Graduate 153: BT 20: Sec. 14
Part I. The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being
Division 1. Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein
Chapter 3. The Worldhood of the World
Section 12. The Idea of the Worldhood of the World in General
In section 12, Heidegger indicated that chapters 3, 4, and 5 would be dedicated to examining the three-fold structure of being-in-the-world. Chapter 3 concerns the 'in-the-world'; chapter 4 concerns that entity which in every case has being-in-the-world as the way in which it is; and chapter 5 looks in more depth at 'being-in'. Here we will focus on 'in-the-world.' Heidegger begins by saying, "Being-in-the-world shall first be made visible with regard to that item of its structure which is the 'world' itself." (BT 91/63)
Trying to understand the 'world' itself might seem to be a very straightforward task; one would naturally begin by enumerating the things that are in the world and examining their structure, etc., etc. But this is actually the wrong approach. "Such a description is always confined to entities. It is ontical. But what we are seeking is Being. And we have formally defined 'phenomenon' in the phenomenological sense as that which shows itself as Being and as a structure of Being." (BT 91/63)
We might take a different approach. We are not so interested in enumerating the entities that are found in the world as we are interested in exhibiting the being of those entities which are present-at-hand in the world. We must appeal to categorial considerations for this task. "Now the entities within the world are Things--Things of Nature, and Things 'invested with value' ["wertbehaftete" Dinge]. Their Thinghood becomes a problem; and to the extent that the Thinghood of Things 'invested with value' is based upon the Thinghood of Nature, our primary theme is the Being of Things of Nature--Nature as such. That characteristic of Being which belongs to Things of Nature (substances), and upon which everything is founded, is substantiality." (BT 91-92/63) The idea, here, is that the being of entities in the world--that in virtue of which they appear and are disclosed as the things that they are--can be divided into two broad categories. Entities in the world can be divided into those that are what they are by nature and those that are what they are because they have been 'invested with value' (or have been treated in certain ways) by human beings. On such a construal, the former way of being would seem to be more fundamental, and on this picture of things, the challenge becomes one of trying to understand just what Nature is. What is this 'Nature' in virtue of which things are what they are in the world. Now traditional metaphysics has resorted to the concept of substance and substantiality, but Heidegger is not satisfied with this approach.
Heidegger criticizes the last approach by pointing out, "But even if this ontology should itself succeed in explicating the Being of Nature in the very purest manner, in conformity with the basic assertions about this entity, which the mathematical natural sciences provide, it will never reach the phenomenon that is the 'world'. Nature is itself an entity which is encountered within the world and which can be discovered in various ways and at various stages." (BT 92/63) It should be fairly clear that Heidegger has something particular in mind when he speaks of 'world' and it is not just the physical spatio-temporal reality that we inhabit. We will soon lay out more clearly just how he thinks these approaches to understanding the world fall short.
A third approach would be to treat entities 'invested with value' as prior to entities in Nature. We could treat the former as disclosing more clearly the 'world'. But Heidegger points out, "[T]hese Things too are entities 'within' the world. As a consequence, they cannot give us the clue to understanding the 'world' itself.
Heidegger concludes these introductory remarks by saying, "Neither the ontical depiction of entities within-the-world nor the ontological Interpretation of their Being is such as to reach the phenomenon of the 'world.' In both of these ways of access to 'Objective Being', the 'world' has already been 'presupposed', and indeed in various ways." (BT 92/64)
We're gradually getting more hints as to what is involved in the idea of 'world.' The 'world' is that which already includes all the entities that we investigate. It is the context and backdrop against which entities are able to appear as they are. Thus, whenever we encounter any entity, the 'world' is always in the background and grounding that encounter, yet it also remains invisible in each of these encounters when our focus is usually (or always) on the particular entity in question. At this point, Heidegger considers a fourth approach to his investigation.
"It is possible that ultimately we cannot address ourselves to 'the world' as determining the nature of the entity we have mentioned? Yet we call this entity one which is "within-the-world"." (BT 92/64) The problem is that we want to understand the 'world' but every attempt to do so by looking at the 'world' proves inadequate. Yet the thing we hope to understand, i.e. 'the world,' has the being of 'within-the-world'. Where else could we look to find out about it? One place we might look is in Dasein. "Is 'world' perhaps a characteristic of Dasein's Being?" (BT 92/64) The problem with this view is that it suggests a kind of subjectivism. On such a view, we seem to lose altogether the idea of a world that we share in common with other people. Having rejected this fourth way approaching our investigation, Heidegger concludes by raising and answering the crucial question: "And if we raise the question of the 'world', what world do we have in view? Neither the common world nor the subjective world, but the worldhood of the world as such." (BT 92/64) We are not so much interested in grasping any particular world; rather, we are interested in understanding what it is in virtue of which any world is the way it is. We are interested in understanding worldhood. How can we meet this phenomenon?
"'Worldhood' is an ontological concept, and stands for the structure of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-world. But we know Being-in-the-world as a way in which Dasein's character is defined existentially. Thus worldhood itself is an existentiale." (BT 92/64) (Recall, we said at the beginning of this post that 'world' could not be interpreted categorially.) What this helps us to see is that 'world' is not primarily a way of characterizing what Dasein is not (i.e. entities in the world, non-Dasein); rather, it is a characteristic of Dasein itself.
Now we have already pointed out that Heidegger is using 'world' in a very particular way. In fact, he distinguishes four meanings of world and each is important for understanding his view.
"1. "World" is used as an ontical concept, and signifies the totality of those entities which can be present-at-hand within the world." (BT 93/64) This is probably the most familiar use of the word, world. It is used to pick out the totality of all physical entities.
"2. "World" functions as an ontological term, and signifies the Being of those entities which we have just mentioned." (BT 93/64) In this case, 'world' is a more generic term that picks out the totality of entities within a particular domain. It is able to do this because it captures something of the being that all those entities share. So one may speak of the 'world' of physical objects (as in 1, above) or one may speak of the 'world' of mathematics, for instance.
"3. "World" can be understood in another ontical sense---not, however, as those entities which Dasein essentially is not and which can be encountered within-the-world, but rather as that 'wherein' a factical Dasein as such can be said to 'live'. "World" has here a pre-ontological existentiell signification." (BT 93/65) Recall from Graduate 132, that existence is that kind of being that is distinctive of Dasein. "Existentiell" refers to that understanding in virtue of which one comes to understand that being by stepping into different possibilities. The understanding of oneself which leads along the way to answering the question of existence just by existing in a certain way--that understanding is called existentiell. "World," in this sense, refers to that context and domain in which Dasein does its existing. It has an existentiell signification because it concerns Daseins existence. In this sense, one may speak of the 'public' we-world, the world of one's home, or the world of one's circle of close friends.
"4. Finally, "world" designates the ontologico-existential concept of worldhood." (BT 93/65) This expression refers to the a priori character of worldhood that belongs to all 'worlds' regardless of their particular mode or structure.
Hereafter, 'world' will signify the first meaning of that word and "world" will signify the third meaning of that word. Also "worldly" will apply to a kind of being that belongs to Dasein. The kind of being that belongs to entities present-at-hand will be referred to as "belonging to the world" or "within-the-world".
--
Heidegger returns to comment on some of the points that he made at the beginning of this section, with his four-fold clarification in the background. He points out that previous attempts to Interpret the world have done so in terms merely of the being of those entities which are present-at-hand within-the-world. But only as a definite mode of its own being-in-the-world can Dasein ever discover anything like the entity called Nature. So if one starts by trying to understand worldhood in terms of nature, one will never reach one's goal.
Heidegger writes: "When it comes to the problem of analysing the world's worldhood ontologically, traditional ontology operates in a blind alley, if, indeed, it sees this problem at all. On the other hand, if we are to Interpret the worldhood of Dasein and the possible ways in which Dasein is made worldly [Verweltlichung], we must show why the kind of Being with which Dasein knows the world is such that it passes over the phenomenon of worldhood both ontically and ontologically." (BT 94/66) We have noticed this point before, that Heidegger thinks that an adequate account of Dasein's ontological and existential character will actually explain why Dasein has so long gone astray in its attempts to understand these very fundamental features of its own nature. The awareness of these past errors, however, also serves the straightforward purpose of reminding the investigator to be alert and to be careful in selecting the point of departure for his investigation. On this last point, Heidegger says the following.
"Our method has already been assigned [Anweisung]. The theme of our analytic is to be Being-in-the-world, and accordingly the very world itself; and these are to be considered within the horizon of average everydayness--the kind of Being which is closest to Dasein. We must make a study of everyday Being-in-the-world; with the phenomenal support which this give us, something like the world must come into view." (BT 94/66)
Beginning with the world that is closest to everyday Dasein--its environment--and the existential character of average being-in-the-world, we shall move toward investigating the idea of worldhood in general. The first part of this investigation, looking at the worldhood of the environment (environmentality) will involve going through an ontological Interpretation of those entities within-the-environment which we encounter as closest to us. As we do so, we must keep in mind that though 'environment' is often used as a spatial notion, it is not fundamentally that and will not be used in that way for our purposes. "Instead, the spatial character which incontestably belongs to any environment, can be clarified only in terms of the structure of worldhood." (BT 94/66) Only when properly oriented does Dasein's spatiality become phenomenally visible. In ontology, there have been tendencies to try to interpret the being of the 'world' fundamentally in terms of spatiality, as a res extensa (i.e. an extended thing). The most extreme case of this is Descartes. "The analysis of worldhood which we are here attempting can be made clearer if we show how it differs from such an ontological tendency. Our analysis will be completed in three stages: (A) the analysis of environmentality and worldhood in general; (B) an illustrative contrast between our analysis of worldhood and Descartes' ontology of the 'world'; (C) the aroundness [das Umhafte] of the environment, and the 'spatiality' of Dasein." (BT 95/66)
(A) is treated in sections 15-18, (B) in sections 19-21, and (C) in sections 22-24.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
Division 1. Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein
Chapter 3. The Worldhood of the World
Section 12. The Idea of the Worldhood of the World in General
In section 12, Heidegger indicated that chapters 3, 4, and 5 would be dedicated to examining the three-fold structure of being-in-the-world. Chapter 3 concerns the 'in-the-world'; chapter 4 concerns that entity which in every case has being-in-the-world as the way in which it is; and chapter 5 looks in more depth at 'being-in'. Here we will focus on 'in-the-world.' Heidegger begins by saying, "Being-in-the-world shall first be made visible with regard to that item of its structure which is the 'world' itself." (BT 91/63)
Trying to understand the 'world' itself might seem to be a very straightforward task; one would naturally begin by enumerating the things that are in the world and examining their structure, etc., etc. But this is actually the wrong approach. "Such a description is always confined to entities. It is ontical. But what we are seeking is Being. And we have formally defined 'phenomenon' in the phenomenological sense as that which shows itself as Being and as a structure of Being." (BT 91/63)
We might take a different approach. We are not so interested in enumerating the entities that are found in the world as we are interested in exhibiting the being of those entities which are present-at-hand in the world. We must appeal to categorial considerations for this task. "Now the entities within the world are Things--Things of Nature, and Things 'invested with value' ["wertbehaftete" Dinge]. Their Thinghood becomes a problem; and to the extent that the Thinghood of Things 'invested with value' is based upon the Thinghood of Nature, our primary theme is the Being of Things of Nature--Nature as such. That characteristic of Being which belongs to Things of Nature (substances), and upon which everything is founded, is substantiality." (BT 91-92/63) The idea, here, is that the being of entities in the world--that in virtue of which they appear and are disclosed as the things that they are--can be divided into two broad categories. Entities in the world can be divided into those that are what they are by nature and those that are what they are because they have been 'invested with value' (or have been treated in certain ways) by human beings. On such a construal, the former way of being would seem to be more fundamental, and on this picture of things, the challenge becomes one of trying to understand just what Nature is. What is this 'Nature' in virtue of which things are what they are in the world. Now traditional metaphysics has resorted to the concept of substance and substantiality, but Heidegger is not satisfied with this approach.
Heidegger criticizes the last approach by pointing out, "But even if this ontology should itself succeed in explicating the Being of Nature in the very purest manner, in conformity with the basic assertions about this entity, which the mathematical natural sciences provide, it will never reach the phenomenon that is the 'world'. Nature is itself an entity which is encountered within the world and which can be discovered in various ways and at various stages." (BT 92/63) It should be fairly clear that Heidegger has something particular in mind when he speaks of 'world' and it is not just the physical spatio-temporal reality that we inhabit. We will soon lay out more clearly just how he thinks these approaches to understanding the world fall short.
A third approach would be to treat entities 'invested with value' as prior to entities in Nature. We could treat the former as disclosing more clearly the 'world'. But Heidegger points out, "[T]hese Things too are entities 'within' the world. As a consequence, they cannot give us the clue to understanding the 'world' itself.
Heidegger concludes these introductory remarks by saying, "Neither the ontical depiction of entities within-the-world nor the ontological Interpretation of their Being is such as to reach the phenomenon of the 'world.' In both of these ways of access to 'Objective Being', the 'world' has already been 'presupposed', and indeed in various ways." (BT 92/64)
We're gradually getting more hints as to what is involved in the idea of 'world.' The 'world' is that which already includes all the entities that we investigate. It is the context and backdrop against which entities are able to appear as they are. Thus, whenever we encounter any entity, the 'world' is always in the background and grounding that encounter, yet it also remains invisible in each of these encounters when our focus is usually (or always) on the particular entity in question. At this point, Heidegger considers a fourth approach to his investigation.
"It is possible that ultimately we cannot address ourselves to 'the world' as determining the nature of the entity we have mentioned? Yet we call this entity one which is "within-the-world"." (BT 92/64) The problem is that we want to understand the 'world' but every attempt to do so by looking at the 'world' proves inadequate. Yet the thing we hope to understand, i.e. 'the world,' has the being of 'within-the-world'. Where else could we look to find out about it? One place we might look is in Dasein. "Is 'world' perhaps a characteristic of Dasein's Being?" (BT 92/64) The problem with this view is that it suggests a kind of subjectivism. On such a view, we seem to lose altogether the idea of a world that we share in common with other people. Having rejected this fourth way approaching our investigation, Heidegger concludes by raising and answering the crucial question: "And if we raise the question of the 'world', what world do we have in view? Neither the common world nor the subjective world, but the worldhood of the world as such." (BT 92/64) We are not so much interested in grasping any particular world; rather, we are interested in understanding what it is in virtue of which any world is the way it is. We are interested in understanding worldhood. How can we meet this phenomenon?
"'Worldhood' is an ontological concept, and stands for the structure of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-world. But we know Being-in-the-world as a way in which Dasein's character is defined existentially. Thus worldhood itself is an existentiale." (BT 92/64) (Recall, we said at the beginning of this post that 'world' could not be interpreted categorially.) What this helps us to see is that 'world' is not primarily a way of characterizing what Dasein is not (i.e. entities in the world, non-Dasein); rather, it is a characteristic of Dasein itself.
Now we have already pointed out that Heidegger is using 'world' in a very particular way. In fact, he distinguishes four meanings of world and each is important for understanding his view.
"1. "World" is used as an ontical concept, and signifies the totality of those entities which can be present-at-hand within the world." (BT 93/64) This is probably the most familiar use of the word, world. It is used to pick out the totality of all physical entities.
"2. "World" functions as an ontological term, and signifies the Being of those entities which we have just mentioned." (BT 93/64) In this case, 'world' is a more generic term that picks out the totality of entities within a particular domain. It is able to do this because it captures something of the being that all those entities share. So one may speak of the 'world' of physical objects (as in 1, above) or one may speak of the 'world' of mathematics, for instance.
"3. "World" can be understood in another ontical sense---not, however, as those entities which Dasein essentially is not and which can be encountered within-the-world, but rather as that 'wherein' a factical Dasein as such can be said to 'live'. "World" has here a pre-ontological existentiell signification." (BT 93/65) Recall from Graduate 132, that existence is that kind of being that is distinctive of Dasein. "Existentiell" refers to that understanding in virtue of which one comes to understand that being by stepping into different possibilities. The understanding of oneself which leads along the way to answering the question of existence just by existing in a certain way--that understanding is called existentiell. "World," in this sense, refers to that context and domain in which Dasein does its existing. It has an existentiell signification because it concerns Daseins existence. In this sense, one may speak of the 'public' we-world, the world of one's home, or the world of one's circle of close friends.
"4. Finally, "world" designates the ontologico-existential concept of worldhood." (BT 93/65) This expression refers to the a priori character of worldhood that belongs to all 'worlds' regardless of their particular mode or structure.
Hereafter, 'world' will signify the first meaning of that word and "world" will signify the third meaning of that word. Also "worldly" will apply to a kind of being that belongs to Dasein. The kind of being that belongs to entities present-at-hand will be referred to as "belonging to the world" or "within-the-world".
--
Heidegger returns to comment on some of the points that he made at the beginning of this section, with his four-fold clarification in the background. He points out that previous attempts to Interpret the world have done so in terms merely of the being of those entities which are present-at-hand within-the-world. But only as a definite mode of its own being-in-the-world can Dasein ever discover anything like the entity called Nature. So if one starts by trying to understand worldhood in terms of nature, one will never reach one's goal.
Heidegger writes: "When it comes to the problem of analysing the world's worldhood ontologically, traditional ontology operates in a blind alley, if, indeed, it sees this problem at all. On the other hand, if we are to Interpret the worldhood of Dasein and the possible ways in which Dasein is made worldly [Verweltlichung], we must show why the kind of Being with which Dasein knows the world is such that it passes over the phenomenon of worldhood both ontically and ontologically." (BT 94/66) We have noticed this point before, that Heidegger thinks that an adequate account of Dasein's ontological and existential character will actually explain why Dasein has so long gone astray in its attempts to understand these very fundamental features of its own nature. The awareness of these past errors, however, also serves the straightforward purpose of reminding the investigator to be alert and to be careful in selecting the point of departure for his investigation. On this last point, Heidegger says the following.
"Our method has already been assigned [Anweisung]. The theme of our analytic is to be Being-in-the-world, and accordingly the very world itself; and these are to be considered within the horizon of average everydayness--the kind of Being which is closest to Dasein. We must make a study of everyday Being-in-the-world; with the phenomenal support which this give us, something like the world must come into view." (BT 94/66)
Beginning with the world that is closest to everyday Dasein--its environment--and the existential character of average being-in-the-world, we shall move toward investigating the idea of worldhood in general. The first part of this investigation, looking at the worldhood of the environment (environmentality) will involve going through an ontological Interpretation of those entities within-the-environment which we encounter as closest to us. As we do so, we must keep in mind that though 'environment' is often used as a spatial notion, it is not fundamentally that and will not be used in that way for our purposes. "Instead, the spatial character which incontestably belongs to any environment, can be clarified only in terms of the structure of worldhood." (BT 94/66) Only when properly oriented does Dasein's spatiality become phenomenally visible. In ontology, there have been tendencies to try to interpret the being of the 'world' fundamentally in terms of spatiality, as a res extensa (i.e. an extended thing). The most extreme case of this is Descartes. "The analysis of worldhood which we are here attempting can be made clearer if we show how it differs from such an ontological tendency. Our analysis will be completed in three stages: (A) the analysis of environmentality and worldhood in general; (B) an illustrative contrast between our analysis of worldhood and Descartes' ontology of the 'world'; (C) the aroundness [das Umhafte] of the environment, and the 'spatiality' of Dasein." (BT 95/66)
(A) is treated in sections 15-18, (B) in sections 19-21, and (C) in sections 22-24.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
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