1. The core of this essay was presented at the Conference Phänomenologie in Osteuropa II: Rumänien und Bulgarien, held in 26–27 March 2004 and hosted by the Centre for Research in Phenomenology, Prague, Czech Republic. This paper was reworked during a fruitful period of research as Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University of Freiburg. I wish to thank Dr. Cristina Ionescu (University of Regina, Canada) for her remarks.
2. Heidegger M.Sein und Zeit(Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1986), hereafter cited as SZ; translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson,Being and Time(New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962).
3. Heidegger M.Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983), hereafter cited as GA 29/30; translated by William McNeil & Nicholas Walker:The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude(Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995).
4. Thanks to the genealogical investigation of Theodore Kisiel, we know that the termBefindlichkeitappears for the first time, even if only in passing, in the winter course of 1919–1920 (Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, GA 58), indicating the situated character of life, expressing the way in which I find myself (mich befinde) as factical life.Befindlichkeitappears in a more elaborated way and obtains a more precise meaning in the summer course of 1924 (Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, GA 18) translating the Aristotelian concept of diairesis which is elaborated in the 5th book of theNicomachean Ethics, being in relation with the terminology of passions. Kisiel considers that this concept appears in the evolution of the young Heidegger through his preoccupation with the phenomenology of religion, especially with the works of Schleiermacher and Reinach. InSein und Zeit, Heidegger indicates the 2nd book of theRhetoric, Augustine, Pascal and Scheler. Cf. Kisiel T.The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time(London: University of California Press, 1993), p.492.
5. SZ, pp.162, 251, 270.