ON THE ESSENCE OF GROUND
beings and by the manner of unveiling (truth) belonging to them. Because the transcendence of Dasein, as projectively finding itself, and as forming the development of an understanding of being, is a grounding of things; and because this way of grounding is equioriginary with the first two ways within the unity of transcendence, i.e., springs forth from the finite freedom of Dasein; for this reason Dasein can, in its factical accounting and justifications, cast "grounds" aside, suppress any demand for them, pervert them, and cover them over. As a consequence of this origin of grounding things and thus also of accounting for them, it is in each case left to the freedom in Dasein how far to extend such grounding [66] and whether indeed it understands how to attain an authentic grounding of things, i.e., an unveiling of the transcendental possibility of such grounding. Even though being is always unveiled in transcendence, this does not require any conceptual ontological grasp. Thus it is altogether possible for transcendence to remain concealed as such and be familiar only in an "indirect" interpretation. Yet even then it is unveiled, because it lets there be precisely beings that have irrupted with the fundamental constitution ofbeing-in-the-world, and in this the self-unveiling of transcendence makes itself known. Transcendence explicitly unveils itself as the origin of grounding, however, when such grounding is brought to spring forth in its threefold character. In accordance with this, ground means: possibility, basis, account. Strewn in this threefold manner, the grounding that is transcendence first brings about in an originarily unifying manner that whole within which a Dasein must be able to exist in each case. Freedom in this threefold manner is freedom for ground. The occurrence of transcendence as grounding is the forming of a leeway into which there can irrupt the factical self-maintaining of factical Dasein in each case in the midst of beings as a whole.
Are we then restricting to three the four grounds discovered by the tradition, or are these three ways of grounding equivalent to the three kinds of πρῶτον ὅθεν in Aristotle? The comparison cannot be made in such a superficial manner; for what is peculiar to the first discovery of the "four grounds" is that it does not yet distinguish in principle between transcendental grounds and specifically ontic causes. The transcendental grounds appear merely as the "more universal" in relation to the on tic. The originary character of the transcendental grounds and their specific character of ground remain covered over beneath the formal characterization of "first" and "highest" beginnings. And for this reason they also lack unity. Such unity can consist only in the equioriginary character of the transcendental origin of the threefold grounding. The essence "of" ground cannot even be sought, let alone found, by asking after a universal genus that is supposed
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