In order to see whether there is validity in the Deleuzian critique of Heidegger, a detailed examination of the ontological structure of human existence as depicted in Sein und Zeit is necessary. The examination of all basic components of being-there initially brings to light surprising similarities with Deleuze’s philosophical conception, but finally uncovers the fundamental divergence between the two philosophical positions. It is the divergence between the autonomy and unity of thought on the one side, and the heteronomy and multiplicity on the other. This divergence is evident especially in the existential analysis of anxiety where Heidegger finds not a possible disruption of the integrity of the self, but an affirmation of the individual unity of its existence. Such an interpretation of anxiety bears all the signs of what one may call the “romantic strategy” of thought. Supposing that this is the strategy Heidegger applies in Sein und Zeit, it becomes comprehensible why he cannot articulate the pathological disintegration of the self as an original phenomenon.

Insofar as reading Différence et répétition brings us to contemplating the basic principles of fundamental ontology, it is worth mentioning that this is not the only text in which Deleuze explicitly comes to terms with Heidegger’s philosophy. In the last work he wrote together with Guattari, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie?, he comes back to it. The pivotal point of their meditations on the character and object of philosophy is the statement that the categories of subject and object are insufficient in grasping the true character of thought. Thought is for Heidegger not a connecting line between subject and object or one of them revolving around the other, for he situates it instead in the difference between beings and being. More precisely, what is at work within the framework of thought is the difference between the discoveredness of beings and disclosedness of being. The question of the ontological difference that resonates in the tension between the discoveredness of beings and disclosedness of being, according to Deleuze and Guattari, refers also to the themes of territory and of deterritorialization that play an important role within their own philosophical project.¹

However incompatible with Heidegger’s inquiry into being the notions of territory and deterritorialization may seem, their adequacy becomes apparent if we realize that territory is, in Qu’est-ce que la philosophie?, tied together with home, with what is familiar, whereas deterritorialization belongs to what is unheimlich.² Territory is a region in which we feel at home. As such it presents the frame within which we know our way about, where we can thus act effectively. Deterritorialization, on the contrary, entails a process of abandoning territory and exposing oneself to uncanniness. This occurs once the frame of territory has been shattered and thought has set out for a journey into the unknown. In relation to the homelessness of deterritorialization, territory is not only the lost home; from the outset, territory and the deterritorialization are inextricably linked, which finds its corroboration in the fact that territory always includes possible paths of escape.

The topic of dwelling, which belongs to the character of territory, appears also in Sein und Zeit as part of the discussion of being-in-the-world. According to Heidegger, the world is primarily a region in which we dwell and around which we find our way.³ Our being-there is initially and for the most part situated in the world as the familiar. Nevertheless, being-in-the-world can at any moment show itself also in the mode of uncanniness that reminds us of the true character of our being-there, i.e. sojourning in the openness of being.⁴

Insofar as the notions of territory and deterritorialization are projected onto the context of the ontological analytic of being-there, one can say that the former corresponds to the region where the familiarity with beings prevails, whereas the latter refers to the moment in which the open dimension of being uncovers itself. As long as territory is characterized by the discoveredness of beings, what emerges in deterritorialization is disclosedness of being. The ontological project of being-there, as adumbrated in Sein und Zeit, is then marked by the deterritorialization being unified with transcendence, within whose frame we advance from the discoveredness of beings to disclosedness of being.

Even though the basic motives of territory and deterritorialization can be found within the frame of fundamental ontology, it is by no means something which makes Deleuze and Guattari accept Heidegger’s position. According to them, Heidegger approaches but cannot fully come to grips with the deterritorialization, for he constantly links it to the understanding of being anchored in the ontological unity of human existence. The uncanniness of being-in-the-world, through which disclosedness as such appears, is therefore not nearly as radical as the deterritorialization exposited in Qu’est-ce que la philosophie?.

The key prerequisite for depicting the revolutionary dynamism of thought, which invalidates all opinions and habitual viewpoints, is the differentiation of relative and absolute deterritorialization. These are not to be differentiated by placing relative deterritorialization occurring within the scope of psychic, social, geographical and political coordinates, and ascribing absolute deterritorialization only to pure thinking. Their difference is rather given by absolute deterritorialization occurring not by means of unification but by the breaking down of all unity, whereas relative deterritorialization always maintains a certain unity in one way or another. It is absolute deterritorialization that exposes thought to chaos which dissolves all coherence. Thought in this case appears an utterly perilous business, since chaos affects it as an endless variability and disorganization that provides no support whatsoever. Dissatisfied with the relative certainty of the opinion, thought necessarily runs the risk that brings it closer to rapture, intoxication or pathologically altered experience. The primary need of thought is thus the search for consistency that would enable it to resist chaos. Thought must undergo consolidation that would give chaos at least some coherence.

The need for finding an anchor, clinging to it and finding one’s way, however, already lays the foundations for the establishment of new territory. Absolute deterritorialization must therefore go together with correlative reterritorialization, or at least with the effort to establish new territory. The same applies to relative deterritorialization, which is always secondary in relation to absolute deterritorialization. In this sense, it is therefore possible to comprehend the movement of thought as an interplay of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, which is exactly what Deleuze and Guattari have in mind when they claim that “to think is to voyage” in Mille plateaux ⁵

But does not Heidegger claim something similar in the 1929–1930 Freiburg lecture series published under the title Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, when he describes the mood belonging to philosophical thought as homesickness?⁶ Unlike science, philosophical inquiry does not allow itself to be restricted to a pre-determined domain of investigation. It creates its own domain only by means of its activity and keeps it open through inquiry. According to Heidegger, philosophical thought is characterized by Novalis’s dictum that ascribes to it the unquenchable desire for being home everywhere. However, this desire can arise in philosophy only because the one who philosophizes is nowhere at home. He/she is continuously on the way home, but home always lies beyond.

Yet, homesickness is not a peculiarity of a few eccentrics, for philosophical inquiry essentially springs from human existence as such. Not only the philosopher, but we all are homeless. Considering that being-there is on the way, or indeed its very being is the way, Heidegger attributes to it the character of transition (der Übergang). He sees in this transitoriness not only transitivity that enables it to advance from the ontic to the ontological level, but also its finitude. Determining the very basis of our being-in-the-world, finitude distinguishes us from animals, which can indeed perish, and yet are not transitory in the proper sense, for they remain instinctively attentive to their immediate environment. As finite, our existence necessarily remains incomplete and unclosed, from which springs also its openness to what is yet to come. As long as we do not evade our finitude, but rather accept it as our essential lot, we exist transitorily. The decision to come to grips with one’s own transitoriness brings one back upon itself, throwing it into radical solitariness. The possibility of accepting and bearing the finitude of its existence thus makes individuation possible for being-there.

Insofar as the acceptance of the finite character of one’s own existence, its “becoming finite” (die Verendlichung) in Heidegger’s terms, remains bound with the act of individuation without the disruption of overall integrity of existence, it cannot be confused with the finitude of thought as suggested by Deleuze and Guattari. The conception of finitude as indicated in Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? is much more radical than Heidegger’s conception of existential transitoriness. Finitude understood as exposure to chaos leads not to mere revelation of the unique individuality of existence, but to an unstoppable disintegration of individuality as such. Its main challenge is the consolidation of life which loses all its certainty in deterritorialization.

As the processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization occur not only in the case of human beings, it seems also that the conception of finitude as presented in Mille plateaux or Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? pertains to all living, i.e. self-forming organisms that actively resist the destructive forces of chaos. Insofar as human being is distinguished from animals, this is a distinction only in the degree of factual and potential deterritorialization.

The mere statement of the disproportion between these two divergent views of deterritorialization, however, is still dissatisfactory. If we want to grasp the strategic reasons compelling Heidegger for “betraying” the deterritorialization, we must map out exactly the points in Sein und Zeit that indicate its direction and scope. This requires that we initially focus on those parts of the ontological analytic of being-there that exposit the secured dwelling in the world and also on passages where uncanniness comes into play. Another theme which must be brought into focus is the finitude of the individual existence.

Inquiring into the ontological structure of being-there, Heidegger departs from the conviction that this structure should be discerned by how we exist initially and for the most part, and not by some exceptional or ideal state. Therefore, the phenomenological description of sojourning in the disclosedness focuses primarily on our common, everyday mode of existence. What is reflected in this way is not only some sociological average of the manifold lifestyles. Regardless of the ontic differences among the various individuals and their lifestyles, one can state that we are always in one way or another familiar with the world and with beings therein. All common modes of behavior by which we relate to beings are based on a familiarity with the world we inhabit. Heidegger terms the world with which we are familiar “the surrounding world” (die Umwelt).⁷ This world is not only a mere set of things, but rather an open horizon in which we orientate ourselves and understand beings and the possibilities they offer. As such, the surrounding world is that “in which” the everyday existence is situated. Insofar as the phenomenon of the everyday being-in-the-world is to be comprehended, we must grasp thematically the open horizon of the surrounding world and to describe its ontological structure.

Familiarity with the surrounding world is primarily reflected in the certainty with which we treat the beings shown in the horizon of this world. In our everyday being-in-the-world, we are concerned and occupied with beings. According to Heidegger, we take heed of beings, even while doing nothing in particular. All possible forms of behavior in which we treat or disregard beings are thus already certain modes of “concern” (das Besorgen).

Insofar as we deal with beings practically, we encounter them as useful things. Beings, which we treat within the frame of our everyday being-in-the-world, don’t manifest themselves in their presence-at-hand, but as that which serves some purpose. The useful thing, however, is never given in isolation, for it always has its place within a certain context of useful things. Every useful thing can show itself as what it is only in the referential totality of useful things (the hammer referring to the nail, etc.). Considering their utility and availability, Heidegger attributes to useful things the character of handiness, or literally: readiness-to-hand (die Zuhandenheit). This readiness-to-hand, revealed by practical sight, is ontologically dependent on the referential whole of their mutual relations with which we are always already familiar. The bond connecting the specific thing with the referential context of useful things becomes apparent especially when the thing in question is broken and no longer serves its purpose. As a result, this thing shows itself as something merely present-at-hand. The referential whole of useful things thereby becomes conspicuous, contrary to its original nonthematic evidence.

In the everyday concern this nonthematic evidence retains yet another characteristic of beings that are ready-to-hand – their “relevance” (die Bewandtnis). Relevance is not an isolated quality either, for it always functions in the framework of the previously disclosed totality of relevance. We can understand what this or that thing is relevant for, only as long as we disclose particular beings as parts of the overall context of relevance. As long as we remain familiar with the surrounding world, we always have the totality of relevance already disclosed, understanding thereby not only the things that are ready-to-hand, but also our own possibilities.

The whole context of relations and references through which we understand beings ready-to-hand as well as ourselves and our own possibilities is referred to in Sein und Zeit as “significance” (die Bedeutsamkeit). Significance is the ontological structure of the surrounding world with which we are familiar. It is by virtue of this structure that we can uncover specific beings as ready-to-hand. This structure is the prerequisite for the signification of some entity to manifest itself. In this sense, signification can be regarded as the condition for the practical uncovering of beings. On the ontological level, the structure of signification thus proves that the surrounding world is not what we simply exist in but what forms the inseparable part of the whole constitution of our sojourning in disclosedness.

Moreover, what also finds its foundation in the ontological structure of the surrounding world is the existential spatiality that demarcates space for our everyday encounter with beings ready-to-hand. Within the framework of practical treatment of things, the useful thing is always situated in an environment where it has its place. Heidegger calls this environment, where all useful things have their appropriate place, “region” (die Gegend). Region is the segmented diversity of places that is disclosed together with the totality of relevance and significance and as such provides room for singular beings ready-to-hand. In its open vastness, region is delimited by the horizon that preserves the familiarity of its places and the inconspicuous certainty of its directions for endeavors. Familiar with region in our everyday treatment of things ready-to-hand, we always somehow know our way around. By the same token, our existence has always already taken a direction, i.e. it discerns right from left, near from far. The existential spatiality therefore always concerns our lived body (der Leib) that is not to be mistaken for a corporeal thing present somewhere in space. Unlike the corporeal thing, the lived body takes active part in the overall context of region, in which it traverses distances and retains its directionality. The prerequisite for factical directionality and traversing distances thus lies in the previous disclosedness of the totality of relevance and significance that provides room for practical dealing with beings ready-to-hand.

A further inquiry into the everyday being-in-the-world departs from the fact that one is never totally alone within the surrounding world. Since the practical dealing with beings that are ready-to-hand always refers to other users, these others are virtually present, even though no one is close by. Their existence is encoded in the ontological structure of the surrounding world as primordially as the relevance of beings ready-to-hand. Everyday existence is therefore being-with others and the space of region is a socialized space. Others appear in the world not as strange subjects, but in their practical dealing with things ready-to-hand. As long as we understand them, it is not due to some self-projection or empathy, but on the basis of the overall structure of the surrounding world with which we are familiar. Socius is primarily understandable for us as one who shares with us the same context of relevance and significance.

Inasmuch as we immediately grasp the sense and aim of what our neighbors do and strive for, we cannot be outright apathetic to them; we always, in one way or another, attend to them. This “solicitude” (die Fürsorge), which expresses the essential interest in the others even in the moment of turning away from them, is contrasted with concern in that it relates to the existents that have the character of being-in-the-world themselves. Yet, similarly to the concern with things, solicitude itself is no random momentary state, but rather the existential determinant of sojourning in disclosedness as such.

Paying heed to others in our everyday existence, we always compare ourselves to them in one way or another. The dependence on others necessarily entailed in this comparing leads us to conformity. This tendency to conform to others results in the impersonal anonymity of the everyday being-in-the-world. Instead of bearing responsibility for one’s own opinions and deeds, the individual submits to the rule of “the they” (das Man) that decides what is reasonable, appropriate, and valid. Prescribing the possibilities of everyday existence, the public anonymity establishes the rule of mediocrity that excludes everything original, exceptional and unique. Its medium is superficiality of opinion that understands and judges everything. By allowing it to shun the responsibility for its own existence, the public anonymity provides individual existence with a relief from the burden of its own being. As long as the individual shuns the weight of its own existence, preferring rather the relief offered by public anonymity, its way of being is necessarily dependent and non-autonomous.

In Sein und Zeit, the way of existence in which the individual turns away from itself and succumbs to the impersonal anonymity is characterized as “falling prey” (das Verfallen). As an everyday mode of being-in-the-world, falling prey presents the existential movement in which the individual existence falls away from its being in disclosedness, falling prey to the surrounding world with the familiar. By falling prey, being-there becomes wholly absorbed in the possibilities and matters offered by the surrounding world. Thus, the movement of falling prey creates a sort of “whirlpool” in which the existence ceaselessly revolves.⁸

Paradoxically, absorption in the surrounding world provides us with peace consisting not so much in slothful idleness as in the feeling that the given mode of being is in order, i.e. in accord with how everybody lives, speaks and thinks. However, it is this accord that alienates the individual existence from itself, concealing from it its very own possibilities. Instead of searching for and projecting such possibilities, being-there strays into the surrounding world, which leads it to the point where it understands itself on the basis of the things it finds in this world.

However hard the individual existence may try to relieve itself of the burden of its own existence and rest in public anonymity, this wish can never completely be fulfilled. It is mood rather than knowledge that discloses the existential burden. The individual existence can turn away from itself only because it is led ontologically to itself through the basic disposition of anxiety. It is precisely this disposition that gives rise to the burden which will never just go away, however hard one tries to be rid of it.

Unlike fear, which is necessarily connected with some innerworldly entity, anxiety is not about some entity that endangers us. It is rather concerned with being-in-the-world as such. This indefinite threat, which is by no means external, presents itself as uncanniness. As such it is the very opposite of the familiarity with the surrounding world that determines the character of the common everydayness. In anxiety one realizes what it is “not to be at home,” torn out of the referential and relational context of the surrounding world and banished into exile where there is nothing for it to hold on to. No innerworldly thing is relevant here any longer. When the ontological structure of the surrounding world collapses, one experiences the utter loss of significance. Since the significative structure of the surrounding world provides a diversity of places, what is also paralyzed by anxiety is the practical orientation in space.

Moreover, in uncanniness the bonds are torn that connect us with others. In this state the rule of public anonymity comes to an end. The individual existence thus becomes de-socialized and left in utter solitariness. In anxiety, the individual existence is deprived of the possibility of understanding itself from the standpoint of the public anonymity, left only with its own being.⁹ By no means, however, does this mean that the individual existence thereby finds itself completely outside of the world. Anxiety “individuates being-there to its ownmost being-in-the-world,” claims Heidegger, “being-there is individuated, but as being-in-the-world.”¹⁰ Anxiety is an outstanding existential disposition because it tears being-there out of its familiarity with the surrounding world only in order to reveal to it the empty openness of the world and its thrownness therein. In the disposition of anxiety, the individual existence is faced with the brute fact that it is nothing other than “thrown being” in disclosedness and that this is what it must remain, despite its preoccupation with innerworldly things and public anonymity that endow it with the feelings of security, sureness and fullness of life.

In its disclosedness, however, the individual existence also finds its “being-free” (das Freisein) that enables it to abandon all social roles, all adopted possibilities and to grasp itself as it truly is. In the solitariness brought by anxiety, individual existence in disclosedness shows itself in its difference from all habitual roles and easily accessible possibilities, offered in the surrounding world. This difference is eventually nothing but difference from all beings, both with and without the character of being-there. Therefore, it is only in anxiety that there can appear both the uniqueness of one’s position in disclosedness and a fundamental difference of this disclosedness from all beings, which Sein und Zeit terms the ontological difference.

Mention should also be made here of the phenomenon of the lived body, especially because it never shows itself in the connection with the original disclosedness as revealed in anxiety. When Heidegger leaves the question of the lived body aside in his interpretation of anxiety, this is not an oversight. Nor is it done because fundamental ontology is not supposed to serve an exhaustive description of human existence. What is at work here is the philosophical decision that is explicitly formulated in Zollikoner Seminare: the phenomenon of the lived body is linked to sensuality and as such codetermines the character of being-in-the-world, but this does not pertain to the fundamental structure of existence, which is the understanding of being.¹¹ Insofar as being-there understands being as such, the lived body has no share therein. As the openness of being can manifest itself only in pure thought, and not in a sensual perception, the understanding of being reaches beyond the limits of the lived body that is always delineated by the horizon of the surrounding world. It is therefore understandable that the lived body can play no role in the phenomenological exposition of anxiety either.

The exclusion of the lived body from the movement of transcendence does not change anything about the fact that the phenomenon of anxiety has its physiological correlates and preconditions. These, however, pertain only to the body as a corporeal thing or biological organism, and not to the body as integral part of the ontological constitution of being in disclosedness. Physiological processes thus remain secondary in the relation to anxiety. In spite of conceding that anxiety can also be evoked physiologically, Heidegger stresses that this is only because our existence is “anxious in the very ground of its being.”¹²

This does not mean that uncanniness always shows itself in its truly ontological sense. Rather, the point is that uncanniness is the original mode of being-in-the-world. Uncanniness in this respect is a more primordial mode of sojourning in disclosedness than the everyday secured being-at-home in the surrounding world. Although we initially and for the most part remain familiar with the surrounding world, this being-at-home is a mode of the original not-being-at-home, and not vice versa.¹³ In comparison with the groundless depth of anxiety, the everyday solicitude for others or concern with things ready-to-hand is merely a superficial mode of being. This also explains the attractiveness of the shallowness and unoriginality of public anonymity that enables us to veil the abyss of anxiety. Since uncanniness reveals being in disclosedness as uneasy and precarious, we seek refuge from it in the familiar surrounding world and in the possibilities it offers. But since being-in-the-world is essentially permeated by uncanniness, being-at-home in the surrounding world can at any time and for no obvious reason change into desolate not-being-at-home.

Another “intrusive” factor that disrupts the peaceful being-at-home in the surrounding world is conscience, whose voice claims our attention. Conscience as explicated in Sein und Zeit is not what is commonly understood by this word, i.e. a phenomenon operating in relation to a certain performed or intended deed in the polarity of “good” and “bad” conscience. The ontological interpretation treats conscience as a purely “formal” structure of being-there, i.e. as an existential phenomenon belonging to being in disclosedness. The existential role of conscience lies in its appeal to being-there that has become lost in public anonymity, rousing it from its absorption in the surrounding world. Insofar as conscience deprives being-there of its everyday refuge, it is only because its call comes from uncanniness in which the original homelessness of sojourning in disclosedness is unveiled. The primary tuning of the conscience’s voice is the uncanniness of anxiety.

What conscience gives to individual existence is its own guilt. To be guilty, “schuldig sein” in German, generally means “to owe,” or “to bring about a lack.” With reference to the formal conception of guilt articulated as a certain cause of negativeness, Heidegger finds the original being-guilty of individual existence in its thrownness, i.e. in that it is thrown being in disclosedness. The reason for the negativeness is the fact that individual existence has not given its disclosedness to itself, and yet it can exist only on its ground.

Disclosedness is the enabling ground for being-there because, as Heidegger claims, “[t]hrough disclosedness, the being that we call being-there is in the possibility of being its there.”¹⁴ Although being-there has not laid the ground of its own existence, it is bound by its weight that shows itself most primordially in the uncanniness of anxiety. That being-there is guilty in the very foundation of its being appears most clearly in uncanniness, where all it is left with is the sheer fact that it is “there” as being in openness. In uncanniness, the negativeness of one’s own existence has its essential source.

However, it is not only the ground of sojourning in disclosedness that is imbued with negativeness – it is also its existential performance. We can always choose only one of our possibilities, whereas others elude us by the mere consequence of the act of choice. Our existence is thus permeated by negativeness throughout. This negativeness, claims Heidegger, does not have the character of privation, i.e. of lack relative with regard to the unachieved ideal, since it determines sojourning in disclosedness as such.¹⁵

When it is said that the voice of conscience gives us to understand our existential guilt, this does not mean that conscience coerces us to somehow fill in the negativeness of our own existence; it rather summons us to accept it and keep it as such. The voice of conscience, stemming from uncanniness, calls us to return from the impersonal anonymity of everyday existence back to the ground one’s own existence; at the same time, conscience also invites individual existence to accept the limitedness of its possibilities, from which one possibility is to be chosen and other ones foregone.

As long as it wants to have a conscience, individual existence corroborates the authenticity of its being in disclosedness. Conversely, as long as it silences the voice of conscience and wants to hear nothing of its essential being-guilty, the individual exists only in an inauthentic way. In the first case, what is characteristic is the readiness to bear one’s own solitariness amidst uncanniness, while in the other case individual existence falls prey to the surrounding world and to public anonymity.

In order to describe the authentic way of existence Heidegger uses the term “resoluteness” (die Entschlossenheit). This represents a prominent way of sojourning in disclosedness whose uniqueness lies in that it, unlike inauthentic irresoluteness, reveals “the most primordial truth of being-there.”¹⁶ The uniqueness of resoluteness does not lie in bringing the individual automatically into uncanniness, leaving it there to itself. Even the resolute existence cannot do without being-with others and without the surrounding world, since it must, as being-in-the-world, project itself into certain possibilities, which does not however mean that it should fall prey to them in the way of inauthentic existence. In these possibilities, the authentic existence opens its own way in which it allows itself be led by its ownmost potentiality of being. In this sense, the resolute existence transcends the horizon of the surrounding world, grounding its understanding of specific possibilities in the understanding of singularity and the contingency of its being in disclosedness. The understanding of its insecure and yet irreplaceable position in disclosedness shows being-there the innerwordly beings, as well as being-with others, in a light entirely different from the one of inauthentic existence that perceives them as the be-all and end-all of its being. In its inauthenticity, existence is absorbed by the surrounding world and its public anonymity to such an extent that it is “lived” by them, rather than assigning them their value and sense. On the contrary, the authentic existence breaks free from its subjugation to them, and even if it never fully abandons them, it still discloses them in an entirely original fashion, understanding them out of itself and out of its own being in disclosedness.

In this manner, the authentic existence is stretched between the commonly shared surrounding world and the empty disclosedness of the world, in which it stands absolutely alone. The tension of these two extremes determines the authentic existence in its unique individuality, simultaneously referring to what might be called the “heroic pathos” of Sein und Zeit. Authentic is the existence which resolutely advances from impersonal anonymity in order to take on its solitary being in disclosedness. “He who is resolute knows no fear, but understands the possibility of anxiety,” from whose uncanniness the inauthentic existence hides in the familiar and habitual surrounding world.¹⁷ If we speak, however, of the difference between the resolute and the irresolute existence, all moral judgments are to be left aside. When the ontological inquiry juxtaposes the gregarious, dependent and fallen existence with the essentially resolute and individualized existence, its aim is not to establish any criterion for estimating specific deeds. This differentiation is meant to be purely descriptive.

Since resoluteness, unlike everyday irresoluteness, reveals the most original truth of being-there, it is possible to use it as the ground for grasping the overall ontological constitution of being-there. What belongs to the ontological structure of being-there is both the disclosedness of the world and the surrounding world, and thus being-there can show itself in its integrity only in the moment when it stands resolutely in between these two. This standing entails also the manifestation of the difference between discoveredness of beings and disclosedness of being.

As long as we relate to our individual being in disclosedness, and together with it to being as such, it means that we essentially care about them. Only when caring about one’s own being can one be interested in something else, be it innerworldly things or others with whom one shares the surrounding world. Both concern with things and solicitude for others are grounded upon this relation to oneself called “care” (die Sorge) in Sein und Zeit. Care in the ontological sense has nothing to do with a temporary state of mind such as everyday worry, since it expresses the whole structure of sojourning in disclosedness that encompasses the possibilities of both the authentic and the inauthentic existence.

If we take the schema of being-in-the-world as drafted in Zollikoner Seminare and complete it with moments of authentic standing in disclosedness and inauthentic entanglement in the surrounding world, we can imagine the ontological structure of care in the following fashion¹⁸:

What should be evident from the draft is not only the ecstatic-horizontal structure of sojourning in disclosedness, but also the difference between the surface level of everyday being in the surrounding world and depth, that is the original dimension of the openness of being.

Since the ontological constitution of care is not a static structure, but rather determines the individual existence in its dynamism, Heidegger articulates it by means of the moments of thrownness, projecting and falling prey. These three moments together form one whole whose unity corresponds to the ontological phenomenon of care. Thrownness, projecting and falling prey conjoin not as isolated elements from which one of them may be missing at times, but rather as integral components of one ontological whole. This counts for both the authentic existence that operates in the same surrounding world as falling prey and the inauthentic existence that also cares about its being, thus projecting itself in its own “inauthentic” manner toward its own ground. Both of these two modes of being in disclosedness represent two different ways of thrownness, projecting and falling prey conjoining in one structural whole. In order for the whole ontological structure of care to show itself in detail, it is necessary to further delineate the character of each of its three constitutive moments.

The first of the three fundamental moments of sojourning in disclosedness is thrownness, also termed “facticity”, since it is by its means that the individual existence is brought to face the fact of its being in disclosedness. Facticity lies in individual existence being confronted with the fact “that it is … and has to be” as an open being-in-the-world. The manner in which the individual existence always finds itself in the open region of the world is ontologically grounded in “disposition” (die Befindlichkeit), i.e. in what we commonly know as mood. Disposition decides how individual existence finds itself in the openness of its world. In disposition, being-there “is always already brought before itself, it has always already found itself, not as perceiving oneself to be there, but as one finds one’s self”, claims Heidegger.¹⁹

In this respect, individual existence is brought face to face with its disclosedness most primordially by the fundamental mood of anxiety. Of all possible moods, anxiety is exceptional in that it reveals one’s own being as a burden. As such, anxiety is the ground for all other moods, both depressed and elevated. Unlike anxiety that renders being-there radically solitary by expelling it from the context of the surrounding world, all other emotions determine not only how the individual existence finds itself, but also how the innerworldly beings or other people manifest themselves to it. Nevertheless, individual existence cannot uncover beings in their entirety unless it is exposed to the surrounding world by means of disposition.

In this way, a certain set of possibilities becomes accessible to individual existence. Finding itself in some disposition, it becomes situated in possibilities in which its potentiality of being is made clear. In order for a possibility to be its own possibility, individual existence must understand it in relation to its own potentiality of being. Thus, we get to the second moment constitutive of sojourning in disclosedness – the project that characterizes understanding. This existential project pertains to being in disclosedness as primordially as thrownness of disposition. Insofar as disposition determines individual existence in its facticity, projecting characterizes it in its existentiality, testifying to how one performs and manages one’s own being in disclosedness.²⁰ Hence, individual existence exists in the mode of a “thrown project.”²¹

What individual existence understands in its self-projecting is its being in disclosedness which it essentially cares about. Together with it individual existence understands also the referential relations of the surrounding world with which it is familiar. That is to say, understanding itself in its very own potentiality of being, individual existence projects the significative structure of the surrounding world that determines its own possibilities.²²