as existent. To put it another way, attaining the metaphysical neutrality and isolation of Dasein as such is only possible on the basis of the extreme existentiell involvement [Einsatz] of the one who himself projects.

This involvement is necessary and essential for the metaphysical project, for metaphysics as such. But it is, therefore, as an individual existentiell component, not authoritative and obligatory within the many concrete possibilities of each factical existence. For the metaphysical project itself reveals the essential finitude of Dasein's existence, which can only be understood existentielly in the inessentiality of the self that only becomes concrete—as can be proven metaphysically—through and in the service of each possible totality, a whole which becomes manifest in a rather special way in metaphysical inquiry. Nevertheless, it is a problem in its own right: to what extent there is an existentiell guidance, an indirect guidance, in the metaphysical project and in the existentiell involvement of the person who philosophizes.

12. The ontological interpretation of Dasein's structures must be concrete with regard to the metaphysical neutrality and isolation of Dasein. Neutrality is in no way identical with the vagueness of a fuzzy concept of a "consciousness as such." Real metaphysical generalization does not exclude concreteness, but is in one respect the most concrete, as Hegel had seen, though he exaggerated it. However, concreteness in the analysis of the Dasein phenomena, which give direction and content to Dasein's metaphysical projection, easily misleads one, first, into taking the concrete phenomena of Dasein by themselves and, second, into taking them as existentiell absolutes in their extreme, fundamental- ontological conceptualization. The more radical the existentiell involvement, the more concrete the ontological-metaphysical project. But the more concrete this interpretation of Dasein is, the easier it becomes to misunderstand in principle by taking the existentiell involvement for the single most important thing, whereas this involvement, itself becomes manifest in the project, with all its indifference to the particularity of the person.

The existentiell involvement of fundamental ontology brings with it the semblance of an extremely individualistic, radical atheism—this is at least the interpretation groped for when fundamental ontology is taken to be a world-view. Yet that interpretation must be tested for its legitimacy, and if it is correct, it must be examined for its metaphysical, fundamental-ontological sense. One may not, nevertheless, lose sight of the fact that with such a fundamental-ontological clarification nothing has yet been decided.