The Originary Finitude of Timliness and the Disclosedness of Dasein in Heidegger’s Being and Time

In Being and Time, Heidegger does not specifically thematize the concept of finitude, but he assumes a specific ontological meaning for this concept which is made briefly explicit in the explanation of the priority of future in the authentic timeliness as the “originary finitude of timeliness”. In this paper, on the basis of the phenomenological absolute precedence of Dasein over all beings, the concept of originary finitude will be distinguished from the ordinary and ontical conception of finitude. The ontical conception of finitude is primarily related to the fact, that Dasein is situated in the middle of beings. The distinction between the ordinary and originary finitude is emphasized on the basis of the fundamental distinction between timeliness and Being within-time. The last distinction makes the primary difference between Being-in-the-world and Being within-the-world ontologically possible. Accordingly, the distinction between ontical and ontological finitude enables us to disclose the specific ontological meaning of finitude as the origin of timeliness by the interpretation of the relation between the exsistential analysis of death and the disclosedness of Dasein. The originary finitude will be reached in relation with the authentic future in timeliness and will be finally regarded as the condition of the possibility of the disclosedness and encountering.