potentiality-for-Being comports itself towards its distinctive possibility—death—been just accidentally pounced upon? Does Being-in-the-world have a higher instance for its potentiality-for-Being than its own death?1
Even if the ontico-ontological projection of Dasein upon an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole may not be just something that is left to our discretion, does this already justify the existential Interpretation we have given for this phenomenon? Where does this Interpretation get its clue, if not from an idea of existence in general which has been 'presupposed'? How have the steps in the analysis of inauthentic everydayness been regulated, if not by the concept of existence which we have posited? And if we say that Dasein 'falls', and that therefore the authenticity of its potentiality-for-Being must be wrested from Dasein in spite of this tendency of its Being,2 from what point of view is this spoken? Is not everything already illumined by the light of the 'presupposed' idea of existence, even if rather dimly? Where does this idea get its justification? Has our initial projection, in which we called attention to it, led us nowhere? By no means.
In indicating the formal aspects of the idea of existence we have been guided by the understanding-of-Being which lies in Dasein itself. Without any ontological transparency, it has nevertheless been revealed that in every case I am myself the entity which we call Dasein, and that I am so as a potentiality-for-Being for which to be this entity is an issue. Dasein understands itself as Being-in-the-world, even if it does so without adequate ontological definiteness. Being thus, it encounters entities which have the kind of Being of what is ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. No matter how far removed from an ontological concept the distinction between existence and Reality may be, no matter even if Dasein proximally understands existence as Reality, Dasein is not just present-at-hand but has already understood itself, however mythical or magical the interpretation which it gives may be. For otherwise, Dasein would never 'live' in a myth and would not be concerned with magic in ritual and cult. The idea of existence which we have posited gives us an outline of the formal structure of the understanding of Dasein and does so in a way which is not binding from an existentiell point of view.
Under the guidance of this idea the preparatory analysis of the everydayness [314] that lies closest to us has been carried out as far a s the first conceptual
1 'Hat das In-der-Welt-sein eine höhere Instanz seines Seinkönnens als seinen Tod?'
2 '... und deshalb sei ihm die Eigentlichkeit des Seinkönnens gegen diese Seinstendenz abzuringen ...' This of course does not mean that this authenticity is to be taken away from Dasein; it means that because such authenticity runs counter to Dasein's tendency to fall, Dasein must make a very real effort to achieve it, or perhaps rather that our Interpretation calls for a similar effort if this authenticity is to be properly discerned.