1
" To clarify the existentiality of the Self, we take as our ‘natural’ point of departure Dasein’s everyday interpretation of the Self. In *saying* “*I*,” Dasein expresses itself about ‘itself’. It is not necessary that in doing so Dasein should make any utterance. With the ‘I’, this entity has itself in view. The content of this expression is regarded as something utterly simple. In each case, it just stands for me and nothing further. Also, this ‘I’, as something simple, is not an attribute of other Things; it is not *itself* a predicate, but the absolute ‘subject’. What is expressed and what is addressed in saying “I,” is always met as the same persisting something. The characteristics of ‘simplicity’, ‘substantiality’, and ‘personality’, which Kant, for instance, made the basis for his doctrine ‘of the paralogisms of pure reason’, arise from a genuine pre-phenomenological experience. The question remains whether that which we have experienced ontically in this way may be Interpreted ontologically with the help of the ‘categories’ mentioned.Kant, indeed, in strict conformity with the phenomenal content given in saying “I,” shows that the ontical theses about the soul-substance which have been inferred [*erschlossenen*] from these characteristics, are without justification. But in so doing, he merely rejects a wrong *ontical* explanation of the “I”; he has by no means achieved an *ontological* Interpretation of Selfhood, nor has he even obtained some assurance of it and made positive preparation for it. Kant makes a more rigorous attempt than his predecessors to keep hold of the phenomenal content of saying “I”; yet even though in theory he has denied that the ontical foundations of the ontology of the substantial apply to the “I,” he still slips back into *this same* inappropriate ontology. This will be shown more exactly, in order that we may establish what it means ontologically to take saying “I” as the starting point for the analysis of Selfhood. The Kantian analysis of the ‘I think’ is now to be added as an illustration, but only so far as is demanded for clarifying these problems." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, p. 366 "
2
" The ‘I’ is a bare consciousness, accompanying all concepts. In the ‘I’, ‘nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts’. ‘Consciousness in itself (is) not so much a representation…as it is a form of representation in general.’ The ‘I think’ is ‘the form of apperception, which clings to every experience and precedes it.’Kant grasps the phenomenal content of the ‘I’ correctly in the expression ‘I think’, or—if one also pays heed to including the ‘practical person’ when one speaks of ‘intelligence’—in the expression ‘I take action’. In Kant’s sense we must take saying “I” as saying “I think.” Kant tries to establish the phenomenal content of the “I” as *res cogitans*. If in doing so he calls this “I” a ‘logical subject’, that does not mean that the “I” in general is a concept obtained merely by way of logic. The “I” is rather the subject of logical behavior, of binding together. ‘I think’ means ‘I bind together’. All binding together is an ‘*I* bind together’. In any taking-together or relating, the “I” always underlies—the ὑποκείμενον [hypokeimenon; subjectum; subject]. The *subjectum* is therefore ‘consciousness in itself’, not a representation but rather the ‘form’ of representation. That is to say, the “I think” is not something represented, but the formal structure of representing as such, and this formal structure alone makes it possible for anything to have been represented. When we speak of the “form” of representation, we have in view neither a framework nor a universal concept, but that which, as εἶδος [eidos], makes every representing and everything represented be what it is. If the “I” is understood as the form of representation, this amounts to saying that it is the ‘logical subject’.Kant’s analysis has two positive aspects. For one thing, he sees the impossibility of ontically reducing the “I” to a substance; for another thing, he holds fast to the “I” as ‘I think’. Nevertheless, he takes this “I” as subject again, and he does so in a sense which is ontologically inappropriate. For the ontological concept of the subject *characterizes not the Selfhood of the “I” qua Self, but the self-sameness and steadiness of something that is always present-at-hand*. To define the “I” ontologically as “*subject*” means to regard it as something always present-at-hand. The Being of the “I” is understood as the Reality of the *res cogitans*." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 366-367 "
3
" On the other hand, it is also characteristic of the state of philosophical inquiry today and has been for a long time that, while there has been extensive controversy about whether or not the *a priori* can be known, it has never occurred to the protagonists to ask first what could really have been meant by the fact that a time-determination turns up here and why it must turn up at all. To be sure, as long as we orient ourselves toward the common concept of time we are at an impasse, and negatively it is no less than consistent to deny dogmatically that the *a priori* has anything to do with time. However, time in the sense commonly understood, which is our topic here, is indeed only one derivative, even if legitimate, of the original time, on which the Dasein's ontological constitution is based. *It is only by means of the Temporality of the understanding of Being that it can be explained why the ontological determinations of Being have the character of apriority*. We shall attempt to sketch this briefly, as far as it permits of being done along general lines.We have just seen that all comportment toward beings already understands Being, and not just incidentally: Being must necessarily be understood precursorily (pre-cecently). The possibility of comportment toward beings demands a precursory understanding of Being, and the possibility of the understanding of Being demands in its turn a precursory projection upon time. But where is the final stage of this demand for ever further precursory conditions? It is temporality itself as the basic constitution of the Dasein. Temporality, due to its horizonal-ecstatic nature, makes possible *at once* the understanding of Being and comportment toward beings; therefore, that which does the enabling as well as the enablings themselves, that is, the possibilities in the Kantian sense, are " temporal," that is to say, Temporal, in their specific interconnection. Because the original determinant of possibility, the origin of possibility itself, is time, time temporalizes itself as the absolutely earliest. *Time is earlier than any possible earlier* of whatever sort, because it is the basic condition for an earlier as such. And because time as the source of all enablings (possibilities) is the earliest, all possibilities as such in their possibility-making function have the character of the earlier. That is to say, they are *a priori*. But, from the fact that time is the earliest in the sense of being the possibility of every earlier and of every *a priori* foundational ordering, it does not follow that time is ontically the first being; nor does it follow that time is forever and eternal, quite apart from the impropriety of calling time a being at all.” ―from_The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_ "
4
" Ontically, of course, Dasein is not only close to us―even that which is closest: we *are* it, each of us, we ourselves. In spite of this, or rather for just this reason, it is ontologically that which is farthest. To be sure, its ownmost Being is such that it has an understanding of that Being, and already maintains itself in each case as if its Being has been interpreted in some manner. But we are certainly not saying that when Dasein's own Being is thus interpreted pre-ontologically in the way which lies closest, this interpretation can be taken over as an appropriate clue, as if this way of understanding Being is what must emerge when one's ownmost state of Being is considered as an ontological theme. The kind of Being which belongs to Dasein is rather such that, in understanding its own Being, it has a tendency to do so in terms of that entity towards which it comports itself proximally and in a way which is essentially constant―in terms of the 'world'. In Dasein itself, and therefore in its own understanding of Being, the way the world is understood is, as we shall show, reflected back ontologically upon the way in which Dasein itself gets interpreted.Thus because Dasein is ontico-ontologically prior, its own specific state of Being (if we understand this in the sense of Dasein's 'categorial structure') remains concealed from it. Dasein is ontically 'closest' to itself and ontologically farthest; but pre-ontologically it is surely not a stranger." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 36-37 "
