The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy V (2005): 145-163 ISSN 1533–7472 • ISBN 0-9701679-5-4 Being There: Heidegger’s Formally Indicative Concept of “Dasein” 1 Søren Overgaard Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research § 1. Introduction The concept of Dasein is one of the most important concepts in Heideg- ger’s magnum opus, Sein und Zeit (1927). The reason why Dasein takes the pride of place in that work is fairly straightforward. Heidegger makes it clear from the beginning that his overall aim is to pose anew a “question concerning being” that has allegedly remained unasked since Aristotle. 2 If being is what we want to —————— 1. This paper has been under way for a long time. I am grateful to Thomas Schwarz Wentzer for his encouragement and comments on the first draft (ca. 2001). A second version of the paper was presented at the first annual meeting of the Nordic Society for Phenome- nology in Helsinki, 2003. I benefited from many comments on that occasion, though I no longer remember who made them. At a much later stage, I benefited from comments by Steven Crowell and an anonymous reviewer for The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenom- enological Philosophy. 2. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 17 th edition (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1993), 2. Henceforth references to this text will be made using the abbreviation “SZ.” Let me at once introduce the other works of Heidegger to which reference will be made more than once in the present ar- ticle (with abbreviations in square brackets): Gesamtausgabe Band 20: Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs [GA 20], ed. Petra Jaeger (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979); Gesam- tausgabe Band 24: Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie [GA 24], ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Her- rmann (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975); Gesamtausgabe Band 26: Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik [GA 26], ed. Klaus Held (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978); Gesamtausgabe Band 27: Einleitung in die Philosophie [GA 27], eds. Otto Saame and Ina Saame-Speidel (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996); Gesamtausgabe Band 29/30: Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik [GA 29/30], ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983); Gesamtausgabe Band 60: Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens [GA 60], eds. Matthias Jung, Thomas Regehly, and Claudius Strube (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995); Gesamtausgabe Band 61: Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles [GA 61], eds. Walter Bröcker and Käte Bröcker-Oltmanns (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1985); Gesamtausgabe Band 63: Ontologie: Hermeneutik der Faktizität [GA 63], ed. Käte Bröcker- Oltmanns (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982); Wegmarken [WM], ed. Friedrich-Wil- helm von Herrmann, 3 rd edition (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996).