ontologically elemental totality of the care-structure cannot be traced back to some ontical 'primal element', just as Being certainly cannot be 'explained' in terms of entities. In the end it will be shown that the idea of Being in general is just as far from being 'simple' as is the Being of Dasein. In defining "care" as "Being-ahead-of-oneself—in-Being-already-in ...—as Being-alongside ...", we have made it plain that even this phenomenon is, in itself, still structurally articulated. But is this not a phenomenal symptom that we must pursue the ontological question even further until we can exhibit a still more primordial phenomenon which provides the ontological support for the unity and the totality of the structural manifoldness of care? Before we follow up this question, we must look back and appropriate with greater precision what we have hitherto Interpreted in aiming at the question of fundamental ontology as to the meaning of Being in general. First, however, we must show that what is ontologically 'new' in this Interpretation is ontically quite old. In explicating Dasein's Being as care, we are not forcing it under an idea of our own contriving, but we are conceptualizing existentially what has already been disclosed in an ontico-existentiell manner.
¶ 42. Confirmation of the Existential Interpretation of Dasein as Care in terms of Dasein's Pre-ontological Way of Interpreting Itself1
In our foregoing Interpretations, which have finally led to exhibiting care as the Being of Dasein, everything depended on our arriving at the right ontological foundations for that entity which in each case we ourselves [197] are, and which we call 'man'. To do this it was necessary from the outset to change the direction of our analysis from the approach presented by the traditional definition of "man"—an approach which has not been clarified ontologically and is in principle questionable. In comparison with this definition, the existential-ontological Interpretation may seem strange, especially if 'care' is understood just ontically as 'worry' or 'grief' [als "Besorgnis" und "Bekümmernis"] . Accordingly we shall now cite a document which is pre-ontological in character, even though its demonstrative force is 'merely historical'.
We must bear in mind, however, that in this document Dasein is expressing itself 'primordially', unaffected by any theoretical Interpretation and without aiming to propose any. We must also note that Dasein's Being is characterized by historicality, though this must first be demonstrated ontologically. If Dasein is 'historical' in the very depths of its Being, then a deposition [Aussage] which comes from its history and goes back to it,
1 'Die Bewährung der existenzialen Interpretation des Daseins als Sorge aus der vorontologischen Selbstauslegung des Daseins.'