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more pronounced recoil whereby the dynamics of understanding (projection) display theconstitution of Dasein’s Being as ex-istence, and the attempt to define existence as theway Dasein enters into communion with itself and other beings entails the disclosure ofunderstanding. 9According to Heidegger, the very possession of understanding exhibits the innermostdimension of human existence, namely, the “potentiality to be” (the Seinkönnen). Yet,what comes under scrutiny as the essential unity of understanding and existence, at firstonly vaguely accessible pre-conceptually and pre-ontologically, will in the end determinethe theme of fundamental ontology, i.e., Dasein’s manner of uncoveredness. The decisivechallenge for Heidegger’s hermeneutics of existence hinges on clarifying this event of discoverednessin ontological terms, in such a way that the consideration of the phenomenonwhich at first seems most remote to the analysis (as a mere characteristic of understanding)will ultimately come to the forefront of the inquiry as encompassing Dasein’s Being(care), i.e., Da-sein’s fundamental disclosedness. Indeed, in gauging the interchange betweenthat which is “ontically closest” to Dasein and that which is “ontologically farthest,”hermeneutics succeeds in pealing back the successive layers of the fore-comprehensionin order to arrive at Dasein’s thrownness into the “there.” 10Heidegger’s unique contribution lies in bringing forward the unexceptional, undifferentiatedmode of Dasein’s existence, and, by making an adjustment to accommodatethe marginally intelligible character of its “everyday” comportment, then distinguishing thestructures that make everydayness possible. Through this approach Heidegger not onlybetrays a certain preoccupation with finding the roots of ontology, but also a definite intentto lay bare the phenomenon of everydayness in respect to its “intrinsic possibility” or tocorrelate it with specific ontological structures which are analyzable in their own right.The overriding concern for what “makes possible” has made Heidegger subject to thecritique of adapting or adjusting a Kantian transcendental philosophy to fit an inquiry intothe more concrete and essentially finite dimension of being-in-the-world at the expenseof the Kantian infinite and reason. It likewise, in reflecting on the essential unity of understandingand existence, fails to distinguish on this level of human existence the furtherabstraction of the essential dimensions, by moving immediately to ontology. This againshows Heidegger’s failure, in deference to a quick move to ontology, to face up to somethingessential to human being, the clear and radical distinction between the essential andexistential dimensions of the synthesis between the finite and infinite. Yet, Heidegger’sfore-comprehension can be instructive here for Ricoeur’s project, preventing it from acertain pitfall of the level of existence. Let us continue our analysis of Heidegger’s view,to flesh out this insight.As Heidegger observes in a passage from Being and Time, “Why does the understanding... always press forward into possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself theexistential structure which we call ‘projection.’” 11 Upon coupling this factor with the mostelemental feature of interpretation, i.e., in addressing the presuppositions which governany comprehension, we arrive at the distinctive direction for a hermeneutics of existence:to promote a “strategy” for wrestling forth the possibilities dormant in the fore-structureof understanding and thereby to initiate the radicalization of Dasein’s everyday self-9Martin Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1985), 257-261.10Heidegger, Being and Time, 359. This statement occurs in what is perhaps the most significantmethodological discussion in Being and Time, the analysis of the “hermeneutical situation” encompassingthe entire inquiry (section 63).11Ibid., 184-185.76