarily into the for-the-sake-of-which, which means Dasein exists as itself.t Understanding is either authentic, originating from its own self as such, or else inauthentic. The "in" ["inauthentic] does not mean that Dasein cuts itself off from itself and understands "only" the world. World belongs to its being a self as being-in-the-world. Again, authentic as well as inauthentic understanding can be either genuine or not genuine. As a potentiality of being understanding is altogether permeated with possibility. Turning to one of these fundamental possibilities of understanding, however, does not dispense with the other. Rather,
* But who are "you"? The one who lets go—and becomes.
† But not qua subject and individual or qua person.