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remain moving unawares and as a matter of course within an inappropriate
attitude-however natural it may be. Precisely here, where we are first properly
beginning to grasp the problem, we find ourselves in a crisis. It is uniquely
characteristic of all philosophizing in comparison with every scientific orientation
that at the moment when proper philosophical knowledge is to emerge,
what is decisive is not so much taking hold of the matter, but appraising the
standpoint of the investigation—and this has nothing to do with methodological reflections. If we now try and appraise the critical position where we now stand, this can only be accomplished in the context of a substantive
unfolding of the problem.
§69. A first formal interpretation of the 'as'
as a structural moment of manifestness.
a) The connection between the 'as', as the structural
linking pertaining to relation and relational terms,
and the propositional statement.
Yet what form of inappropriateness can have crept into the concepts employed so far? We said that world is the manifestness of beings as such as a whole. And we have already pointed out that something enigmatic emerges from such a characterization: namely this 'as such', beings as such, something as something, 'a as b'. It is this quite elementary 'as' which-and we can put it quite simply—is refused to the animal. We must think about the essence of manifestness and thus also about the more precise determinations of manifestness. The 'as a whole' ['im Ganzen'] stands in connection with this enigmatic 'as'. If we ask what this 'as' signifies, we would initially reply that it is a linguistic form of expression. Yet should we allow ourselves to approach the matter in this way? Do we not then end up philosophizing merely with words instead of with things themselves? And yet it is immediately clear to us that with this 'as', with 'a as b', with beings as such, we do think something to ourselves, even if we are unable at the first attempt to give a clear account of what is involved in this. Perhaps it is superfluous to point out that this 'as' is also essential in Latin—the qua of ens qua ens—and especially in Greek—the ᾗ of ὄν ᾗ ὄν. Thus this 'as' is no mere whim of our language, but is clearly somehow grounded in the meaning of Dasein itself. What does this linguistic expression 'as', qua, ᾗ, then mean? Obviously we shall not be able to proceed merely by staring, as it were, at these particles, staring at them long enough to discover something behind them. Rather our task is precisely to bring to light that original connection from out of which and for which this 'as' has emerged as a specific meaningful coinage.