in the forest where light can shine down so as to illuminate things. Heidegger introduces the issue by referring to the traditional notion of lumen naturale. “When we talk in an ontically figurative way about the lumen naturale in human being, we mean nothing other than the existential-ontological structure of this being, the fact it is in such a way as to be its there [sein Da zu sein]. To say that it is ‘illuminated’ means that it is cleared in itself as Being-in-the-world, not by another being, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing [Lichtung]” (BT 133/129). This says: when we say that Dasein is illuminated (has a natural light), what this really refers to is Dasein’s character as disclosedness, as clearing. Dasein does not receive this character from some other being but has it “by nature”—it brings it along with itself—that is, Dasein is its disclosedness, is the clearing.
Nota bene: at the end of the next-to-last paragraph on page 129 of the translation, Heidegger writes (as we have already noted): “Dasein is its disclosedness” (BT 133/129). To this, there is attached an important marginal note: “Dasein exists, and it alone. Thus, existence is standing out, into and enduring, the openness of the there: Ek-sistence” (BT 133/129).
This is a very critical juncture in Being and Time, for here we see emerging a distinction that after Being and Time will become ever-more important for Heidegger, a distinction by which he will eventually differentiate his thinking from the entire philosophical tradition. What distinction? Between light (Licht) and clearing (Lichtung). He is saying (though here without emphasis) not that Dasein is illuminated (that it is lit or that it lights up) but rather that Dasein is cleared, that it is the clearing. And that, when we talk “in an ontically figurative way of the lumen naturale, what we really refer to is clearing” (BT 133/129). There is one sentence that makes this distinction unmistakably: “Only for a being thus cleared existentially do present things become accessible in the light or concealed in the darkness” (BT 133/129). This says that the clearing is presupposed by light and darkness. So to sum up: to say that “Dasein is itself its ‘there’” means that Dasein is a place of disclosedness in the sense of clearing. So, then, to analyze the “Existential Constitution of the There” means to exhibit those constitutive moments by which Dasein is disclosedness; that is, the clearing.
Heidegger mentions three fundamental moments.
1. Befindlichkeit (disposition or attunement).
2. Verstehen (understanding).
3. Rede (discourse).
It is not entirely clear at this point whether these three are simply coordinate, simply equiprimordial. We should note how he presents the matter: he refers to attunement and understanding as the two equiprimordial ways of being the “there.” Then he says: “Attunement and understanding are equiprimordially determined by discourse” (BT 133/130).