Ambiguity [Zweideutigkeit] – Part 3 (BT174/175) (2024) Painting by Noël Van Hoof

Martin Heidegger – Being and Time – BT174/175

But this kind of Being in the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world dominates also Being-with-one-another as such. The other is proximally 'there' in terms of what “they” say in their talk about him, and what “they”know about him. Into primordial Being-with-one-another, idle talk first slips itself in between. Everyone keeps his eye on the Other first and next, watching how he will comport himself and what he will say in reply. Being-with-one-another in the “they” is by no means an indifferent side-by-side-ness in which everything has been settled, but rather an intent, ambiguous watching of one another, a secret and reciprocal listening-in. Under the mask of “for-one-another”, an “against-one-another” is in play.
In this connection, we must notice that ambiguity does not first arise from aiming explicitly at disguise or distortion, and that it is not something which the individual Dasein first conjures up. It is already implied in being with one another, as thrown Being-with-one-another in a world. Publicly, however, it is quite hidden; and “they”, lest it should prove correct. It would be a misunderstanding if we were to seek to have the explication of these phenomena confirmed by looking to the “they” for agreement.
The phenomena of idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity have been set forth in such a manner as to indicate that they are already interconnected in their Being. We must now grasp in an existential-ontological manner the kind of Being which belongs to this interconnection. The basic kind of Being which belongs to everydayness is to be understood within the horizon of those structures of Dasein's Being which have been hitherto obtained.

(Translation by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson)

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Martin Heidegger