question of the unity of these multiple structures, we can say negatively only that this unity is not a sum in the sense that it comes after the parts and is only the sum of them. Rather, the unity of this multiplicity is a wholeness that precedes the multiplicity and is its origin and that, as it were, first releases parts from that wholeness.

But with all of this we still have not gained much toward an adequate understanding of the issue if the point is to understand this unity of the multiplicity not just in a formal sense but rather as the unity of a being that has the character of existence. Clearly we must understand this unity of existence as a mode of its being. The aforementioned modes of authenticity and inauthenticity become important for clarifying this phenomenon of the unity of existence, and what’s more, they intersect with the modes of genuine and non-genuine. There is a non-genuine authenticity, that is, existence may be a non-genuine [227] being-with-oneself; and there is a genuine inauthenticity, that is, a genuine losing of oneself that grows out of the concrete existence in question.

The problem of the unity of existence—or more accurately, the unity of these basic and manifold structures—is understood in the history of philosophy mostly under the rubric of the ego and the unity of the ego and of the self—where “ego” is taken primarily in the sense of the theoretical ego or, as we say, the pole of theoretical acts. This is very clear in what Kant says: “The ‘I think’ must be able to accompany all my acts” (Critique of Pure Reason, B 131). This “I think” is what constitutes the general possibility of the unity of consciousness. If we want to understand this “I think” in a very broad sense, the way Descartes understands the cogito, there is still a secondary meaning accompanying the first one (or maybe it is what is properly meant), namely, that at each moment the manifold of existence’s current comportments can be understood by existence as its own unified experience. I mention this problem of the unity of the multiplicity only in order to indicate to you that as we continue to make progress in analyzing existence’s being as care, we naturally should not remain content with a simple characterization of these manifold structures.

The term “care” itself, as well as the phenomena it includes, fundamentally refers to a structural phenomenon. It should never be understood in a pre-scientific sense as expressing an everyday experience of existence in which one could say that human life is worry and hardship. If it is understood that way, the characterization of existence would be a specific interpretation of specific experiences. It would be a specific worldview characterization that could then grow into systems of worldview interpretations of existence, such as pessimism, for example. Our interpretation of existence in terms of care has nothing to do with characterizations of that type. Rather, the basic structure