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§27. In-being and care [351-352]


involved. Rather, the caring in-being discovers the world in its meaningfulness.

In thus being elevated, or in its contrary of being depressed, the same phenomenon appears again and again as a constitutive state of Dasein, namely, that in all of its preoccupation with the world Dasein is always found in this or that way. It finds itself in this or that way, it is disposed in this or that mood. When we say, it finds itself, this 'itself' first does not really refer expressly to a developed and thematically conscious 'I.' In the very everyday absorption in the Anyone, it can be this Anyone itself in its indeterminacy, and this is just what it is. This co-discoveredness of being-in-the-world in being solicited by the world is possible only because Dasein originally always finds itself in each of its modes of being, because Dasein itself is discovered for itself. We call this basic form of primary co-discoveredness of Dasein disposition. *

A stone never finds itself but is simply on hand. A very primitive unicellular form of life, on the contrary, will already find itself, where this disposition can be the greatest and darkest dullness, but for all that it is in its structure of being essentially distinct from merely being on hand like a thing.

Finding itself in being-in-the-world, in short, disposedness, belongs with being-in-the-world as such. We choose this term in order to avoid from the start regarding the finding-itself as some sort of a reflexion upon itself. We shall learn to see this phenomenon more rigorously with the analysis of care itself. Dasein 'has' its world, has it as a disclosed world, and Dasein finds itself. These are two phenomenological statements which refer to one and the same state of affairs, to the basic structure of being-in-the-world, to discoveredness. Disposition expresses a way of finding that Dasein is in its being as being in each instance its own there, and how it is this there. We must therefore totally give up any attempt to interpret disposition as a finding of inner lived experiences or any sort of apprehension of an inner something. Disposition is rather a basic mode of the being of Dasein, of its in-being. This character of discovered ness in disposition is related to being-in-the-world as such, specifically in the everyday way where one always finds oneself where one dwells, such that in all of what we do and where we



* Befindlichkeit. Disposition is intended to suggest the affective state of being disposed, in Heidegger's later words, 'thrust' into being, and so further suggests being on the receiving (passive, passional, e-motive) end of existence, in Heidegger's words 'solicited,' 'summoned,' and so disposed by and toward the world. The emphasis is therefore on the results of the revelations of 'finding itself (Sich-befinden), i.e., how one finds oneself, its state-of-being, its 'standing' in being, its situation. The common question, wie befinden Sie sich?, "how are you?" (literally "how do you find yourself?") is here an inquiry into your state-of-being rather than your state of health or "state-of-mind."

Befindlichkeit will occasionally be translated as 'disposed ness' to accentuate its proximity to discovered ness and disclosed ness.