In order to overcome the limits given by the understanding of the finitude, which determines the ontological structure of the individual existence presented in Sein und Zeit or Zollikoner Seminare, without leaving the context of Heidegger’s thought, it is possible to turn to his Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik and above all Beiträge zur Philosophie, where we can find a radicalized exposition of existential finitude. In this respect, Heidegger introduces the concept of being-away (Weg-sein) that functions as an internal opposite to being-there (Da-sein). Being-away which is closely related to the finitude of being-there includes not only the possibility of physical death, but also the possibility of mental burn-out. Being-away that is accompanied by a complete destruction of the self can thus shed some light on extreme states which mentally ill people try to evade at all costs. From the perspective of being-away, we can understand not only the dark regions of psychoses, but all the lifesaving maneuvers with the help of which the mentally ill react to the fundamental peril of the total self-disintegration.

However, is it at all possible to perceive mental disorders as non-privative phenomena? Is not what first appears as un-reason and non-sense essentially always a certain privation of the understanding which characterizes being in disclosedness? If un-reason is to be seen as an expression of the finitude of being in disclosedness, and not as its privative modus, it is first of all necessary to understand that the destructive invasion of non-sense can bring being-there to its end just as its physical death, with which all sense and openness are brought to their end. This invasion must be grasped as the ultimate possibility of sojourning in disclosedness whose fulfillment means that being-there has turned into no-longer-being-there. Only thus can we see the finitude of being-there as a condition that enables mental disorders, in which modern psychiatry sees a privation of sane reason instead of encountering, in it and through it, the abysmal dimension of non-sense and un-reason.

As long as Zollikoner Seminare considers merely the privative approach to psychopathological phenomena, whereby un-reason is prevented from appearing out of itself, and if even Sein und Zeit offers no possibility to encounter non-sense as such, all we can do is to seek support elsewhere. In order to prove that the non-privative view of un-reason is not just a pious wish, we do not have to refer to only Foucault or Deleuze, but we can also focus on other Heidegger’s texts, beginning with Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. These lectures, which were given at the University of Marburg less than 3 years after the first publication of Sein und Zeit, deserve our attention especially because here the notion of being-away (das Weg-sein) appears for the first time, functioning as a conceptual complement and counterpart of being-there (das Da-sein).¹ The ontological project of being-there adumbrated here is not only restricted to the phenomenon of being-there, but also allows for the possibility of being-away. The very difference between being-there and being-away, claims Heidegger, has nothing in common with the presence or absence of some thing. Being-away does not mean that some being present-at-hand has been removed, since what is at stake here is an essential possibility of the human existence. Being-away is thus to be strictly distinguished from being-not-at-hand, just as being-there is not to be confused with the determination of a place in which some thing occurs.

Nor does the difference between being-there and being-away correspond to the opposition between consciousness and unconsciousness. The reason for this is that being-away is not necessarily connected with unconsciousness; in many instances, it can be brimming with clear consciousness. For example, in a situation where we do not pay attention to what is going on, lost in thought instead, we are “away,” and yet still not totally unconscious. Even though we find ourselves outside of the context that springs from the immediately given circumstances, we can occupy ourselves with something much more important, which keeps us in full consciousness.

Even the extreme form of being-away, presented, according to Heidegger, by insanity, does not rule out consciousness. “Think of the extreme case of madness, where the highest degree of consciousness can prevail and yet we say: The person is de-ranged, displaced, away, and yet there.”² The madman appears de-ranged, since he is displaced from the significative connections that are obvious to everyone else. A being present-at-hand, such as the stone, cannot be “absent” in the same way a de-ranged individual can be, because it is either at-hand, or not-at-hand. Not even the animal, despite perceptively relating to its environment, can truly be “away.” The reason is that the animal is instinctively bound to the givens of its momentary situation. Conversely, human being, who exists as being-there, almost incessantly advances ahead of the context of the given situation, and therefore is always “away” in a certain sense. Being-away is no random occurrence that sometimes happens to anyone; it is rather an essential characteristic of the human existence. Thus, only human being can go insane. The possibility of going insane – such is the rueful privilege of human existence.

Since the madman is displaced from the context which determines the meaning of a given situation, his behavior seems unfathomable and nonsensical. This displacement, which heralds the immediate coming of un-reason and non-sense, is no mere privation of an open being-there, but an extreme mode of being-away that essentially belongs to the human existence. Whereas the privative concept of mental disorder shows total disregard for the question of why human being can actually go insane, the ontological project of being-there undertaken in Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik gives the impression that the enabling condition of insanity is the potentiality-of-being-away (das Wegseinkönnen) bound with being-there. The possibility of being-away is what enables the peculiar detachment that occurs non-sense and un-reason.

However, even the specific not-being-there that is being-away cannot be regarded as a privative form of being-there. Human being can be away only on condition that its existential character is that of being-there, but this does not mean that being-away is a privative mode of being-there. Being-away is something more than a merely deficient form of being-there. The peculiar absence that lies in being-away is an original phenomenon, since the fact that we have to be-there in order to be-away is valid also the other way round.³ Being-away cannot be judged by means of a normative criterion of being-there mainly because the one cannot be separated from the other: “In the end, this being-away pertains to the essence of [being-there],” claims Heidegger.⁴ Being-away is no accidental quality, but a feature constitutive of being-there. As being-there, human being is at the same time also not-being-there, since it always already advances beyond the context of the situation in which it is immediately located. Never fully bound in its being-there to the immediately given situation, human being is also constantly exposed to the danger of displacement and de-rangement concealed inside its being-away. This view is important, not only for the understanding of the essence of insanity, but also for the right determination of the transitory character of being-there. For the possibility of de-rangement and displacement is essentially connected with transitoriness, i.e. with the transitivity and finitude of being-there.

Some of the possible consequences of the phenomenon of being-away have already been pointed out by Helmut Vetter in his article, “Es gibt keine unmittelbare Gesundheit des Geistes.”⁵ However, his analysis of being-away is by far not exhaustive. Leaving aside the problem of the existential finitude, Vetter’s consideration of the phenomenon of insanity cannot provide us with an answer to the question of how being-away relates to the transitoriness of being in disclosedness.

In Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik the transitoriness of being-there is seen in its ex-sistence, i.e. in that it goes beyond itself without ever leaving itself.⁶ It is not from some interior that being-there advances, but from its own possibilities offered by the uncovered beings, toward the being of beings to which it always stands open. More precisely, being-there is in transit from the specific and limited sphere of beings to its own ontological openness for being as such. Since being-there dwells on the border between beings and being, its existence has the character of transition. As existing, being-there “is enraptured in this transition and therefore essentially ‘absent.’”⁷ This absence, however, must not be understood as mere not-being-at-hand of things present-at-hand. Being-there is absent in the sense that it lies not only in the present, but is also enraptured (entrückt) into the having-been and the future. Being-there can be-away because it is ecstatically enraptured into its present, into its having-been and into its future.

In this ecstatic rapture (die Entrückung) there always lies concealed the possibility of pathological de-rangement that is the extreme form of being-away. Pathological de-rangement is the basic possibility of the transitory existence and as such attests to the abysmal dimension of its finitude. Yet, as follows from the comparison between human being and the animal or the being present-at-hand, the finitude of being-there, and thus also the possibility of being-away, is not an expression of its imperfection, but, conversely, an inner corroboration of its very own ontological quality.

However, this view of the existential finitude is not in itself satisfactory either. To perceive the relation between being-there and being-away in the full light, it is necessary to abandon Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik and to turn to Beiträge zur Philosophie, where Heidegger substantially deepens his exposition of the phenomenon of being-away. Here the peculiar not-being-there tied with being-there is no longer examined against the backdrop of a certain specific situation we can either participate in or disregard. The difference between being-there and being-away is seen from the perspective of the appropriating event, the so called “enowning” (das Er-eignis) of being as such, to which and into which our ex-sistence belongs. Since in Beiträge zur Philosophie the openness of being is no longer thought from the structure of the human existence, as is still the case in Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, but from itself, i.e. from how it gives itself to us and simultaneously holds itself back, it becomes possible to understand being-there as open involvement in the clearing of being. Being-there thus conceived must be distinguished from deliberate attention to what goes on around, since this “there” corresponds, not to some specific situation in which we find ourselves, but to the openness of being as such.

Being-away is thus no inattention of someone absent-minded at the moment, but non-involvement in the self-giving and self-withholding openness of being. Being-away defines a certain mode of relating to the openness of being, that is, ignorant non-involvement in it. Human being is given the possibility to either perceptively sustain the openness of being, or turn away from and forget about it. These two possibilities maintain, albeit on another level, the parallel with deliberate involvement and ignorant non-involvement in a certain specific situation. Viewed from the perspective of the clearing of being, the difference between being-there and being-away appears as a difference between involved openness to the secret of being and non-involved closedness in which we, absorbed in beings, forget about being.