thought made central. The plurivocity of this term’s meaning is rooted in the meant object itself. In philosophy, the uncertainty of a term’s meaning can only be either an occasion for eliminating it or, if it turns out to be based in the object as necessary, an occasion for making it into an explicitly appropriated and transparent uncertainty. Such a focus on plurivocity (πολλαχῶς λεγόμενον) [that which is said in many ways (cf. Met. 1003a33ff.)] is not a mere poking around in the meanings of isolated words but rather an expression of a radical tendency to gain access to the meant objects themselves and to make available the motivational source of the different ways they are meant.
The basic sense of the movement of factical life is caring (curare). Life’s “being out for something” in which it is directed toward and cares about it is such that the toward-which of this care, namely, its historically particular world, also is there. The movement of caring is characterized by the fact that factical life goes about its dealings with the world. The toward-which of care is the with-which of these dealings. The sense of the being-real and being-there [Dasein] of the world is based in and defined by its character of being the with-which of dealings marked by caring. The world is there as always already having been taken up in care in one way or another. In accord with the possible directions of care, the world is articulated into the environing world, the with-world, and the self-world. Accordingly, caring is the care for one’s livelihood, occupation, pleasures, remaining undisturbed, not dying, being familiar with . . . , knowing about . . . , and arranging one’s life with respect to its ultimate goals.
The movement of concern displays many different modes of actualizing itself and of being-related to the with-which of its dealings: for example, tinkering with . . . , preparing for . . . , production of . . . , guaranteeing by . . . , making use of . . . , utilizing for . . . , taking possession of . . . , safekeeping of . . . , and loss of. . . . The with-which corresponding to each of these modes, that is, the with-which of dealings directed to a routine task and performing it, stands at any particular time within a definite kind of acquaintance and familiarity. These dealings characterized by caring always have their with-which within a definite kind of seeing of it. Circumspection is at work in these dealings, guiding them, co-temporalizing them, and playing its part in unfolding them. Caring takes the form of a looking around and seeing, and as this circumspective caring it is at the same time anxiously concerned about developing its circumspection, that is, about securing and expanding its familiarity with the objects of its dealings. In circumspection, the with-which of dealings is in advance grasped as . . . , oriented to . . . , interpreted and laid out as. . . . Objects are there as objects having been signified in this or that way and as such pointed in this or that direction. Here the world is being encountered4 in this character of significance. Dealings characterized by caring not only have the possibility of giving up this care for gearing objects in the world in certain directions but rather, on account of a primordial tendency in the movement of factical life, they have an inclination to do so. In this blockage of the tendency to pursue dealings characterized by concern, these