The way in which everyday being-toward-death understands the certainty thus grounded betrays itself when it tries to "think" about death, even when it does so with critical foresight—that is to say, in an appropriate way. So far as one knows, all human beings "die." Death is probable to the highest degree for every human being, yet it is not "unconditionally" certain. Strictly speaking, "only" an empirical certainty may be attributed to death. Such certainty falls short of the highest certainty, the apodictical one, which we attain in certain areas of theoretical knowledge.
In this "critical" determination of the certainty of death and its imminence, what is manifested in the first instance is, once again, the failure to recognize the kind of being of Dasein and the being-toward-death belonging to it, a failure characteristic of everydayness. The fact that demise, as an event that occurs, is "only" empirically certain, in no way decides about the certainty of death. Cases of death may be the factical occasion for the fact that Dasein initially notices death at all. But, remaining within the empirical certainty which we characterized, Dasein cannot become certain at all of death as it "is." Although in the publicness of the they Dasein seemingly "talks" only of this "empirical" certainty of death, basically it does not keep exclusively and primarily to those cases of death that merely occur. Evading its death, [258] everyday being-toward-the-end is indeed certain of death in another way than it would itself like to realize in purely theoretical considerations. Everydayness mostly hides this "in another way" from itself. It does not dare become transparent to itself in this way. We have already characterized the everyday attunement that consists in an air of superiority with regard to the certain "fact" of death-a superiority that is "anxiously" concerned, while seemingly free of anxiety. In this attunement, everydayness acknowledges a "higher" certainty than the merely empirical one. One knows about the certainty of death, and yet "is" not really certain about it. The entangled everydayness of Dasein knows about the certainty of death, and yet avoids being-certain. But in the light of what it evades, this evasion itself bears witness phenomenally fo the fact that death must be grasped as the ownmost nonrelational, insuperable, certain possibility.
One says that death certainly comes, but not right away. With this ''but ... ," the they denies that death is certain. ''Not right away" is not a merely negative statement, but a self-interpretation of the they with which it refers itself to what is initially accessible to Dasein to take care of. Everydayness penetrates to the urgency of taking care of things, and divests itself of the fetters of a weary, "futile thinking about death." Death is postponed to "sometime later," by relying on the so-called "general opinion." Thus the they covers over what is peculiar to the certainty of death, that is possible in every moment.