Letting

someone see with us shares with [teilt . . . mit] the Other that entity
which has been pointed out in its definite character. That which is
'shared' is our Being towards what has been pointed out-a Being in which
we see it in common. One must keep in mind that this Being-towards is
Being-in-the-world, and that from out of this very world what has been
pointed out gets encountered. Any assertion, as a communication under
stood in this existential manner, must have been expressed. 3 As something
communicated, that which has been put forward in the assertion is
something that Others can 'share' with the person making the assertion,
even though the entity which he has pointed out and to which he has
given a definite character is not close enough for them to grasp and see it.
That which is put forward in the assertion is something which can be
passed along in 'further retelling'. There is a widening of the range of that
mutual sharing which sees. But at the same time, what has been pointed
out may become veiled again in this further retelling, although even the
kind of knowing which arises in such hearsa

I f we bring together the three significations of'assertion' which we have

analysed, and get a unitary view of the full phenomenon, then we may
define "assertion" as "a pointing-out which gives something a definite character
and which communicates". It remains to ask with what justification we have
taken assertion as a mode of interpretation at all. If it is something of
this sort, then the essential structures of interpretation must recur in it.
The pointing-out which assertion does is performed on the basis of what
has already been disclosed in understanding or discovered circumspec
tively. Assertion is not a free-floating kind of behaviour which, in its own
right, might be capable of disclosing entities in general in a primary way :
on the contrary it always maintains itself on the basis of Being-in-the
world. What we have shown earlierlx in relation to knowing the world,
holds just as well as assertion. Any assertion requires a fore-having of
whatever has been disclosed ; and this is what it points out by way of
giving something a definite character. Furthermore, in any approach
when one gives something a definite character, one is already taking a
look directionally at what is to be put forward in the assertion. When an
entity which has been presented is given a definite character, the function
of giving it such a character is taken over by that with regard to which we
set our sights towards the entity.1