else, but is an imperative in which the condition categorically embraces the conditioned and has absolute value. And this being that exists as an end in itself is human being, that is, every rational being.

With this citation I will show three things: that Kant had this structure in mind; that he also (as is obvious) expressed this structure in traditional ontological categories such as “ends”; and that as he established and determined human being as an end in itself, he also understood the human being as having absolute value in itself. It is quite clear that what he is trying to do here is to determine more exactly the ontological statement that existence is an end in itself by introducing the notion of value. This is the clearest proof (unexpressed, obviously) that, to begin with, the determination “end-in-itself” is insufficient to clarify what is meant here. On the other hand, the structure that we understand under the rubric of “care” is oriented from the beginning not simply to characterizing this kind of being [Seinsart], but also to understanding it in its being [Sein]—something that was not even an issue for Kant.

The question now is how to understand more originally this phenomenon of care, in which all the comportments of existence originate, especially being unto the world as concern, along with all of its modes. When I say that the modes of comportment unto the world (including the modes of concern) spring from care, you must remember that care, as existence’s kind of being, is co-original with existence as being in a world. Yet nonetheless we can still say that in a certain regard [222] one of them originates from the other. In any case we must reject the misunderstanding that existence first of all is or could be something that is concerned about its [own] being and then somehow, as isolated care, occasionally comes unto a world that it is concerned about. The case, rather, is that existence’s entire structure belongs to the phenomenon of care because care is what characterizes existence. So, care is a determination of existence; existence is being-in-the-world; and care is at the same time a priori concern. Therefore the possibility of clarifying the phenomena of a priori letting-something-meet-us or of being a priori familiar with something—and in general the phenomenon of being concerned-about—depends on how far we succeed in making care itself accessible.

We have analyzed the network of comportments that (to put it extrinsically) stretches from involvement with the chalk all the way up to the goal of communicating an understanding. And we analyzed a lecture as communication and as a comportment of my own existence. In all that, we showed (granted, in a somewhat one-sided fashion) that existence’s being is at stake in this comportment. But in our analysis we omitted an essential connection: that at the very same time, although in a different way, the current existence of those who are listening and understanding is likewise at stake. One might think that the care of the