Ambiguity [Zweideutigkeit] – Part 1 (BT173/174) (2024) Malarstwo autorstwa Noël Van Hoof

Martin Heidegger – Being and Time – BT173/174

When, in our everyday Being-with-one-another, we encounter the sort of thing which is accessible to everyone, and about which anyone can say anything, it soon becomes impossible to decide what is disclosed in a genuine understanding, and what is not. This ambiguity [Zweideutigkeit] extends not only to the world, but just as much to Being-with-one-another as such, and even to Dasein's Being towards itself.
Everything looks as if it were genuinely understood, genuinely taken hold of, genuinely spoken, though at bottom it is not; or else it does not look so, and yet at bottom it is. Ambiguity not only affects the way we avail ourselves of what is accessible for use and enjoyment, and the way we manage it; ambiguity has already established itself in the understanding as a potentiality-for-Being, and in the way Dasein projects itself and presents itself with possibilities. Everyone is acquainted with what is up for discussion and what occurs, and everyone discusses it; but everyone also knows already how to talk about what has to happen first – about what is not yet up for discussion but 'really' must be done. Already everyone has surmised and scented out in advance what Others have also surmised and scented out. This Being-on-the-sent is of course based upon hearsay, for if anyone is genuinely 'on the scent' of anything, he does not speak about it; and this is the most entangling way in which ambiguity presents Dasein's possibilities so that they will already be stifled in their power.
Even supposing that what “they” have surmised and scented out should some day be actually translated into deeds, ambiguity has already taken care that interest in what has been Realised will promptly die away. Indeed this interest persists, in a kind of curiosity and idle talk, only so long as there is a possibility of a non-committal just-surmising-with-someone-else. Being “in on it” with someone [das Mit-dabei-sein] when one is on the scent, and so long as one is on it, precludes one's allegiance when what has been surmised gets carried out. For in such a case Dasein is in every case forced back on itself. Idle talk and curiosity lose their power, and are already exacting their penalty. When confronted with the carrying-through of what “they” have surmised together, idle talk readily establishes that “they” “could have done that too” – for “they” have indeed surmised it together. In the end, idle talk is even indignant that what it has surmised and constantly demanded now actually happens. In that case, indeed, the opportunity to keep on surmising has been snatched away.

(Translation by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson)

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