Section 42 of Being and Time cites the 220th fable of a certain Hyginus, as Martin Heidegger says, “by way of pre-ontological evidence for the existential-ontological interpretation of Dasein as care”:


”Once upon a time, when ‘Care’ was crossing a river, she came upon some clay-loam. Reflectively she took up some of it and began to form it. While she was pondering on what she had created, Jupiter showed up. ‘Care’ asked him to give spirit to the formed piece of clay. Jupiter was glad to do this, but when she wanted to give her own name to the form, Jupiter forbade this and demanded that it be given his name. While ‘Care’ and Jupiter were disputing over the name, Earth (Tellus) also spoke up and desired that the form be given her name since, after all, she had given it a piece of her body. The disputants chose Saturn as an arbiter and he handed down to them the following, apparently just decision: ‘You, Jupiter, because you have given spirit, shall receive the spirit when it dies; you, Earth, because you have given the body, shall receive the body. But because ‘Care’ first formed this being, for as long as it lives, ‘Care’ shall possess it. And because there is dispute about the name, let it be called ‘homo’ because it is made of humus (earth).” The human is a compositum of spirit and earth. As long as it lives, it is the product and possession of care. To be a human in the sense of the fable of care obviously means something quite different than to possess oneself, to be the owner of oneself. The being of the human, as long as we grasp it as care, is what guides the human, keeps it breathing and alive, unsettles it and thus possesses it. The being of the human is what dispossesses the human of its possession of itself. Because of this being, so it seems, a human being does not have itself. Rather, it is had by its being; it is alienated in its being. What is the special ontic character of Dasein in Being and Time? Heidegger says, “The special ontic character of Dasein consists in it being ontological”. “Dasein is a being that does not merely occur among other beings. Rather, its special ontic character is that this being in its being is concerned with its own being.” Dasein is distinguished from beings that are not in the way of Dasein by a kind of explicit ontological self-reference and by the vectorial tension which it itself constitutes as the subject of ontological care of this care (its being). Dasein is the being that cares for itself as the ontological subject of care insofar as care is the name for the being of Dasein, the unified structure of casting, having-been-cast and being-involved-with. As the ‘subject’ of this care of care, Dasein comports itself towards itself; it is itself nothing other than this ontological relation in that care for itself (Dasein’s self-care for its being as care), insofar as it is the care of care, is at the same time (this is essential for Heidegger) care for the sense of being in general, for the truth of being as a whole. As we know, this double or two-stage care governs the planned structure of the total project, Being and Time. The first two divisions of the first part (the only one to be published), 1. The Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein; 2. Dasein and Temporality, asked for the sense of the being of Dasein, the sense of care: temporality. The third (unpublished) division, 3. Time and Being, would have extended the care of care and its sense to the care for the sense of being in general, which is the question of being proper. This did not happen. Nevertheless it is obvious that the fundamental analytic concept of care for itself works toward the, let us say, radical ontological care for the sense of being in general. The question concerning the human or human being is therefore only a preparatory question insofar as care, the being of the human being that understands being, is only the arena for the clearing of being in general.