b) The modification of the as-structure in the act of
determining: the apophantic “as”

The statement, as indicatively showing-something-as, is possible only on the basis of our already-being-with the subject-matter-to-be-shown, specifically in such a way that the subject matter is somehow disclosed. To a linguistic orientation, a statement can be understood as an interconnection of meanings of words. To that degree, it entails that the plurality of meanings in the unity of a sentence is possible only on the basis of and in the medium of meaning. Whatever specific structure it may also have as an act of predication, the act of indicatively showing-something-as operates in the act of having and understanding the subject matter of the speech. This act of having and understanding (i.e., our underlying familiarity with the subject matter) has the structure of “as.” Thus all the ways of showing-as—i.e., the particular forms in which such showing-as is carried out—cannot as such renounce the as-structure. The “as” is the basic structure whereby we understand and have access to anything. The possible subject matter of any applicable determination is understood first of all and a priori; and in accessing and appropriating that subject matter, the “as” necessarily preserves it.

These ways of asserting, i.e., determining something about something, get modified in accordance with the possible ways of showing-as and with the thing that is to be shown-as. Regardless of how they are modified, these ways of asserting something about something are essentially assigned to the as-structure and at the same time help to modify it.

In carrying out a statement in the form of predication, specifically in the sense of a categorial statement, the “as” of the primary understanding is simultaneously flattened out into the pure and simple determination of a thing. The showing takes on the sense of letting us see the presence of something with and near something else. [154] We see something—and as co-present with it, we see something else. We must now show this flattening-out in the phenomenon in order to show the context of the “as” that does the primary uncovering, along with the leveled-down “as” that enacts a determination.

In a direct act of understanding and dealing with something, the thing is understood in terms of what it is for. In such cases the end-for-which (or, seen in terms of [predicative] understanding, the what-it-is) is not thematically considered, much less thematically understood. Rather, we already live in it in some form of concern-about. Questions about which kinds of “end-for-which” actually and genetically come first (even a vegetable lives its not-too-bright life in terms of an end-for-which) are entirely of secondary importance in comparison with the question of the essential structure of the end-for-which.