being (and not beings) and thus are also familiar with under this name is openly manifest as being. “Projection” does not mean here “mere plan” in contrast with actual accomplishment; projection means rather unclosing, of which perhaps a planning is in each case only one possible consequence.
With the distinction of Dasein through the understanding of being, human Dasein is now (§ 4) – and with conscious reference to the dominant tradition – initially conceived as the one that understands itself in its being. This still sounds as though simply “subjectivity” were meant. In the sense of the interpretation of the being of the human through subjectivity, the human is conscious not only of things, but also of the being that he himself is; he has self-consciousness. Here self-consciousness is not an addition to being conscious of things, but this consciousness of things is determined by selfconsciousness.
According to the introductory presentation, the understanding of being relates initially to the being {Sein} that human Dasein itself is. But already in this way something other than self-consciousness is being thought. For self-consciousness means: to represent the self as a being (existentiell). In contrast, “Da-sein” means that which understands itself in its being. Dasein is the name for the existential “essence” of the human. But – what is this being {Sein}, wherein Dasein understands itself?
The first determination of Da-sein is developed in the First Division, Second Chapter (p. 52 and following): “Being-in-the-world in General as the Basic Constitution of Dasein.” “Being-in-the-world” is the “basic constitution” and thus that which also comprises the “essence” of Dasein, that which grounds the inner possibility of Dasein, irrespective of whether Dasein is “actual” or not.
However, one has taken the determination of that basic constitution entirely differently, precisely as it is familiar to one without thinking. “Human Dasein” – as being-in-the-world: naturally, the human is actually there in the world; he appears there – just like animals and plants; he is present at hand in this world and a “temporal” being, which is why in what follows there must also be so much talk of “temporality.” The human is present at hand in the world, and one day he will disappear from this world, and that is death; for which reason death is also dealt with in what follows.
That the human is present at hand in the world, one says, is not a unique discovery, but one-sidedness. In saying that human Dasein is being-in-the-world, the being of the human is arbitrarily restricted to this-sidedness, and the beyond is simply denied. But “being-in-the-world” indeed does not mean: to appear among the miscellaneous