talks, our ontological Interpretation of the 'I' has by no means solved the problem; but it has indeed prescribed the direction for any further inquiries. In the "I", we have in view that entity which one is in 'being-in-the-world'.
Being-already-in -a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the '1', what we have in view is that entity for which the issue is the Being of the entity that it is. With the 'I', care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the 'fugitive' way in which the "I" talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying "I" most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it is not authentically itself, and evades its authentic potentiality-for-Being. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an "!"-substance or to a 'subject', but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying "I" must be understood in terms of our authentic potentiality-for-Being, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Selfhood is to be discerned existentially only in one's authentic potentiality-for-Being-one's-Self-that is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein's Being as care. In terms of care the constancy of the Self, as the supposed persistence of the subjectum, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being also opens our eyes for the constancy of the Self in the sense of its having achieved some sort of position.1 The constancy of the Self, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the authentic counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling.2 Existentially, "Self-constancy" signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self's Selfhood.
Dasein is authentically itself in the primordial individualization of the reticent resoluteness which exacts anxiety of itself. As something that keeps [323]
1 '... für die Ständigkeit des Selbst in dem Sinn des Standgewonnenhabens.' Here our usual translation of 'Ständigkeit' as 'constancy' seems inadequate; possibly 'stability' would be closer to what is meant.
2 'Die Ständigkeit des Selbst im Doppelsinne der beständigen Standfestigkeit ist die eigentlice Gegenmöglichkeit zur Unselbst-ständigkeit des unentschlossenen Verfallens.' The italicization of the opening words of this sentence appears only in the later editions. Here, as on H. 117 and 303, Heidegger exploits various meanings of the adjective 'ständig' and other words derived from the base 'stä-', with the root-meaning of 'standing'. The noun 'Unselbständigkeit' ordinarily stands for inability to stand on one's own feet or to make up one's mind independently. · But Heidegger expands it to 'Unselbst-ständigkeit', which not only suggests instability and a failure to stand by oneself, but also the constancy or stability of that which. is other than the Self-the non-Self, or more specifically, the they-self. In the following sentence the noun Selstiindigkeit', which ordinarily stands for autonomy, independence, or self-subsistence, is similarly expanded to 'Selbst-ständigkeit'-'Self-constancy'.
Sein und Zeit p. 322