57 I.II
Being and Time

it out, a procedure motivated not ontologically, but "metaphysically" in the naive opinion that human being is initially a spiritual thing which is then subsequently placed "in" a space.

With its facticity, the being-in-the-world of Dasein has already dispersed itself in definite ways of being-in, perhaps even split itself up. The multiplicity of these kinds of being-in can be indicated by the following examples: to have to do with something, to produce, order and take care of something, to use something, to give something up and let it get lost, to undertake, to accomplish, to find out, to ask about, to [57] observe, to speak about, to determine . ... These ways of being-in have the kind of being of taking care of [Besorgen] which we shall characterize in greater detail. The deficient modes of omitting, neglecting, renouncing, resting, are also ways of taking care of something, in which the possibilities of taking care are kept to a "bare minimum.". The term "taking care" has initially its prescientific meaning and can imply: carrying something out, settling something, "to straighten it out." The expression could also mean to take care of something in the sense of "getting it for oneself." Furthermore, we use the expression also in a characteristic turn of phrase: I will see to it or take care that the enterprise fails. Here "to take care" amounts to apprehensiveness. In contrast to these prescientifi.c ontic meanings, the expression "taking care" is used in this inquiry as an ontological term (an existential) to designate the being of a possible being-in-the-world. We do not choose this term because Dasein is initially economical and "practical" to a large extent, but because Dasein itself is to be made visible as care [Sorge]. Again, this expression is to be understood as an ontological structure concept (cf. Chapter Six of this Division). The expression has nothing to do with "distress," "melancholy," or "the cares of life" which can be found ontically in every Dasein. These—like their opposites, "carefreeness" and "gaiety"—are ontically possible only because Dasein, ontologically understood, is care. Because being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein, its being toward the world is essentially taking care."

According to what we have said, being-in is not a "property" which Dasein sometimes has and sometimes does not have, without which it could be just as well as it could with it. It is not the case that human being "is," and then on top of that has a relation of being to the "world" which it sometimes takes upon itself. Dasein is never "initially" a sort of a being which is free from being-in, but which at times is in the mood to take up a "relation" to the world. This taking up of relations to the world is possible only because, as being-in-theworld, Dasein is as it is. This constitution of being is not first derived from the fact that besides the being which has the character of Dasein


* Human being [Mensch-sein] here equated with Da-sein.


Martin Heidegger (GA 2) Being & Time (S&S)