for us to make plain to ourselves 'psychologically' the dying of Others, this would by no means let us grasp the way-to-be which we would then have in mind—namely, coming-to-an-end. We are asking about the ontological meaning of the dying of the person who dies, as a possibility-of-Being which belongs to his Being. We are not asking about the way in which the deceased has Dasein-with or is still-a-Dasein [Nochdaseins] with those who are left behind. If death as experienced in Others is what we are enjoined to take as the theme for our analysis of Dasein's end and totality, this cannot give us, either ontically or ontologically, · what it presumes to give.
But above all, the suggestion that the dying of Others is a substitute theme for the ontological analysis of Dasein's totality and the settling of its account, rests on a presupposition which demonstrably fails altogether1 to recognize Dasein's kind of Being. This is what one presupposes when one is of the opinion that any Dasein may be substituted for another at random, so that what cannot be experienced in one's own Dasein is accessible in that of a stranger. But is this presupposition actually so baseless?
Indisputably, the fact that one Dasein can be represented2 by another belongs to its possibilities of Being in Being-with-one-another in the world. In everyday concern, constant and manifold use is made of such representability. Whenever we go anywhere or have anything to contribute, we can be represented by someone within the range of that 'environment' with which we are most closely concerned. The great multiplicity of ways of Being-in-the-world in which one person can be represented by another, not only extends to the more refined modes of publicly being with one an.other, but is likewise germane to those possibilities of concern which are restricted within definite ranges, and which are cut to the measure of one's occupation, one's social status, or one's age. But the very meaning of such representation is such that it is always a representation 'in' ["in" und "bei"] something—that is to say, in concerning oneself with something. But proximally and for the most part everyday Dasein understands itself in terms of that with which it is customarily concerned. 'One is' what one does. In relation to this sort of Being (the everyday manner in which we join with one another in absorption in the 'world' of our concern) representability is not only quite possible but is even constitutive for our
1 '... eine völlige Verkennung ...' The older editions have 'totale' rather than 'völlige'.
2 'Vertretbarkeit'. The verb 'vertreten' means 'to represent' in the sense of 'deputizing' for someone. It should be noted that the verb 'vorstellen' is also sometimes translated as 'to represent', but in the quite different sense of 'affording a "representation" or "idea" of something'.