63

§16 [94-96]


not. This characterization of sleep is more than an image, and opens up a broad perspective which has by no means been grasped in its metaphysical intent. For fundamental metaphysical reasons we must forego entering into the problem of sleep, and must attempt to clarify on another path what it means to awaken an attunement.


c) The being-there and not-being-there of attunement on the grounds of man's being as being-there and being-away (being absent).


That it is by no means a matter of the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness in the case of man when we speak of this simultaneous being-there [Da-sein] and not-being-there [Nicht-Da-sein] becomes clear from an occurrence that happens when we are quite awake, if for the moment we posit awakeness as conscious life in contrast to unconscious life (sleep). How often it happens, in a conversation among a group of people, that we are 'not there', how often we find that we were absent, albeit without having fallen asleep. This not-being-there, this being-away [Weg-sein], has nothing at all to do with consciousness or unconsciousness in the usual sense. On the contrary, this not-being-there can be highly conscious. In such being absent we are precisely concerned with ourselves, or with something else. Yet this not-being-there is nonetheless a being-away. Think of the extreme case of madness, where the highest degree of consciousness can prevail and yet we say: The person is de-ranged, displaced, away and yet there. Nor are being-there and being-away identical with waking and sleeping. Why we nevertheless rightly conceive of them in these terms will become apparent later.

We see that this potential to be away ultimately belongs to the way in which man is in general. Yet man has the potential to be away in this manner only if his being has the character of being-there [Da-sein] . We name the being of man being-there, Da-sein, in a sense yet to be determined and in distinction to the being at hand of the stone. In the end, this being-away pertains to the essence of being there [Dasein]. It is not something which happens arbitrarily from time to time, but is an essential characteristic of man's very being that indicates how he is, so that a human being—insofar as he or she exists—is, in his or her being there, also always already and necessarily away in some manner. All this transpires in such a way that the distinction between 'conscious' and 'unconscious' turns out not to be a primary one, but can be ascertained both in being there and in being away.

An attunement is to be awakened. Yet this means that it is there and not there. If attunement is something that has the character of 'there and not there', then attunement itself has to do with the innermost essence of man's being, with his Dasein. Attunement belongs to the being of man. The possibility


Martin Heidegger (GA 29/30) The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics