Since our aim is to proceed towards the Being of the totality of the structural whole, we shall take as our point of departure the concrete analyses of falling which we have just carried through. Dasein's absorption in the "they" and its absorption in the 'world' of its concern, make manifest something like a fleeing of Dasein in the face of itself—of itself as an authentic potentiality-for-Being-its-Self.1 This phenomenon ofDasein's fleeing in the face of itself and in the face of its authenticity, seems at least a suitable phenomenal basis for the following investigation. But to bring itself face to face with itself, is precisely what Dasein does not do when it thus flees. It turns away from itself in accordance with its ownmost inertia [Zug] of falling. In investigating such phenomena, however, we must be careful not to confuse ontico-existentiell characterization with ontologico-existential Interpretation nor may we overlook the positive phenomenal bases provided for this Interpretation by such a characterization.
From an existentiell point of view, the authenticity of Being-one's-Self has of course been closed off and thrust aside in falling; but to be thus closed off is merely the privation of a disclosedness which manifests itself phenomenally in the fact that Dasein's fleeing is a fleeing in the face of itself. That in the face of which Dasein flees, is precisely what Dasein comes up 'behind'.2 Only to the extent that Dasein has been brought before itself in an ontologically essential manner through whatever disclosedness belongs to it, can it flee in the face of that in the face of which it flees. To be [185] sure, that in the face of which it flees is not grasped in thus turning away [Abkehr] in falling; nor is it experienced even in turning thither [Hinkehr]. Rather, in turning away from it, it is disclosed 'there'. This existentiell-ontical turning-away, by reason of its character as a disclosure, makes it phenomenally possible to grasp existential-ontologically that in the face of which Dasein flees, and to grasp it as such. Within the ontical 'away-from' which such turning-away implies, that in the face of which Dasein flees can be understood and conceptualized by 'turning thither' in a way which is phenomenologically Interpretative.
So in orienting our analysis by the phenomenon of falling, we are not in principle condemned to be without any prospect of learning something ontologically about the Dasein disclosed in that phenomenon. On the contrary, here, least of all, has our Interpretation been surrendered to an artificial way in which Dasein grasps itself; it merely carries out the
1 '... offenbart so etwas wie eine Flucht des Daseins vor ihm selbst als eigentlichem Selbst-sein-können.' The point of this paragraph is that if we are to study the totality of Dasein, Dasein must be brought 'before itself' or 'face to face with itself' ('vor es selbst'); and the fact that Dasein flees 'from itself' or 'in the face of itself' ('vor ihm selbst'), which may seem at first to lead us off the track, is actually very germane to our inquiry.
2 'Im Wovor der Flucht kommt das Dasein gerade "hinter" ihm her.'