Heidegger- "Being and Time" IV

We are, as it were, presented with an absolute opening. We act into this opening, attempting to close it off with our actions, our words, and our projects. We act as if it were possible to name the opening, as if we could finally say what it is, and that it is this way or that. But we are constantly thrust back; the opening remains open so that we may go further and, were the opening to close, our possibilities would close with it. The structure that Heidegger elucidates is the paradoxical structure of Dasein, such that when Heidegger states enigmatically, “Dasein is already its “not-yet””, (BT 245) he already has the totalized structure in view; the finitude of Dasein which possesses within itself a kernel of the infinite. What is this “not-yet”? Does it not mark the impossibility of a closed structure? Is it an “end,” which is at the same time an opening, allowing us to go further? To say that Dasein is already its “not-yet” is simply to point to the fact that Dasein is already ahead of itself in being towards its possibilities. Dasein always has the possibility of going beyond, of going further. In the “not-yet”, we are presented with a kernel of the future, that which evades interpretation, that which allows us to continue onward. The Being of Dasein is a Being-towards the future, towards the radical opening, which is at the same time the “end” toward which Dasein exists. The “not-yet,” always remains outstanding, always evades Dasein’s attempt to settle the matter or provide it with a definitive interpretation. Dasein is its to-be as a projection of its possibilities into the world, towards that which it is “not-yet.” Dasein is already this “not-yet” insofar as it is already its possibility. If we turn specifically to the notions of “totality,” “end” and “death,” we are in each case faced with a structure similar to that of the “not-yet.” We are not, as it were, presented with events, it is not literally the event of death, which Heidegger is invoking, nor is it “demise” in the Heideggerian sense, and neither is the ‘end’ a kind of finality or last moment. In each case what is important is what Heidegger calls the Being-towards, which is the way of the Being of Dasein.

If we are attentive to the movement Heidegger outlines, we can see that the whole is presupposed and that the structure is never closed until we ourselves are at-an-end, until the event of our “demise.” It is therefore the case that death reveals that by living towards the “not-yet” we are, as it were, living towards the infinite opening in the structure of Being. Death reveals this possibility by making manifest the “possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein” (BT 251). In other words Dasein is presented with the possibility of its own impossibility. Death forces Dasein to reckon with its own finitude – a finitude from which it cannot escape. It is the case however, that this reckoning goes further, in the sense that Dasein is forced to face its “ownmost” possibility, that towards-which it has no capacity to relate; it is precisely the inability to relate. Even further as possibility, this kind of reckoning reveals to Dasein the impossibility of its going beyond even though it can envisage a beyond all the same. Dasein is thrown towards a possibility to which it cannot relate and cannot overcome; it is thrust upon the end of itself. Dasein is always already its end when it reckons in this way, in that it always completes itself in the movement of reckoning. However, until it’s demise, it continuously finds itself disposed, able to go further to beyond itself. This way of Being-towards-death makes manifest the possibility of Dasein’s Being-futural as a kind of temporal unfolding in time.