Vibe Quotes

But how does it come about that while the ��?I think’ gives Kant a genuine phenomenal starting-point, he cannot exploit it ontologically, and has to fall back on the ��?subject’—that is to say, something *substantial*? The “I” is not just an ��?I think’, but an ��?I think something’. And does not Kant himself keep on stressing that the “I” remains related to its representations, and would be nothing without them?For Kant, however, these representations are the ��?empirical’, which is ��?accompanied’ by the “I”—the appearances to which the “I” ��?clings’. Kant nowhere shows the kind of Being of this ��?clinging’ and ��?accompanying’. At bottom, however, their kind of Being is understood as the constant Being-present-at-hand of the “I” along with its representations. Kant has indeed avoided cutting the “I” adrift from thinking; but he has done so without starting with the ��?I think’ itself in its full essential content as an ��?I think something’, and above all, without seeing what is ontologically ��?presupposed’ in taking the ��?I think something’ as a basic characteristic of the Self. For even the ��?I think something’ is not definite enough ontologically as a starting-point, because the ��?something’ remains indefinite. If by this “something” we understand an entity *within-the-world*, then it tacitly implies that the *world* has been presupposed; and this very phenomenon of the world co-determines the state of Being of the “I,” if indeed it is to be possible for the “I” to be something like an ��?I think something’. In saying “I,” I have in view the entity which in each case I am as an ��?I-am-in-a-world’. Kant did not see the phenomenon of the world, and was consistent enough to keep the ��?representations’ apart from the *a priori* content of the ��?I think’. But as a consequence the “I” was again forced back to an *isolated* subject, accompanying representations in a way which is ontologically quite indefinite.*In saying “I,” Dasein expresses itself as Being-in-the-world*. But does saying “I” in the everyday manner have *itself* in view *as* being-in-the-world [*in-der-Welt-seiend*]? Here we must make a distinction. When saying “I,” Dasein surely has in view the entity which, in every case, it is itself. The everyday interpretation of the Self, however, has a tendency to understand itself in terms of the ��?world’ with which it is concerned. When Dasein has itself in view ontically, it *fails to see* itself in relation to the kind of Being of that entity which it is itself. And this holds especially for the basic state of Dasein, Being-in-the-world."―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 367-370