448 II. 5
Being and Time

[396] historiology penetrates to what has-been-there itself. This is why concrete historiological research can, in each case, maintain itself in varying closeness to its authentic theme. If the historian 'throws' himself straightway into the 'world-view' of an era, he has not thus proved as yet that he understands his object in an authentically historical way, and not just 'aesthetically'. And on the other hand, the existence of a historian who 'only' edits sources, may be characterized by a historicality which is authentic.

Thus the very prevalence of a differentiated interest even in the most remote and primitive cultures, is in itself no proof of the authentic historicality of a 'time'. In the end, the emergence of a problem of 'historicism' is the clearest symptom that historiology endeavours to alienate Dasein from its authentic historicality. Such historicality does not necessarily require historiology. It is not the case that unhistoriological eras as such are unhistorical also.

The possibility that historiology in general can either be 'used' 'for one's life' or 'abused' in it, is grounded on the fact that one's life is historical in the roots of its Being, and that therefore, as factically existing, one has in each case made one's decision for authentic or inauthentic historicality. Nietzsche recognized what was essential as to the 'use and abuse of historiology for life' in the second of his studies "out of season" (1874), and said it unequivocally and penetratingly. He distinguished three kinds of historiology-the monumental, the antiquarian, and the critical-without explicitly pointing out the necessity of this triad or the ground of its unity. The threefold character of historiology is adumbrated in the historicality of Dasein. At the same time, this historicality enables us to understand to what extent these three possibilities must be united factically and concretely in any historiology which is authentic. Nietzsche's division is not accidental. The beginning of his 'study' allows us to suppose that he understood more than he has made known to us.

As historical, Dasein is possible only by reason of its temporality, and temporality temporalizes itself in the ecstatico-horizonal unity of its raptures. Dasein exists authentically as futural in resolutely disclosing a possibility which it has chosen. Coming back resolutely to itself, it is, by repetition, open for the 'monumental' possibilities of human existence. The historiology which arises from such historicality is 'monumental'. As in the process of having been, Dasein has been delivered over to its thrownness. When the possible is made one's own by repetition, there is adumbrated at the same time the possibility of reverently preserving the existence that has-been-there, in which the possibility seized upon has [397] become manifest. Thus authentic historiology, as monumental, is


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger