On Heidegger's Theory of Moods

Published in: The Modern Schoolman: A Quarterly Journal in Philosophy, Vol. LVIII, number 4, May 1981.

Heidegger’s theory of moods is a radical innovation in the conception and classification of moods. He departs from the traditional conception of feelings as sensuous states that “merely accompany” the so-called “higher faculties” of will and reason, and from the usual practice of classifying moods according to their qualities of pleasure, pain, and desire. Heidegger’s basic idea is that moods are a unique and primary way of disclosing Dasein’s Being-in-the-world, and disclosure that is prior to the “cognitive” disclosure of the so-called “faculty of reason.” Our first aim in this essay is to explain the essentials of Heidegger’s theory of this disclosive aspect of moods, which shall be done in five sections, concerning (1) the conception of moods as a mode of disclosure, (2) what moods disclose, (3) the structure of moods, (4) the temporality of moods, and (5) the authenticity and inauthenticity of moods. The second major aim of this essay is the develop a phenomenological description of the authentic structure of the moods of joy and equanimity. These moods not only reveal in and of themselves an authentic structure, but have also been classified by Heidegger as authentic moods—a classification that seems to have been ignored or overlooked by most readers of Heidegger. Our phenomenological description of joy and equanimity will be performed in Section Five.

The description of moods [Stimmungen] in Sein und Zeit[1] primarily occurs in Section 29 of Chapter V of Division One. Chapter V is entitles “Being-In As Such,” and concerns the third of the three constitutive moments of Being-in-the-world. Being-in-the-world consists of “the world” (Chapter III), “who” it is that is Being-in-the-world (Chapter IV), and “Being in” as such (Chapter V). Being-in as such includes two moments, understanding [Verstechen] and findedness [Befindlichkeit].[2] Understanding and findedness “are characterized equiprimordially by speech [Rede]” (Sein und Zeit 133). Moods are the ontic or empirical occurrences of the ontological and a priori phenomenon of findedness:

What we ontologically designate by the term “findedness” is ontically quite familiar and everyday: the mood, the Beingattunded (Sein und Zeit 134)

The Conception of moods as a mode of disclosure is expressed in the heading of the first subdivision of Chapter V: “A. The Existential Constitution of the There.” Understanding and findedness, as characterized or determined by speech, are “the two constitutive ways of Being the There” (Sein und Zeit 133). The “There” [Da], which belongs to the expression “Dasein” (Beingthere) means disclosure, or more literally, disclosedness [Ershlossenheit]. “In the expression ‘There’ we mean this essential disclosedness” (Sein und Zeit 132). Since understanding and findedness constitute the “there: of Dasein, an since they also constitute the Being-in of Dasein, we are led to expect that the “There” of Dasein is the very same phenomenon of its Being-in. This expectation is confirmed: “...Being-in as such, that is to say the Being of the There...” (Sein und Zeit 133). Accordingly, we have the following fourfold equivalence:

Being-in = the Being of the “There” = Disclosedness = understanding and Findedness as characterized by Speech Moods, then, are defined as one of the two primary ways of disclosing Dasein and its world. In this definition, moods are represented in a radically different fashion than they usually have been in the traditional theories of the “affects.” Moods are not sensuous states that belong to the lower irrational and “appetitive” faculty of the soul, and which often lead “rational man” astray form his clam intellectual contemplation and deliberate conduct. Rather they are one of the two fundamental ways in which Dasein is aware of its Being-in-the-world, and which are more ontologically primordial than the rational thematization of being as something that lies “at-hand” [Vorhanded] before the contemplative intellect. It is not “reason” that gives Dasein its basic access to being, but moods. “The disclosure-possibilities of cognition fall very short when compared with the primordial disclosure that belongs to moods (Sein und Zeit 134).

Moods disclose four basic kinds of phenomena: (1) thrownness, 92) Being-in-the-world as a whole, (3) being as a whole and (4) the ways of “mattering.”

The disclosure of the thrownness of Dasein is mood’s way of disclosing Dasein’s Being-in, its “There.” This disclosure involves several interrelated aspects. a) To being with, moods reveal that Dasein’s Being is a burden. “Why this is so, one does not know” (Sein und Zeit 134). The disclosure of the burndensomeness of Dasein’s Being is a “primordial disclosure belonging to moods, whereby Dasein is brought before its Being as There” (Sein und Zeit 134). This burndesomeness becomes directly manifest in the pallid “lack of mood” that often persists in Dasein. Indirectly, it reveals itself in elation, for elation, by alleviating the burden of Being, reveals this burden in a negative fashion.

The disclosure of the burden of Being involves the disclosure of a further aspect of Dasein’s Being. b) Moods reveal that Dasein’s Being is something to which Dasein has been handed over and which, in its existential constitution, Dasein has to be. Even in the most indifferent ways of its everyday existing, Dasein’s Being can suddenly reveal itself as a “naked ‘that it is and has to be’” [nacktes “Dass es ist und zu sein hat”] (Sein und Zeit 134). that Dasein is, and that is has to be in the mode of existence (rather than as something to-hand [Zuhanden] or at-hand [Vorhanden], for example), manifests itself, but the whence and whither of Dasein’s Being remains in darkness. In this respect, Dasein’s Being is a mystery. Dasein may come to feel assured that “it knows where it is going,” and in scientific enlightenment, it may achieve some understanding to its origins, but this sense of purpose and scientific knowledge “counts for nothing” (Sein und Zeit 136). as compared with the more fundamental truth disclosed in moods: That the ultimate whence and whither of Dasein’s Being is an unfathomable enigma.

The term Heidegger uses to describe this character of Dasein’s Being—the unconcealment of its “that it is” and that concealment of its whence and whither—is “thrownness.” This thrownness must not be understood in an ontico-existentiell sense, that is, in the empirical sense that each Dasein contingently discovers itself as thrown into the world. Rather thrownness is an a priori character of Dasein’s Being. Prior to any empirical event of being “left alone” in the world. Dasein’s Being is a priori constituted in such a way that it must disclose itself in every possible empirical situation as thrown into its “There.” Inasmuch as a priori means “necessary” (as opposed to probable or possible), it can be said that Dasein’s thrownness is a necessary feature of its Being. Thus Dasein’s thrownness is not a historical event, ensuing upon some such spiritual-sociological event as the “death of God.” Dasein is “thrown” prior to any cultural or religious situation it may happen to find itself in. Dasein’s thrownness is the facticity, and facticity is “a character of Dasein’s Being” (Sein und Zeit 135).

Although “thrownness” primarily refers to the enigmatic “that it is” of Dasein’s Being, it also implies that Dasein discloses itself in a certain “how it is.” c) this aspect of thrownness Heidegger describes as the “how one is” [wie einem ist], in the sense that things may be going well or poorly for oneself. the “how one is” has several different modes; we shall see later that “feeling uncanny” is one of them.

The ontological character of moods as modes of findedness is manifested in this disclosure of Dasein’s thrownness. Dasein finds itself as thrown into its Being. This means that Dasein finds itself as thrown into (a) the burndensomeness of its Being, (b) the facticity of its Being (that it is and has to be, with its whence and wither concealed), and (c) a certain “how it is.”

The full implications of this disclosure, however, is something that Dasein for the most part turns away from. Dasein turns away from the burden of its factical Being. This turning away form thrownness is a “closing off” of Dasein’s thrownness, rather than a “disclosure of” it. this “closing off” is in the strictest sense not the opposite of “disclosing,” but a privative mode of it. Disclosure, for Heidegger, has two modes: the positive mode in which we “turn towards” [Ankehr] a phenomenon, and a privative mode in which we “turn away” [Abkehr] from a phenomenon (Sein und Zeit 135). “Turning away” discloses because, in order to turn away form something, the “something” must be “there” as something we can turn away from. The phenomenon is disclosed as that which we are turning away from. In this concept of “turning away” we see in an incipient fashion Sarte’s concept of “bad faith” [mauvaise foi]. Sarte writes in L’Etre et le Neant that in bad faith we are conscious of something “precisely in order not to be conscious of it.”[3]

The disclosure of thrownness is “the first essential character of findedness” (Sein und Zeit 136). the “second essential character” of findedness is the disclosing of Being-in-the-world as a whole” (Sein und Zeit 136, 137). The description of this character emerges in Heidegger’s consideration of the source of moods. Moods neither come from the “outside” nor come from the “inside”; rather they “arise out of Being-in-the-world as a way of such Being” (Sein und Zeit 136). This way of Being s basic, in that moods have “already disclosed Being-in-the-world as a whole, and thereby make it possible to direct oneself to something” (Sein und Zeit 137). Because moods disclose Being-in-the-world as a whole, which includes “the world, Dasein-with, and existence” (Sein und Zeit 137), their disclosive function is prior to the directedness towards some particular being in the world. It is because moods, along with the understanding, are ontologically disclosive, that the ontic disclosure of some being that is to-hand, at-hand, or Dasein-with is a possibility of each Dasein’s existence. Thus moods cannot have their source in some “inner” or “outer” being, as they themselves make possible the disclosure of any such being.

In Sein und Zeit Heidegger describes only three essential characters of moods: 1) the disclosure of thrownness, 2) the disclosure of Being-in-the-world as a whole, and 3) the disclosure of the ways of “mattering.” However, in the works written shortly after Sein und Zeit Heidegger emphasizes a fourth essential character of moods, a character which in many respects is analogous to the character of disclosing Being-in-the-world as a whole. This character is the disclosure of being as a whole [Seienden im Ganzen], and is described in Vom Wesen des Grundes, Was ist Metaphysik? and Vom Wesen der Wahrheit.[4] However, whereas this disclosure character of moods reveals a “whole,” the “whole” it reveals is not a whole of Being [Sein], but of being [Seienden]. This character is the disclosure of the ontic totality, rather than the ontological totality. A mood [Stimmung] is an attunement [Gestimmtheit] that is “disclosive of the whole of being.”[5] It is because of “these moods in which, as we say, we ‘are’ this or that (that is, bored, happy, and so forth) we find ourselves [befinden uns] in the midst of the whole of being, completely pervaded by it. The affective state in which we find ourselves... discloses according to the mood we are in, the whole of being.”[6] Heidegger does not mean here that we thematically disclose the whole of being in our moods. We do not attend to the whole of being: rather it remains there “in the background,” on the horizon of our concern for one or another particular being that belongs to the whole. For example, we may be bored by one particular being, and in this boredom we attend to the being that “bores” us. In the background, however, the whole of being is marginally present, and it is present as boring. In this mood we unthematically find ourselves as bored by being as a whole. we are “attunded,” in the way of “being bored,” to the surrounding totality of what is.

At the same time that the mood attunes Dasein to the whole of being, it limits Dasein to being preoccupied [eingenommen] with one part of this whole. In its mood, Dasein is bored, happy or one part of this whole. In its mood, Dasein is bored, happy or sad about one part of being. If Dasein was not limited in its preoccupation, it could not concern itself which any one of the possibilities it projects. It would remain suspended in the realm of “pure possibility,” and as such could not reveal anything definite. And this is tantamount to saying that Dasein would not be able to reveal anything at all:

The project of the world [possibilities] is not enough to reveal non-Daseinal being in itself. Non-Daseinal being would necessarily remain concealed if projecting Dasein, qua projecting, was not already [finding itself] in the midst of being... That which surpasses and so passes beyond being [by projecting possibilities] must find itself in being. Dasein, in finding itself in being, is preoccupied with being.[7]

It is this preoccupation with being that limits Dasein to being concerned of its possibilities, and not of others:

The perception of possibilities is in its essence richer than the possession of them... Dasein is from the outset deprived of certain other possibilities solely by virtue of its own factitcity. But this very deprivation of certain of its possible ways of Being-in-the-world follows form its perception with being.[8]

Heidegger’s idea here, which is a development of his concept of finitude in Sein und Zeit (cf. page 285), is that the mood preoccupies Dasein with certain of its possibilities and thereby limits Dasein to being concerned with only some of the beings that belong to the totality. Dasein is finite in that the mood allows only one part of the whole of being to “matter” to Dasein.[9]

The fourth “essential characteristic” of moods is the one that bears the closest resemblance to the nature of moods as they have been traditionally described. Traditionally, moods have been defined as feelings of pleasure, pain and desire about “good” and “evil” things in the world. The axiological phenomenologists, whom we shall discuss in a moment, defined feelings as the “consciousnesses of values.” Heidegger, partially but not wholly influenced by this tradition, characterized moods as being disclosive of the “ways of mattering.” He writes that in Dasein’s concern with beings which are “to-hand” [Zuhanden], Dasein sometimes becomes affected by their character of being “unusable, resistant or threatening” (Sein und Zeit 137). This affection is ontologically possible only insofar as findedness determines a priori that beings can “matter” to it in these ways. It is only through possessing as a priori possibilities the modes of findedness of fearing, anger, boredom, sadness, and so forth, that Dasein can discover beings to have the ways of “mattering” of being “threatening,” “provoking,” “boring,” “saddening,” and so forth. For example, it is only through being able to “find itself in the mode of fearing (or fearlessness) that [Dasein] can discover that what is to-hand in the environment is threatening” (Sein und Zeit 137). Moods “outline in advance (Sein und Zeit 137), that is, a priori, these and other ways in which beings can “matter” to Dasein.
The primary influence upon Heidegger’s formation of his theory of his character of moods was the theory of “feelings” propounded by Max Scheler. Heidegger himself remarks that Scheler made one of the few decisive advances in the theory of affects since Aristotle.[10] It is not the place here to discuss at length the similarities between Scheler’s theory of feelings and Heidegger’s conception of moods, but two of the principal similarities can be briefly mentioned:

1) Feelings are conceived by both Sheler and Heidegger as essentially “awareness of” phenomena, rather than as inert sensuous states that are psycho-physical in nature. Scheler acknowledges that some feelings, what he calls “feelings-states” and “affects,” are sensuous conditions rather than “awarenesses of,” but the higher types of feeling, the “feelings of”, the “acts of preferring and placing after,” and “love and hate,” are modes of awareness.[11]

2) Scheler conceived the higher types of feelings to be awarenesses of the material or non-formal types of feelings to be awarenesses of the material or non-formal values. In this respect, Shceler made an important advance over the theories of Brentano and the early Husserl, who believe that “feeling-acts” had no “intentional objects” of their own, but were rather directed towards the “intentional objects” of underlying “presenting acts.”[12]Scheler’s recognition that feelings are aware of their own objects, namely, values, paved the way for Heidegger’s later conception that moods are disclosive between Scheler’s “values” and Heidegger’s “ways of mattering.” Ignoring for a moment the differences between Scheler’s “values” and Heidegger’s “ways of mattering,” we may point out that they both include many of the same phenomena such as the phenomena of the “threatening,” the “unusable,” and other such phenomena that serve as the basis for affective reactions.

Three of the principal differences between Scheler’s and Heidegger’s theories can be outlined as follows:

1) Scheler’s “feeling-acts” are acts, whereas Heidegger’s findedness is the ontological foundation of acts, and thereby is not only more fundamental than a “feeling-act” but also makes intentionality transcendentally possible.”[13]

2) Scheler’s material values have n ethical important, whereas Heidegger’s ways of “mattering” are defined in a context that is ethically neutral. In other words, Scheler’s theory of the affective “consciousness of” values is formulated in the context of an ethical theory, whereas Heidegger’s theory of the affective “disclosure of” the ways of “mattering” is formulated in the context of an ontological theory.

3) Scheler’s material values are timeless, ideal beings which are a priori in what may loosely and somewhat crudely be called the “Platonic sense.” On the other hand, Heidegger’s ways of “mattering” are a priori phenomena that belong to Dasein’s temporally limited Being-in-the-world, and as such lack a timeless ideal being. Heidegger’s ways of “mattering” may be said, in a sense that is equally loose and crude, to be a priori in a “Kantian fashion.”[14] They do not subsist in a timeless realm, but are constitutive of the a priori structure of the “subject” (that is, Dasein).

Heidegger’s ways of “mattering” bear a closer resemblance to Sarte’s “magical qualities” than they do to Scheler’s material values.[15] Sarte, like Heidegger, conceived of these qualities (the “alarming,” the “horrible,” the “wondrous,” and so forth) as projected and constituted by the for-itself, rather than as timeless, ideal beings. Sarte, also describes them from a non-ethical perspective—the meaning of “ought to be” or “ought not to be” is not mentioned as pertaining to these qualities. It remains ambiguous, however, as to whether these magical qualities are conceived on an ontic or ontological plane by Sarte.

A further similarity, and perhaps an influence on Sarte’s theory, is Heidegger’s idea that in bad moods “Dasein becomes blind to itself, the environment of its concern veils itself, and the circumspection of its concern gets led astray” (Sein und Zeit 136). This distinction between the “delusive” (Sein und Zeit 138) character of Dasein’s disclosure in bad moods, and Dasein’s non-delusive disclosure in other moods, parallels Sarte’s later distinction between the delusive magical projects of emotion, whereby the instrumental environment becomes obscured or distorted, and the rational and instrumental projects of volitions and unreflective actions, wherein the for-itself adapts itself to and utilizes its instrumental environment.[16]

One way of viewing moods is in terms of what they disclose. If moods are in our foresight [Vorsicht] in this manner, we shall discover that moods disclose the four above mentioned items: 1) thrownness, 2) Being-in-the-World as a whole, 3) being as a whole, and 4) the ways of “mattering.” If we look at moods from a different perspective, and examine the structure of moods, different characters shall be discovered. It will be found that moods have a tirpartite “structure” [Struktur] (Sein und Zeit 140). This “structure” is introduced in Section Thirty: “Fear as a Mode of Findedness.” Heidegger opens the section with the following definition:

The phenomenon of fear can be examined from three points of view: we shall analyze the before-what [das Wover] of fear, fearing, and the about-what [das Worum] of fear. These possible ways of viewing fear are not accidental; they belong together. With them the structure [Strucktur] of findedness in general comes to the fore (Sein und Zeit).

Heidegger describes the structure of moods in terms of the mood of fear. However it is possible to abstract from the characters peculiar to fear, and to describe this structure as such. As Heidegger indicated in the above quoted paragraph, the structure of moods consists of a) the before-what of moods, b) the mood itself, and c) the about-what of moods.

Heidegger begins by pointing out that the before-what of fear, that is, “what” Dasein is “before” when it is fearing, is the fearsome [das Furchtbare]. this is always some being that is encountered in the world, which may have to-handedness [Zuhandenheit], at-handedness [Vorhandenheit], or Dasein-with [Mitdasein] as its kind of Being. This being has the way of “mattering” of being “threatening.”

This description of fear enables two features to be isolated as definitive of the before-what moods in general. In a mood, what Dasein finds itself before is (1) a being that is encountered in the world. This being s either a to-hand being, an at-hand being, or another Dasein. Presumably, since Heidegger distinguishes but does not describe five other kinds of Being (namely, life, language, space, nature, and subsistence),[17] besides in three kinds of Being he treats at the greatest length in Sein und Zeit (namely, Being-to-hand, Being-at-hand, and the Being of Dasein—existence), this being may have one of these kind of Being. The being that Dasein finds itself “before” in moods—and this is the second feature of the before-what of moods—has the character of (2) “mattering” in a certain way to Dasein, for example, it may be “threatening.”

In sum, the before-what of moods is a being that “matters” in a certain way.

The mood itself, which has the modes of “fear itself” [Furchten selbst] (Sein und Zeit 141), anxiety itself, joy itself, and so on, is the aspect of the mood that discloses the before-what: the being that “matters” in a certain way. Fear itself discloses the fearsome, and allows it to “matter” to Dasein. Dasein does not first ascertain a future evil (malum futurm) and then fear it. Rather fear discloses a priori the fearsomeness that this or that being may possess:

Fear as a slumbering possibility of finding-oneself in one’s Being-in-the-world (we call this possible way of finding-oneself “fearfulness”), has already disclosed the world in such a way that something like the fearsome can come close (Sein und Zeit 141).

The structure of the mood itself that can be abstracted form this description of fear itself is that the mood itself is the a priori disclosure of the before-what. It is the disclosure of the different ways o in which the beings in the world can “matter” to Dasein. For each modality of the “mood itself,” there is an a priori disclosure of a corresponding way in which a being can “matter.” Fear itself discloses that beings can be threatening, sadness itself discloses that beings can be saddening, boredom itself discloses that beings can be boring, and so forth.

Heidegger indicates that the about-what of fear, that is, “what” fear is fearful “about,” is Dasein itself. Fear, as a mode in which Dasein finds itself, “discloses this being Dasein as endangered and left to itself (Sein und Zeit 141). While fear discloses a threatening being as “what” it is fearing “before,” it discloses a threatened being, namely itself, (Dasein) as “what” it is fearing “about.” In addition, “one can also fear about Others, and one then speaks of “fearing for them” [Furchten fur sei]” (Sein und Zeit 141, our italics).

This structure of the about-what of moods consists of two items: 1) the being that the mood is about is always Dasein, whether this be the Dasein that has the mood or some other Dasein. 2) This Dasein is disclosed as affected by the before-what. The way in which it is affected correlates to the way in which the before-what “matters.” For example, if the before-what “matters” in the way of being “threatening,” then the about-what is disclosed as “threatened.” And if the before-what matters in the way of being “boring,” then the about-what is disclosed as “bored.”

IV. The Temporality of Moods

Philosophers have always noted that moods have a “temporal” aspect. The “objects” of moods have been defined as occurring in the future, present or past. For instance, the objects of fear and hope are in the future (one fears an impending evil or hopes for a future good), the objects of joy and sadness are in the present (as present goods or evils), and the objects of remorse and regret are in the past (as past evils).

Heidegger’s conception of the “temporality” of moods is of a radically different and more fundamental nature than this traditional conception. The theory of “objects” of moods that are at-hand [Vor-handen] in time [Zeit] is a superficial and inappropriate way of viewing the temporal structure of moods. The temporality [Zeit-lichkeit] of moods cannot be understood in terms of the “position in time” of the “objects of moods, but in terms of the temporalization of temporality that is the very basis and meaning of Dasein’s Being. The temporality of moods is one of the basic ways in which Dasein “temporalizes” its Being. The constitutive items of Dasein’s Being are made possible by specific “ecstases” of temporality. The ecstasis of the future is what makes possible understanding; the ecstasis of the present is what makes possible understanding; the ecstasis of the past is what makes possible findedness.[18] The temporal ecstasis of the past is what Heidegger calls “having-been” or “beenness” [Gewesenheit]. “Beenness” makes possible finding-one-self [das Sich-finden] in the ways in which one can find-oneself [“in der Weise des Sich-befindens]” (Sein und Zeit 340). Beenness makes possible findedness in that findedness is based upon “bringing back to...” [Zuruckbringen auf...] (Sein und Zeit 340). What Dasein is “brought back to” is its thrownness. Dasein is “brought back to” its thrownness as a possibility it can repeat, that is, as a possible way of Being that is can take up and authentically7 adopt as its own. It is this character of “bringing Dasein back to” the repeatability of its thrownness that is the “specific ecstatical mode” of beenenss (Sein und Zeit 340).

For the most part, however, Dasein’s beenness is a “bringing back to thrownness in the manner of closing off this thrownness. This mode of beenness is a “forgetting” of thrownness. Most moods, such as fear, hope, indifference, and so forth, are based upon this “forgetting” mode of beenness. The mood of anxiety, on the other hand, is based upon the mode of beenness that is a turning towards thrownness. This mode of beenness, the authentic mode, is what Heidegger calls “repeatability” [Wiederholbarkeit] (Sein und Zeit 343).

Heidegger shows by means of analyzing some examples of moods how their basic temporal ecstasies is beenness, rather than an ecstasies of the future or present. The mood of hope, for example, seems to be primarily futural in its temporal structure, inasmuch as it relates itself to something in the future; however an analysis of the temporal structure of the hoping itself, rather than of the phenomenon that is hoped for, will show it to be primarily based upon the past, upon beenness. Hoping as a mood has the character of “hoping for something for oneself.” Hope is a hoping for an alleviation from the burdens of one’s Being. This “burdened Being” is something that one has been. On has been existing in a burdened way, and it is the alleviation from this way in which one has been existing that one hopes for in hope. As such, hope is based upon a relation to Dasein’s past, to its having been.

The authenticity or inauthenticity of a mood is determined by whether it discloses the truth of Dasein or conceals this truth. Throughout most of Sein und Zeit Heidegger discusses the authenticity of moods in terms of the mood of anxiety. This tendency is manifest most clearly in Section Sixty, where Heidegger offers his formal definition of authenticity in terms of the existentialia of findedness, understanding and speech. Authenticity is resoluteness (Sein und Zeit 297), and resoluteness is willing-to-have-a-conscience (Sein und Zeit 296-97). Thus Heidegger writes:

The disclosedness of Dasein in willing-to-have-a-conscience is this constituted by the findedness of anxiety, by understanding as a self-projection upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, and by speech as reticence. This authentic disclosedness… we call resoluteness (Sein und Zeit 296-97).

Anxiety is singled out the authentic way of finding-oneself because of its distinctive mode of disclosure: in anxiety Dasein is brought before itself as such. The structure of anxiety is one where both the before-what and the about-what is Dasein itself. Anxiety is not “before” or “about” some being in the world, but is “before” and “about” one’s own Dasein. In particular, anxiety concerns Dasein’s Being-in-the-world:

The about-what of anxiety reveals itself as the before-what of anxiety—namely, Being-in-the-world. The selfsameness of the about-what and before-what of anxiety extends even to anxiety itself. For, as a findedness, it is a basic kind of Being-in-the-world (Sein und Zeit 188).

In what sense is the disclosure of Being-in-the-world, rather than of some being in the world, such as an instrument , a thing, or another Dasein, an authentic disclosure? In anxiety, Dasein reveals itself in terms of itself and not in terms of the world. Being-in-the-world is the kind of Being that is definitive of Dasein, and to disclose Dasein as such. Anxiety discloses what Dasein authentically and really is, namely a being that is Being-in-the-world. “Anxiety thus takes away from Dasein the possibility of understanding itself, as it falls, in terms of the ‘world’” (Sein und Zeit 187). “In anxiety, the basic possibilities of Dasein show themselves as they are in themselves—undisguised by beings in the world” (Sein und Zeit 191). Moods which are inauthentic reveal Dasein as “fallen into the world”: (Sein und Zeit 189). They have as their “before what,” not Dasein itself, but some other being that is to-hand, at-hand or Dasein-with in the world. By “turning away” form Dasein itself, and “towards” some worldly being, they conceal the kind of Being that is proper to Dasein.

By “turning towards” Dasein, anxiety beings it about that “being-in is disclosed as an ability-to-be which is individualized, pure and thrown (Sein und Zeit 188). Dasein’s Being is a “Being-possible,” and the two most fundamental possibilities of its Being are authenticity and inauthenticity (Sein und Zeit 187, 191)

The structure and disclosure of anxiety as an authentic mood include two other interrelated phenomena: the phenomena of the “how one is,” and the way of “mattering.” The former is uncanniness, and the latter is the threatening. “Findedness, as we mentioned earlier, makes manifest, ‘how one is.’ In anxiety, one is uncanny” (Sein und Zeit 188). Uncanniness means that one finds-oneself in the “nothing and nowhere” of the world (that is, one finds-oneself before nothing to-hand, at-hand or Dasein-with, and before no definite region of the world), and that one finds-oneself in the mode of not-being-at-home (Sein und Zeit 188).

This uncanniness of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world “matters” to Dasein in the way of threatening it. “Daseins’ uncanniness [is] a threat which reaches Dasein itself and which comes from Dasein itself” (Sein und Zeit 189). Unlike the threatening way of “mattering” disclosed in fear, the threat disclosed in anxiety is indefinite: it is not this or that being in the world that is threatening, nor is it a specific way of Being or Dasein that is threatened. Rather it is Dasein’s Being-in-the-world as such that is threatening, and it is this very same Being-in-the-world that is threatened. In short, Dasein threatens itself. Dasein is to itself “a being with the character of being threatening” (Sein und Zeit 185). This threatening character is the authentic way of “mattering.”

Authenticity is resoluteness, but resoluteness itself “becomes authentically what it can be” (Sein und Zeit 305) when it becomes anticipatory resoluteness, that is, when it anticipates death. Death, which is the indefinite possibility of no-longer-Being-in-the-world, “matter” to Dasein by threatening it. This is why Being-towards-death, which belongs to authentic existence, is disclosed by the mood of anxiety. The “indefinite threat” is the way of “mattering” that corresponds to and is disclosed by the mood of anxiety.

Although Heidegger predominantly describes the authentic mood as that of anxiety, he also describes it as 1) readiness for anxiety, 2) joy and 3) equanimity. These three moods will be discussed in turn.

On the same page that Heidegger characterizes the mood of the authentic “willing-to-have-a-conscience” as that of anxiety, he also writes that this mood is a “readiness for anxiety”: “willing-to-have-a-conscience becomes a readiness for anxiety [Beereitschaft zur Angst]” (Sein und Zeit 296). This description of the authentic mood also appears in the second of the two sentences where he offers his formal definition of authenticity (resoluteness). In the first of the sentences, he defines the mood as “anxiety,” and in the second sentences, he states that resoluteness is a “reticent, anxiety-ready [angstebereite] self-projection upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty” (Sein und Zeit 297).

Now however subtle and insignificant this difference may seem, it cannot be denied that a mood of being ready for anxiety is not the same mood as the mood of being anxious. Rather it is a mood wherein Dasein finds-itself “ready” to have the mood of anxiety. Once it is recognized that these are different moods, it must be remarked that Heidegger does not explain the relationship between them, and does not explain why he sometimes defines the authentic mood of anxiety and other times as readiness for anxiety. On the \basis of Heidegger’s statements, it wound seem that the only conclusion to come to is that the authentic findedness can either be anxiety or a readiness for anxiety.

However, while this would be a justifiable “textual interpretation,” it does not do justice to the phenomena themselves. We believe the intrinsic nature of authenticity itself, as phenomenologically manifested by Heidegger in Sein und Zeit, requires a more careful distinction between these two modes of findedness. Inasmuch as readiness for anxiety is a readiness to be anxious about and before Being-in-the-world is a readiness to be anxious about and before Being-in-the-world and death, it is a disclosing of these authentic phenomena. As such, it is an authentic mode of disclosure. However readiness for anxiety is not yet anxiety, and as such it has not yet allowed the threatening uncanniness of Being-in-the-world and death to “matter” to itself. The threatening character of Dasein “matters” to Dasein when Dasein has, so to speak, “let itself go” into anxiousness before and about its threatening Being. Readiness for anxiety sees this threat, but holds it at a distance; it does not stand “face to face” with the threat and allow the threat to hold sway over Dasein. In readiness for anxiety, Dasein has not yet fully freed the authentically threatening character of its Being and allowed this character to “matter to itself. Thus anxiety is, properly speaking, the completely authentic mood in that it not only sees the threat, but allows this threat to “matter” to itself. Readiness for anxiety, on the other hand, is an incompletely authentic way of finding-oneself.

It is odd that Heidegger is known as the “philosopher of anxiety.” It is even more odd that he is known as such, not only by his critics, but also by those sympathetic to his thought. This reputation, which is not an accurate one, is based on the fact that no one (to my knowledge) has noticed that Heidegger defines the authentic findedness as being joyful. Heidegger only states this once in Sein und Zeit, but he states it quite unambiguously:

Although with the sober anxiety, which beings one before one’s individual ability-to-be, there goes an unshakable joy [gerustete Freude] in this possibility (Sein und Zeit 310, our italics.)

The meaning of this sentence is unmistakable. The anxious disclosure of Dasein’s individual ability-to-be is also a joyful disclosure of it. Dasein is joyful before and about its authentic ability-to-be.

The recognition of authentic joy requires that the phenomenology of Dasein’s existence be further developed. For the existence of an authentic joy entails that all the characteristics of a joyful findedness belongs to the authentic structure of Dasein’s Being. Heidegger does not describe these characteristics, and their description thus demands an independent investigation that will further the results achieved by Heidegger in Sein und Zeit. The following represents an attempt at accomplishing this phenomenology of the authenticity of joy.

To begin with, we shall distinguish authentic joy from inauthentic joy. Just as Heidegger states that the mood of fear is the inauthentic mode of anxiety, that is, that “fear is anxiety fallen into the ‘world’, inauthentic, and as such, hidden from itself” (Sein und Zeit 189), so we shall designate gladness as the inauthentic mode of joy. Gladness is “before” some being in the world, whereas joy is “before” Dasein itself. Moreover, gladness is “about” some definite possibility of Being, but is “about” Dasein’s authentic ability-to-be as such.

The description of what joy discloses is the most fruitful point of view from which joy can be ontologically examined (cf. Section Two of this paper). What joy discloses includes the four items that every mood discloses: 1) thrownness, 2) Being-in-the-world as a whole, 3) being as a whole, and 4) a certain way of “mattering.” However joy is similar to anxiety, and different from other moods, in that it turns towards thrownness and Being-in-the-world, rather than away from them. This “turning towards” thrownness and Being-in-the-world is the condition of joy being an authentic mode of disclosure. Inauthentic moods one and all “turn away” from these two phenomena and “towards” worldly beings.

Joy differs from anxiety in that the way of “mattering” it discloses is not the character of the “threatening.” Nor is the “how one is” of joy the “Being-uncanny” that belongs to anxiety. Rather the way of “mattering” disclosed in joy is that of fortunateness, and the “how one is” that corresponds to this way of “mattering” is a Being-fulfilled. Dasein’s possibility of an authentic ability-to-be is a fortunate possibility in that it allows Dasein to free itself form the inauthentic trivialities of the “they” and to exist face to face with the fundamental truth of its Being-in-the-world. Heidegger writes in this regard that “In it [joy] Dasein becomes from the entertaining ‘incidentals’ with which busy curiosity provides itself primarily form the events in the world” (Sein und Zeit 310). The “fortunateness” of Dasein’s authentic ability-to-be is fulfilling in that Dasein at bottom asks for nothing more than to be allowed to exist in the truth of its Being and to realizes its own individual abilities-to-be. To be freed from the superficial illusions of the “they,” and to stand alone before the pure and naked “that it is” of its Being, is enough to fulfill Dasein. Dasein is fulfilled when it finds that its enigmatics “that it is, rather than is not” has the character of a gift. Being “thrown into” its “There” best describes Dasein’s “that it is, which the whence and whither concealed” as it is disclosed in pure anxiety. However the “gift” of Dasein’s “that it is” best describes this phenomenon as it is disclosed from the point of view of joy. Dasein is gifted by being allowed to Be “There,” although of course no being, such as a god, “offered” Dasein this gift, just as no being “threw” Dasein into its “There.” Rather “thrownness” and “giftedness” are a priori ontological characteristics of Dasein’s Being.

Dasein is fulfilled not only be the fortunate gift of its “that it is,” but also by the fortunate possibility it has to realizes its own unique and individual ability-to-be. Dasein is not merely an anonymous “they-self,” but also a unique and individual self. The simple but profound recognition that it is fortunate enough to have this individual self, and is able to realize this self in its existence, brings joy to Dasein.

We must qualify in one respect Heidegger’s statement that joy “goes along with” anxiety. IT may well be possible to find-oneself in an anxious-joyfulness, or in a joyful-anxiousness, but it seems that this is neither necessary nor conducive to the full disclosure of which each of these moods is capable. The “fortunate” character of Dasein’s authentic ability-to-be is obscured and “dimmed down” if this ability appears as “threatening” at the same time, and the converse is likewise true. The authentic findedness of joy is fully realized when it is not accompanied by anxiety, and anxiety is fully itself when it is not qualified by an accompanying joyfulness. Thus we may say that Dasein, in order to disclose itself authentically in a way that is complete, must at different times find-itself in an anxious mood and in a joyful mood.

The idea that equanimity is an authentic mood is as little commented upon in the literature on Heidegger as is the idea that joy is an authentic mood. This is probably due to the fact that the authenticity of equanimity is also mentioned by Heidegger only in passing. Heidegger distinguishes equanimity from indifference in the following passage:

[Indifference] has the ecstatical meaning of an inauthentic mode of beenness. Indifference, which can go along with busying oneself head over heels, must be sharply distinguished from equanimity [Gleichmut]. This mood springs from resoluteness, which in a moment of vision, views the situations that are possible in one’s ability-to-be-a-whole as discarded in our anticipation of death (Sein und Zeit 345).

Equanimity, unlike joy, is not a mood that can be unambiguously conceived as either accompanying anxiety or taking its place. For in certain passages Heidegger indicates that Dasein finds-itself in a resolute equanimity after it finds-itself in anxiety. In this context, Heidegger explains that—

even though the present of anxiety is held on to, it does not as yet have the character of the moment of vision, which temporalizes itself in a resolution. Anxiety merely brings one into the mood for a possible resolution. The present of anxiety holds the moment of vision ready to spring forth [auf dem Sprung] ) Sein und Zeit 344).

According to these two passages, one is led to understand that the mood of anxiety discloses the possibility of authentic existence (resoluteness). The “realization” of this possibility, the Being-resolute, coincides with the cessation of anxiety and the “springing forth” of the equaniminous moment of vision. Thus anxiety does not belong to resoluteness, but merely holds it “at the ready.”

It cannot be denied that there is a certain ambiguity in Heidegger’s explanation of the mood that belongs to resoluteness. On pages 296, 305, 308, and 344 (last paragraph), Heidegger defines the mood of resoluteness as anxiety. For example on page 305 he writes, “We have characterized resoluteness as a way of reticently projecting oneself upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, and exacting anxiety of oneself.” And yet on pages 188, 343, and 344 (first paragraph), Heidegger denies that anxiety is the mood of resoluteness as a possible way of Being it can choose to realize. “Anxiety merely brings one into the mood for a possible resolution” (Sein und Zeit 344). “Anxiety makes manifest in Dasein its Being towards its own-most ability-to-be, that is, its Being-free for the freedom of [resolutely] choosing itself and taking hold of itself” (Sein und Zeit 188).

This ambiguity, apparent or real, deserves to be explored further, as its clarification will enable the theory of authentic moods to be deepened in its import.

First we must note that the authentic present is the moment of vision: “That present which is held in authentic temporality and which is authentic itself we designate the ‘moment of vision’… It means [a] resolute rapture… a rapture which is held in resoluteness” (Sein und Zeit 338). In contradistinction from this, the “present of anxiety is held on to, [but] it does not as yet have the character of the moment of vision, which temporalizes itself in a resolution” (Sein und Zeit 344). Anxiety is not itself resolute, but rather makes manifest to Dasein that resoluteness is a possibility it can choose:

But just as little does anxiety imply that one has already taken over one’s existence into one’s resolution and done so by repeating. On the contrary, anxiety brings one back to one’s thrownness as a possibility that can be repeated. And in this way it also reveals the possibility of an authentic ability-to-be (Sein und Zeit 343).

From these passages, it appears that anxiety discloses and prepares for the possibility of authentic resoluteness and its moment of vision, but does not belong to resoluteness itself. And yet in the other passages we discussed (Sein und Zeit 296, 305, 308, and 344), anxiety is described as the mood that belongs to resoluteness.

There is only one sentence in Sein und Zeit that can possibly solve this problem, and prevent Heidegger form being accused of an inconsistency (namely, that anxiety is the mood of resoluteness versus anxiety is not the mood of resoluteness). The sentence is—

But anxiety can mount authentically only in a resolute Dasein (Sein und Zeit 344, our italics).

This sentence can be interpreted in a way that not only resolves the ambiguity in Heidegger’s text, but also conforms to the phenomenal facts. One type of anxiety can prepare Dasein for its resolute moment of vision, and another type of anxiety, the type which “mounts authentically in a resolute Dasein,” belongs to the resolute moment of vision itself. The “preparatory anxiety” and the “resolute anxiety” both have the “Being-uncanny” as their “how one is,” and both disclose the “indefinite threat” as the corresponding way of “mattering.” The before-what of these two types of anxiety is also generally the same: they are anxious “before” Dasein’s thrown Being-in-the-world. However the about-what of these two types of anxiety differs in one respect. What the “preparatory anxiety” is anxious about is Dasein’s possibility of Being-resolute. Dasein finds-itself anxious about its own ability to be resolute. The “resolute anxiety,” on the other hand, is not anxious about the “mere possibility” of resolute existence. It belongs to resolute existence itself. What it is anxious about are the possibilities of existing that belong to the “situation” that Dasein “sees” in the moment of vision. Concerning these possibilities Heidegger writes that in the “moment of vision… Dasein is carried away to whatever possibilities in the situation it may concern itself with” (Sein und Zeit 338). The possibilities that Dasein is “carried away to” in the resolute moment of vision are the current factical possibilities of authentic existing: “The resoluteness in which Dasein comes back to itself discloses current factical possibilities of authentic existing” (Sein und Zeit 383). It is these factical possibilities that belong to the situation, possibilities which are disclosed in the resolute moment of vision, that constitute what the “resolute anxiety” is anxious about.[19]

We have seen that the mood belonging to resoluteness can be an anxiety, a readiness for anxiety, or a joy. However, as we have seen in the above-quoted passage (Sein und Zeit 345) equanimity can also be the mood of resoluteness. Equanimity is similar to the “resolute anxiety” except for its constitutive moments of the “how one is” and the way of “mattering.” Heidegger provides the clue for describing these moments by emphasizing that equanimity is a way of viewing the “situations that are possible in one’s ability-to-be-a-whole as disclosed in our anticipation of death” (Sein und Zeit 345, our italics). Like the anxiety that belongs to anticipatory resoluteness, equanimity is about the situational possibilities of Being-a-whole, that is, of Being in a way that includes Being-towards-death. Equanimity, however, is not “threatened” by the possibility of death that it discloses. Rather in equanimity Dasein is reconciles to and has “come to terms with” its own death. Death does not “matter” to Dasein by “threatening” it; death “matters” by “harmonizing” Dasein. That is, in equanimity Dasein’s Being-in-the-world and its possible no-longer-Being-in-the-world are disclosed as belonging together in a harmonious fashion. Dasein’s Being is defined as a Being-towards-death, as a Being-towards-Nothing. In equanimity, this “Nothing” of Dasein is disclosed as being in a harmonious unity with the “Being” of Dasein. The intrinsic constitution of Dasein’s Being is that it shall be Nothing. It is true of Dasein’s Being what Heidegger says of Being in general in Was ist Metaphysik?, is namely that “Being and Nothing hang together.”[20] When Dasein is equanimous, it finds that the “Nothing” of its death does not “threaten” its Being, but that this “Nothing” hangs together with this Being in a fundamental and indissoluble harmony. This way of understanding the authentic truth of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world disposes Dasein in such a way that it achieves an authentic serenity. The “how one is” of Dasein when it finds-itself as equaniminous is a “Being-serene.” Dasein anticipates its death in the mode of a serene acceptance and affirmation of its necessity and inevitability.

What equanimity discloses can be further explicated as follows Dasein finds its Being and its Death “in harmony” because it understands that Death is the very condition of its Being. If Dasein were not to die, it could not Be. Death is the a priori condition of the possibility of the “that it is” of any Dasein whatsoever.

Death is not only the condition of Dasein’s Being. It is also the condition of the disclosure of Being in general. The anticipation of death is the authentic temporalization of the future, and as a basic mode of the temporalizeing of temporality, it is a necessary condition of the manifestation of Being itself. Dasein, understanding that its own Being-towards-death is necessary for there to be “Being”, affirms its own death. Dasein faces its death with unshakable peace that comes from realizing that the inevitability of its no-longer-Being-in-the-world is an essential condition for the “there is” [es gibt] of Being itself. What Heidegger says in a later writing and in a different context may also be understood in a sense that is pertinent here:

Death is the shrine of Nothing, that is, of that which in every respect is never something that merely exists, but which nevertheless presences, even as the mystery of Being itself. As the shrine of Nothing, death harbors within itself the presencing of Being. As the shrine of Nothing, death is the shelter of Being.[21]

In this last section of our paper, concerning “the authenticity and inauthenticity of moods,” we have described five moods that belong in some sense to authentic existence. To disclose the complete truth of Being-in-the-world, Dasein must find-itself in a varied range of moods, not simply in one, namely, “anxiety.” Dasein must find-itself ready for anxiety, in “preparatory anxiety,” in “resolute anxiety,” in joy and in equanimity. But this does not preclude the possibility that other moods as well could be disclosive of Dasein’s authentic ability-to-be. Just as fear is inauthentic anxiety, indifference is inauthentic equanimity, and gladness is inauthentic joy, so perhaps this authentic/inauthentic polarity belongs to other moods, possibly even to all moods. However the exploration of this possibility would take us beyond the realm of fundamental ontology and into that of existential anthropology. It is not the aim of a fundamental ontology to explicate the various kinds of moods that belong to Dasein, but to reach an understanding of the meaning of Being in general. As Heidegger points out after his brief mention of authentic joy, “the analysis of these basic moods would transgress the limits that are set for the present Interpretation by its aim of developing a fundamental ontology” (Sein und Zeit 310).

* Published in The Modern Schoolman, Vol. LVIII, number 4, May 1981.

[1] Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1972). Hereafter this will be referred to as SZ

[2] Translators have always had a difficult task when faced with Heidegger’s Befindlichkeit. Macquarrie and Robinson translated it as “state-of-mind,” but admitted in a footnote that this phrase is not as literal as “the state in which one may be found.” Cf. Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 172, n. 2. It is true that this latter phrase is more literal, but it still carries the misleading connotation that moods are “states,” that is, inner conditions of one’s self, rather than modes of disclosing Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. Befindlichkeit has also been translated by such terms as “disposition” and “situatedness,” but these terms do not convey the sense of Dasein’s finding itself as Being-in-the-world. Richardson’s “already-having-found-itself-thereness” (df. his Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974, p. 64) is the most accurate in sense of the various translations; however we shall use “findedness” because of its greater brevity.

[3] Sarte, Jean-Paul. L’Etre et le 1943), pp. 91-92. Neant (Paris: Librairie Gallimard).

[4] We should not at this point that our explication of Heidegger’s theory of moods is restricted to the theory of the so-called “early Heidegger.” We consider the above mentioned works to belong to this period. Vom Wesen der Wahrheit was published in 1943, but mostly written in 1930.

[5] “On the Essence of Truth,” trans. Hull and Crick in Existence and Being, ed. W. Brock (Chicago: Gateway Edition, 1949), p. 311. Although this and the following three references are to the English translations of Heidegger’s works, we have modified these translations in several places.

[6] “What is Metaphysics?,” Ibid., p. 334.

[7] The Essence of Reasons, trans. Malick (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 107.

[8] Ibid., p. 111.

[9] This is true for the most part of Dasein’s existence. On occasion, but only on occasion, Dasein allows the whole of being to matter to itself in a certain way. When “we are not absorbed in things or in ourselves this ‘as a whole’ overcomes us—for example in genuine boredom... This profound boredom, drifting hither and thither in the abysses of existence like a blanketing fog, removes all tings and men and oneself along with it into a strange indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole.” “What is Metaphysics?,” Ibid., pp. 333-34.

[10] “It has been one of the merits of phenomenological research that it has brought these phenomena [affects] more clearly into our sight. Not only this: Scheler, accepting the challenges of Augustine and Pascal, has guided the problematic to an examination of how “presentations” are foundationally related to “Acts which take an interest.” But even here the existential-ontological foundations of the phenomenon of the act in general remains obscure” (SZ 139). for an analysis of the respect in which Scheler’s theory represented a development of Husserl's position towards Heidegger’s position, see our “Scheler’s Critique of Husserl’s Theory of the World of the Natural Standpoint, “The Modern Schoolman, Volume, LV, No 4 (May 1978), pp. 378-96

[11] An explanation of these different kinds of feelings is given in our “max Scheler and the Classification of Feelings,” Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Fall, 1978.

[12] We explained and criticized the theories of Brentano and Husserl concerning this matter in “On Husserl's Theory Of Consciousness In The Fifth Logical Investigation,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, June, 1977, and in “Husserl and the Inner Structure of Feeling-Acts,” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. VI, 1976.

[13] Heidegger, the Essence of Reasons, op. cit., p. 113.

[14] Strictly speaking, of course, the a priori as conceived by Scheler and Heidegger is not identical in meaning with the a priori as conceived by Plato and Kant, as both Scheler and Heidegger point out.

[15] For a fuller explanation of the following ideas, see our “Sarte and the Phenomenon of Emotion,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Fall 1979, “A Contradiction in Sarte’s Theory of Freedom,” The Personalist, October, 1979, and Section Two of “Sartre's Theory of the Progressive and Regressive Methods of Phenomenology,” Man and the World, Vol. 12, No. 4.

[16] Cf. L’Etre et le Neant, op.cit., pp. 508-61.

[17] CF. pp. 50, 166, 112, 211, 333 respectively. It should be added that it is only inauthentic moods that have the before-what of a being that is encountered in the world. Authentic moods have Dasein itself as their before-what. See Section Five of this paper.

[18] These ecstases, of course, also make possible the other aspects of Dasein’s Being, such as speech, everydayness, circumspective concern, etc.

[19] It must be emphasized in this context that there are two senses of authentic existence in Sein und Zeit, not one, as it is often supposed. The first sense is anticipatory resoluteness, which is the sense we have hitherto been discussing. The second sense is the possible ways of existing in the situation that are disclosed by anticipatory resoluteness. The moment of vision, which belongs to anticipatory resoluteness (authentic existence in the first sense), “disclose current factical possibilities of authentic existing” (SZ 383). These authentic possibilities are also discussed on pp. 209, 300, 307, 308, 338, 345, 347, 385, and 391. These “factical possibilities of authentic existing,” which belong to the situation as disclosed by anticipatory resoluteness, represent the second sense of authentic existence. The only example of such a factical possibility Heidegger offers is that of “Being-in-the-truth” (science). Science, as a possibility of existing, “has its existentiell basis in a resoluteness by which Dasein projects itself towards its [situational possibility which is an] ability-to-be in the ‘truth’ “ (SZ 363).

These two senses of authentic existence are neither incompatible with each other nor are separated from each other. They belong together a priori:

The existential character of any possible resolute Dasein includes the constitutive moments of the existential phenomenon which we call a “situation” (SZ 299).

The “constitutive moments” of the situation are of course the “possibilities of authentic existing” that are disclosed in the resolute moment of vision. These authentic situational possibilities are so intimately connected with the resoluteness that discloses them that Heidegger writes that the situational possibilities are themselves the possible ways in which resoluteness can exist in the “they:”

Resolution does not withdraw itself from “actuality,” but discovers first what is factically possible [in the situation]; and it does so by seizing upon it in whatever way is possible for it as its ownmost [eigenstes] ability-to-be in the “they” (SZ 299).

[20] Cf. p. 346 in Existence and Being, op. cit.

[21] From “The Thing” in Heidegger’s Poetry, Language and Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 178-79. “The Thing” was first offered as a lecture in 1950, and published in Vortrage und Aufsatze in 1954.