thing's being produced is after all the presupposition for its capacity to be apprehended in perception. When we have in mind the apprehendability of a being, we understand this being necessarily in relation to the apprehending subject, the Dasein generally speaking, but not the being of the being in itself, before all else and without its being in any way apprehended. But does not the same state of affairs obtain here, too, in regard to producedness as in relation to perceptual apprehension? Is there not implicit also in productive comportment a relation of the subject to what is produced, so that the character of producedness expresses no less a subjective reference than does the character of perceivedness? Here, however, foresight and mistrust are required in regard to all so-called acuteness that argues only with so-called rigorous concepts but is stricken with blindness when it comes to what the concepts really are supposed to mean, the phenomena.
The sense of direction and apprehension peculiar to productive comportment toward something involves taking that to which the productive activity relates as something which, in and through the producing, is supposed to be extant as finished in its own self. We described the directional sense that at any given time belongs to intentional comportment as the understanding of being belonging to intentionality. In productive comportment toward something, the being of that toward which I act in a productive manner is understood in a specific way in the sense of the productive intention. Indeed, it is understood in such a way that the productive activity, corresponding to its own peculiar sense, absolves what is to be produced from relation to the producer. Not contrary to its intention but in conformity with it, it releases from this relation the being that is to be produced and that which has been produced. Productive comportment's understanding of the being of the being toward which it is behaving takes this being beforehand as one that is to be released for its own self so as to stand independently on its own account. The being [Sein] that is understood in productive comportment is exactly the being-in-itself of the product.
To be sure, in its ontological nature as comportment of the Dasein toward something, productive comportment always and necessarily remains a relationship to beings; but it is an attitude and behavior of such a peculiar sort that the Dasein, keeping itself in the productive process, says to itself exactly, whether explicitly or not: The whereto of my action, conformable to its own peculiar mode of being, is not tied to this relation but rather is supposed to become, precisely by means of this action, something that stands on its own as finished. Not only is it, as finished, factually no longer bound to the productive relation but also, even as something still to be produced, it is understood beforehand as intended to be released from this relation.
Accordingly, in the specific intentional structure of production, that is, in