









What is the motive for this ��?fugitive’ way of saying “I”? It is motivated by Dasein’s falling; for as falling, it *flees* in the face of itself into the “they.” When the “I” talks in the ��?natural’ manner, this is performed by the they-self. What expresses itself in the ��?I’ is that Self which, proximally and for the most part, I am *not* authentically. When one is absorbed in the everyday multiplicity and the rapid succession [*Sich-jagen] of that with which one is concerned, the Self of the self-forgetful “I am concerned” shows itself as something simple which is constantly selfsame but indefinite and empty. Yet one *is* that with which one concerns oneself. In the ��?natural’ ontical way in which the “I” talks, the phenomenal content of the Dasein which one has in view in the "I" gets overlooked; but this gives *no justification for our joining in this overlooking of it*, or for forcing upon the problematic of the Self an inappropriate ��?categorial’ horizon when we Interpret the “I” ontologically.Of course by thus refusing to follow the everyday way in which the “I” talks, our ontological Interpretation of the ��?I’ has by no means *solved* the problem; but it has indeed *prescribed the direction* for any further inquiries. In the “I,” we have in view that entity which one is in ��?being-in-the-world’.Being-already-in-a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the ��?I’, what we have in view is that entity for which the *issue* is the Being of the entity that it is. With the ��?I’, care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the ��?fugitive’ way in which the “I” talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying “I” most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it *is not authentically* itself, and evades its authentic potentiality-for-Being. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an “I”-substance or to a ��?subject’, but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying “I” must be understood in terms of our *authentic* potentiality-for-Being, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Selfhood is to be discerned existentially only in one’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self—that is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein’s Being *as care*. In terms of care the *constancy of the Self*, as the supposed persistence of the *subjectum*, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being also opens our eyes for the *constancy of the Self*, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the *authentic* counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling. Existentially, “*Self-constancy*” signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self’s Selfhood."―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 368-369
Related Authors: Martin Heidegger
Related Topics: heidegger, i, metaphysics, ontology, philosophy, self