Dasein - Monoskop

164 PART III
First, note that Heidegger says of 'present-at-hand' -possibility
that it signifies something 'what is not yet actual 9 , thus suggesting
that it will be actual sooner or later. This 'definition' of possibility
has at least something of a temporal-statistical ring, and as we shall
see below (p. 170), Heidegger does indeed couch 'presence-at-hand'
possibility in terms of the Aristotelian Su ¿wa/m.
Second, Dasein is possibility because it understands itself only
via its possibilities, via those possibilities it has chosen or not chosen
in the past, via those possibilities in which it lives now, i.e., those
possibilities that have become actual, and via those it intends or does
not intend to strive for. Heidegger expresses the idea that human
beings cannot avoid understanding themselves in this way by saying
that human beings are "thrown possibility". 122 This expression
is also meant to emphasize that Dasein does not choose its possibility
out of nothingness. Rather, Dasein—"always already"—finds
itself situated within actualized possibilities that Dasein has never
at any point in its past either accepted or rejected. We should also
note that the possibilities of the future do not consist of everything
that is logically possible. Just as Husserl's "motivated possibilities"
as possibilities of further perceptions of an object are predelineated
in the perceptual act, so existential possibilities are predelineated by
Dasein's "project" (Entwurf). Heidegger stresses that understanding
has the structure of a "project", and that this overall conception
of ourself as beings in the world—a conception that usually is again
unthematic and implicit—determines what are possibilities for us.
What is striking about these remarks in Being and Time is that
Heidegger does not engage in any detailed discussion of traditional
modal theories. This is striking because Being and Time usually
confronts its own solutions (for instance, solutions to the problems
of space, world, and time) with those of the philosophical tradition,
and goes on to show that the latter are either inauthentic or secondary.
One would expect such an investigation especially in the case
of modalities, for not only was Heidegger well aquainted with Aristotle,
the medievals and Leibniz, but also Husserl's possible worlds
approach should have posed an additional challenge to him. We can
conjecture that the reason why Heidegger did not take up this task
is that he did not find a way of dispensing with Husserl's possible