Temporality 'is' not an entity at all. It is not, but it temporalizes itself. Nevertheless, we cannot avoid saying, 'Temporality "is" ... the meaning of care', 'Temporality "is" ... defined in such and such a way'; the reason for this can be made intelligible only when we have clarified the idea of Being and that of the 'is' in general. Temporality temporalizes, and indeed it temporalizes possible ways of itself. These make possible the multiplicity of Dasein's modes of Being, and especially the basic possibility of authentic or inauthentic existence.

The future, the character of having been, and the Present, show the phenomenal characteristics of the 'towards-oneself', the 'back-to', and the 'letting-oneself-be-encountered-by'.¹ The phenomena of the [329] "towards ...", the "to ...", and the "alongside ...", make temporality manifest as the ἐκστατικόν pure and simple. Temporality is the primordial 'out-side-of-itself' in and for itself. We therefore call the phenomena of the future, the character of having been, and the Present, the "ecstases" of temporality.² Temporality is not, prior to this, an entity which first emerges from itself; its essence is a process of temporalizing in the unity of the ecstases. What is characteristic of the 'time' which is accessible to the ordinary understanding, consists, among other things, precisely in the fact that it is a pure sequence of "nows", without beginning and without end, in which the ecstatical character of primordial temporality has been levelled off. But this very levelling off, in accordance with its existential meaning, is grounded in the possibility of a definite kind of temporalizing, in conformity with which temporality temporalizes as inauthentic the kind of 'time' we have just mentioned. If, therefore, we demonstrate that the 'time' which is accessible to Dasein's common sense is not primordial, but arises rather from authentic temporality, then, in accordance with the principle, "a potiori fit denominatio", we are justified in designating as "primordial time" the temporality which we have now laid bare.

¹ 'Zukunft, Gewesenheit, Gegenwart zeigen die phänomenalen Charaktere des "Auf-sich-zu", des "Zurück auf", des "Begegnenlassens von".' On these expressions cf. H. 326 above.

² 'Die Phänomene des zu ..., auf ..., bei ... offenbaren die Zeitlichkeit als das ἐκστατικόν schlechthin. Zeitlichkeit ist das ursprüngliche "Ausser-sich" an und für sich selbst. Wir nennen daher die charakterisierten Phänomene Zukunft, Gewesenheit, Gegenwart die Ekstasen der Zeitlichkeit.'

The connection of the words 'zu', 'auf', and 'bei' with the expressions listed in the preceding sentence, is somewhat obscure even in the German, and is best clarified by a study of the preceding pages. Briefly the correlation seems to be as follows:

The root-meaning of the word 'ecstasis' (Greek ἔκστασις; German, 'Ekstase') is 'standing outside'. Used generally in Greek for the 'removal' or 'displacement' of some· thing, it came to be applied to states-of-mind which we would now call 'ecstatic'. Heidegger usually keeps the basic root-meaning in mind, but he also is keenly aware of its close connection with the root-meaning of the word 'existence'.

Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger