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The distinction
between authentic and inauthentic Da-sein
This is approached solely with respect to the grounding of Da-sein as the site of the happening of Being {Seinsgeschehnis}. It is approached on the basis of the basic question of philosophy, which is in itself an original creating that shapes beings into themselves; therefore, it is never moral-ethical-existentiell in the Jasperian and Kierkegaardian sense, but only “fundamental-ontological.” Thus, it is not all a matter of anthropological description and interpretation; rather, it is to prepare the individualization of the creator for final, pressing decisions! The uniqueness of Being as a whole only in the highest uniqueness of the questioning knower! Thus, it is not at all the realm which today “they” compare against each other as the “individual” and the “folk”—seen from there, this distinction would be insufficient! Because: the “folk” also applies—and especially applies—where there is a community of folk [Volksgemeinschaft], and conversely, authenticity is essentially not only there where the individual, as “a liberal,” is overcome. Thus, it is always and beforehand [32] related to the selfhood of Da-sein—not to the selfhood of the “I” or to the we of human beings.
Authenticity—inauthenticity—is oriented toward Being-strong for the (event) or not; in Being and Time this is shrouded in all that is still being dragged along unresolved; the distinction concerns either measuring up or not measuring up to Being as such.
| Even the folk, in fact it [the folk] the least, cannot come to Da-sein if the highest selfhood and authenticity do not prevail and thus do not stand firm against the “they.”
The distinction is higher and therefore more encompassing and therefore also deeper.
The problem to which this distinction belongs cannot be eliminated by appealing to folkish “life,” but just as little can it be replaced; indeed, it cannot even be called-forth, because it belongs to the primordial context of the essential history of the West, into which everything folkish and racial is embedded, to which the folkish and the racial are themselves subject—but are never themselves the aim.
| Why does the interpretation of “Dasein” in Being and Time have a lasting, albeit only an indicative meaning?
Because it has, absolutely and all at once, accomplished the separation of presence-at-hand from, among other things, the interpretation of the human being and the historical possibilities that are guided by that interpretation.
Everything might be twisted and too short to sustain—and so the coercive look into Dasein is essential. At first, just a look—thus, a preview—even if made quite indeterminately—not at something that is given and that can be given, but rather as a directive for the springing open that is to be sprung open—a certain