Dasein — German term that in ordinary usage means simply “existence” (compounded from da, “there,” and sein, “to be”), employed by Martin Heidegger as the central concept of Being and Time (1927) to designate the entity that we ourselves are — that being for whom being is an issue. Rather than treating the human being as subject, consciousness, or rational animal, Heidegger uses the term precisely to avoid these inherited determinations and to stress that the human being is the “there” of being, the site at which being opens up and becomes intelligible. Dasein is distinguished from other entities by its constitutive openness: it possesses no fixed essence but exists as pure ability-to-be (Seinkönnen) thrown into the world, and its mode of being is existence. Its fundamental structures (existentials) include: being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein) — Dasein is always already situated within a context of significance; attunement (Befindlichkeit) — it always finds itself in a mood; understanding (Verstehen) — it projects itself upon possibilities; falling (Verfallenheit) — it tends to lose itself in the impersonal “they” (das Man). Heidegger gathers these structures under the concept of care (Sorge), which names the being of Dasein. Being-toward-death (Sein-zum-Tode) discloses to Dasein its radical finitude and summons it to authentic existence (Eigentlichkeit), owning its ownmost possibilities rather than dissolving into the publicity of the everyday. For Heidegger, the analytic of Dasein is the route of access to the question of being (Seinsfrage).
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