THE CONCEPT OF TIME
explication. The term 'one' ['man'] is well-suited to the phenomenal facts about ordinary Dasein and allows us to answer the question of 'Who'? One is concerned with, one does something, one enjoys, one sees, one evaluates, one asks questions. One exists in the ordinary surrounding world of being together with one another.
Being-together-with-one-another means: encountering one another in the surrounding world with which we are jointly concerned [miteinander besorgten Umwelt]. There are many kinds of encountering, but within certain limits 'others' are always familiar and intelligible. Their being-in is opened up to one's own being-in-the-world and vice versa. In pursuing his usual concerns, each person is for the most part what he does. He does not own himself [sich nicht zu eigen] — he is inauthentic [uneigentlich]. Ordinarily, in the context of everyday life with others, everyone is equally inauthentic. 'One' is opened up to the other in this inauthentic state. We do not start off with self-contained 'subjects', so to speak, who must then build bridges to one another.* This assumption does the original ontological structure of Dasein as little justice as the notion that the world is brought to Dasein, as it were, 'from outside' such that Dasein first has to place itself in the world and can reach it only through a transcending act of cognition.
'One' is the subject of everyday being-together-with-one-another. The individual differences that persist in this situation exist within a certain average set of customary practices - the done thing, that which one does or does not tolerate. This well-worn averageness, which, as it were, quietly keeps at bay any exception or originality, pervades the 'one'. It is within the 'one' that Dasein grows up. Growing ever more into the 'one', Dasein is unable ever to leave it completely behind.
The averageness of the 'one' carries out this leveling process as public life. The public realm regulates entitlements and needs; it defines the nature and reach of the interpretation of Dasein [Daseinsauslegung] and the scope for questioning. Public opinion tends to be right, not because of a familiarity with the subject matter or because of a capacity to appropriate things originarily, but because it does not examine the things themselves and is insensitive to standards. The public realm delivers us from the need to make original decisions; it has always already made the decisions for us. The public realm corresponds neatly
* See the remark' by M. Scheler. Zur Phänomenologie und Theone dcr Sympathiegefühle, 1913. Appendix. p. 118ff.
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