Graduate 154: BT 21: Sec. 15
Part I, Division 1, Chapter 3. The Worldhood of the World
Subdivision A. Analysis of Environmentality and Worldhood in General
Section 15. The Being of the Entities Encountered in the Environment
Our interpretation of the being of Dasein (which we are conducting with the hope of ultimately coming to some insight about the character of being in general) begins by looking at being-in-the-world, one of the ways in which Dasein's being is expressed. Being-in-the-world is a unitary phenomena but also possesses a complex structure. We are looking at the first aspect of that structure, worldhood, and disclosing that by looking at the still-more-particular case of Dasein's environment. This analysis of Dasein's environment involves not only looking at Dasein but also at the being of the entities that it encounters proximally and in a concernful way. Heidegger said, toward the end of the last section, 'We shall seek the worldhood of the environment (environmentality) by going through an ontological Interpretation of those entities within-the-environment which we encounter as closest to us." (BT 94/66) Now in this section, we turn to do just that.
"The Being of those entities which we encounter as closest to us can be exhibited phenomenologically if we take as our clue our everyday Being-in-the-world, which we also call our "dealings" in the world and with entities within-the-world." (BT 95/66) [1] Such "dealings" or "going-arounds" do not have the character of bare perceptual cognition (the basic 'awareness' of things in the world) but rather the character of concern which leads to manipulation and use. [2] Our investigation, here, begins by considering the being of those entities that we encounter in this way. But before moving into that, Heidegger stops to make a comment about methodology.
"In the disclosure and explication of Being, entities are in every case our preliminary and our accompanying theme [das Vor-und Mitthematische]; but our real theme is Being." (BT 95/67) Our goal, in focusing on the entities that are encountered proximally and concernfully in Dasein's environment, is not to grasp those entities as such or to understand the world by understanding those entities. Rather, our goal is to use those entities in order to look towards being. "This phenomenological interpretation is accordingly not a way of knowing those characteristics of entities which themselves are [seiender Beschaffenheiten des Seienden]; it is rather a determination of the structure of the Being which entities possess." (BT 95-96/67) Since it is being that is being disclosed, it yields a greater understanding of the being which belongs to Dasein and which 'comes alive' in its dealing with those entities. Now this is not a stance toward entities that we need to try and put ourselves into. Rather, it is the way in which everyday Dasein always is: "when I open the door, for instance, I use the latch." (BT 96/67) Often, when we try to analyze such familiar actions, what we end up doing is leaving the stance of the familiar and actually obscuring what is most familiar about the door and the latch that allows us to interact with it so effortlessly. "The achieving of phenomenological access to the entities which we encounter, consists rather in thrusting aside our interpretative tendencies, which keep thrusting themselves upon us and running along with us, and which conceal not only the phenomenon of such 'concern', but even more those entities themselves as encountered of their own accord in our concern with them." (BT 96/67) [3]
These tendencies toward interpretation that actually hinder our investigation can be seen more clearly when we try to figure out which entities we should take as our object of study. One proposal would be to say that we are trying to study "things." But there's a problem with that answer. It actually presupposes the ontological character of those entities. When we approach an entity merely as a "thing" we approach it with certain eyes and with a view to examining it under certain aspects. "When analysis starts with such entities and goes on to inquire about Being, what it meets is Thinghood and Reality. Ontological explication discovers, as it proceeds, such characteristics of Being as substantiality, materierality, extendedness, side-by-side-ness, and so forth. But even pre-ontologically, in such Being as this, the entities which we encounter in concern are proximally hidden." (BT 96/68) In other words, if we try to understand what it is in virtue of which we are able to interact with objects concernfully by investigating objects just in terms of their basic thinghood, we will never be able to reach our goal. Even if we have the idea that the most familiar way in which we encounter objects is as things, such an approach sets the ontological investigation on the wrong track. Moreover, it will not do to characterize the objects of our investigation as things 'invested with value'. This just introduces more features and characteristics that are left obscure. In addition, we have already indicated that the being of entities that are encountered concernfully is not additive. [4]
Heidegger takes a different route, drawing upon the Greek word for 'things': PRAGMATA--"that is to say, that which one has to do with in one's concernful dealings (PRAXIS)." (BT 96-97/68) Interestingly, Heidegger says that the Greeks did not grasp the 'pragmatic' character of this notion of 'things' but thought of PRAGMATA as 'mere things'. He says, "We shall call those entities which we encounter in concern "equipment". In our dealings we come across equipment for writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement. The kind of Being which equipment possesses must be exhibited. The clue for doing this lies in our first defining what makes an item of equipment--namely, its equipmentality." (BT 97/68)
Heidegger continues with an interesting line: "Taken strictly, there 'is' no such thing as an equipment. To the Being of any equipment there always belongs a totality of equipment, in which it can be this equipment that it is. Equipment is essentially 'something in-order-to...' ["etwas um-zu..."]. A totality of equipment is constituted by various ways of the 'in-order-to', such as serviceability, conduciveness, usability, manipulability." (BT 97/68) What does Heidegger mean when he says, "Taken strictly, there 'is' no such thing as an equipment." Does he actually mean to deny that we can ever meaningfully speak of a hammer or an allen wrench? No, that is not what he is saying. In order to grasp what he's getting at, you have to take seriously the quotation marks around 'is'. There 'is' no such thing as an equipment. Now when Heidegger encloses 'is' in quotation marks or when he speaks of something 'existing,' he does not have in mind 'mere existence.' (We've discussed this in previous entries.) So he is not denying that tools or equipment exist within the space-time continuum as individual and discrete objects. Rather, what he is denying is that any individual thing can be a piece of equipment just in virtue of the properties it possesses in itself. Something is a piece of equipment in virtue of its relationship to other entities and to certain goals ("in-order-to"). What makes a hammer a tool? Is it the fact that it has a certain shape or weight or material composition. Those factors may be part of it, but what is more essential to a particular thing being a hammer is, for instance, the existence of nails. If nails did not exist then hammers would not be hammers because what makes something a hammer is its relationship to nails and to the craft of carpentry.
One important point for Heidegger is that the "totality of equipment" is prior to the particular items that exist within it. He writes, "In the 'in-order-to' as a structure there lies an assignment or reference of something to something." (BT 97/68) What is involved in the idea of an assignment will be treated more in section 17. For now, Heidegger gestures at the idea in this way: "Equipment--in accordance with its equipmentality--always is in terms of [aus] its belonging to other equipment: ink-stand, pen, ink, paper, blotting pad, table, lamp, furniture, windows, doors, room. These 'Things' never show themselves proximally as they are for themselves, so as to add up to a sum of realia and fill up a room." (BT 97-98/68) When we see a pen as a pen, we always see it in terms of its relationship to other things, like papers, and notebooks. We don't encounter it primarily as an object possessing a certain set of dimensions and weight and physical properties. Nor do we perceive it as occupying a space three feet off the ground, two feet from the right hand wall, and seven feet from the far wall; we just perceive it as being on the desk. "Out of this the 'arrangement' emerges, and it is in this that any 'individual' item of equipment shows itself. Before it does so, a totality of equipment has already been discovered." (BT 98/68-69) Without the arrangement, the pen would not emerge as a pen. The totality of equipment is already in the background. The context is there that allows me to see objects for what they are.
"Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure (hammering with a hammer, for example); but in such dealings an entity of this kind is not grasped thematically as an occurring Thing, nor is the equipment-structure known as such even in the using." (BT 98/69) [5] In the course of actual involvement and the pursuit of the "in-order-to," which Heidegger describes as constitutive for the equipment being employed, one approaches a hammer less and less as a 'thing' and, to a greater extent, just makes use of it. In the course of that use, we encounter it as it is--as equipment. "The hammering itself uncovers the specific 'manipulability' ["Handlichkeit"] of the hammer. The kind of Being which equipment possesses--in which it manifests itself in its own right--we call "readiness-to-hand" [Zuhandenheit]. Only because equipment has this 'Being-in-itself' and does not merely occur, is it manipulable in the broadest sense and at our disposal." (BT 98/69) So "readiness-to-hand" is the kind of being that belongs to equipment, and it is that being in virtue of which such an object is manipulable. No amount of just looking at a thing or of approaching it 'theoretically' will reveal that it is equipment or manipulable or is ready-to-hand. That is not to say that our use of it is blind; rather there is a kind of sight that guides our manipulation and gives the object its thingly character. "Dealings with equipment subordinate themselves to the manifold assignments of the 'in-order-to'. And the sight with which they thus accommodate themselves in circumspection." (BT 98/69) In other words, the sight that our dealings with equipment have, that is subordinated and sensitive to the 'in-order-to,' is called circumspection.
Heidegger turns to consider the conventional distinction between the theoretical and the practical (commonly, the 'atheoretical'). He emphasizes that when we are involved in using some piece of equipment (practical), we are not sightless. For both theoretical and practical endeavors are kinds of concern. Both are a kind of concern and both have a kind of sight. Heidegger says that theoretical behaviour involves just looking--and so does not involve circumspection, in the technical sense of that word. But even though it does not involve circumspection, it still has a method.
Heidegger says that the ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all. More interestingly, "The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw [zuruckzuziehen] in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically." (BT 99/69) [6] The idea, here, is that when we are most involved in using tools is when we are least aware of the tools themselves and most focused on the work that is being done. In these cases, even the work--that which is to be produced--is ready-to-hand. "The work bears with it that referential totality within which the equipment is encountered." (BT 99/70) See above for what Heidegger says about the 'totality of equipment'. Heidegger expands on this point: "The work to be produced, as the "towards-which" of such things as the hammer, the plane, and the needle, likewise has the kind of Being that belongs to equipment." (BT 99/70) That being is readiness-to-hand. These items, be they shoes or clocks, have a usability that is essential to them. "[I]n this usability it lets us encounter already the "towards-which" for which it is usable. A work that someone has ordered [das bestellte Werk] is only by reason of its use and the assignment-context of entities which is discovered in using it." (BT 99/70) The idea seems to be that we are generally folded into these layers and layers of involvements and purposes. A cobbler uses a hammer to make a shoe but the shoe also has an already-established purpose and is attached to a context and totality of equipment in its own right.
These layers of use run in both directions. The cobbler uses the hammer to produce the shoe that will serve some further purpose. The shoe is usable for something. But the production of the shoe also involves certain uses. Not only of the hammer itself but of the elements that went into making the hammer and the other tools that the cobbler uses. This can be especially clearly seen when we consider the raw materials that compose our tools. "So in the environment certain entities become accessible which are always ready-to-hand, but which, in themselves, do not need to be produced. Hammer, tongs, and needle, refer in themselves to steel, iron, metal, mineral, wood, in that they consist of these. In equipment that is used, 'Nature' is discovered along with it by that use--the 'Nature' we find in natural products." (BT 100/70) [7] Heidegger refers to these raw materials at always ready-to-hand but not needing to be produced. He says that it is in this context of concerns and aims that nature is first encountered. Recall that we looked at nature in previous entries and Heidegger dismissed it as an unacceptable starting point for understanding the being of those entities closest to Dasein. But he has not forgotten nature and believes that it comes to be understood first in relation to Dasein's interests.
When we encounter nature in this way, Heidegger says, we do not encounter it as present-at-hand. Rather the forest is encountered as a source of timber or the mountain is encountered as a quarry of rock. Even when it comes to seeing nature as something beautiful and to be appreciated, Heidegger says, the kind of being that makes that possible is readiness-to-hand. If we disregard the being of nature as ready-to-hand, "the Nature which 'stirs and strives', which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead of the dale'." (BT 100/70) [8]
Heidegger continues: "The work produced refers not only to the "towards-which" of its usability and the "whereof" of which it consists: under simple craft conditions it also has an assignment to the person who is to use it or wear it." (BT 100/70) He is continuing to highlight all of the circumstances and conditions that make possible the production of work. Where work is concerned or some "towards-which," we do not only find ourselves brought into contact with the ready-to-hand but also with entities having Dasein's kind of being--"entities for which, in their concern, the product becomes ready-to-hand; and together with these we encounter the world in which wearers and users live, which is at the same time ours." (BT 100/71) At it's widest scope, it seems, this world that is encountered is the public world or environing nature. "Any work with which one concerns oneself is ready-to-hand not only in the domestic world of the workshop but also in the public world. Along with the public world, the environing Nature [die Umweltnatur] is discovered and is accessible to everyone. In roads, streets, bridges, buildings, our concern discovers Nature as having some definite direction." (BT 100/71) The idea is that we demonstrate our familiarity with nature and with the course of nature in the ways that we construct buildings, etc. in response to nature. When we use a clock which is clearly ready-to-hand, the environing nature (e.g. the sun's position) is ready-to-hand along with it. "Our concernful absorption in whatever work-world lies closest to us, has a function of discovering; and it is essential to this function that, depending upon the way in which we are absorbed, those entities within-the-world which are brought along [beigebrachte] in the work and with it (that is to say, in the assignments or references which are constitutive for it) remain discoverable in varying degrees of explicitness and with a varying circumspective penetration." (BT 101/71)
As he begins to wrap up this section, Heidegger reminds us that readiness-to-hand is not a mere 'aspect' of entities that are, in the first place, present-at-hand. If that were the case then we would need to encounter entities first as purely present-at-hand and then come to grasp the 'world' and the meaningfulness of its contents. "But this already runs counter to the ontological meaning of cognition, which we have exhibited as a founded mode of Being-in-the-world. To lay bare what is just present-at-hand and no more, cognition must first penetrate beyond what is ready-to-hand in our concern." (BT 101/71) We must be wary of making this mistake.
Here is an interesting remark: "Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are 'in themselves' are defined ontologico-categorially. Yet only by reason of something present-at-hand, 'is there' anything ready-to-hand. Does it follow, however, granting this thesis for the nonce, that readiness-to-hand is ontologically founded upon presence-at-hand?" (BT 101/72) This is an extremely interesting question that Heidegger does not address right here. Instead, he follows it up with another equally difficult question. [9]
We have already said that in our investigation of entities within-the-world, we are presupposing the world. We have also indicated that the 'world' is more than the sum of all the entities that make it up, so that we cannot grasp the 'world' by just adding up what we know about its parts. This raises the question, "But even if, as our ontological Interpretation proceeds further, readiness-to-hand should prove itself to be the kind of Being characteristic of those entities which are proximally discovered within-the-world, and even if its primordiality as compared with pure presence-at-hand can be demonstrated, have all these explications been of the slightest help towards understanding the phenomenon of the world ontologically? ... If, then, we start with the Being of these entities, is there any avenue that will lead us to exhibiting the phenomenon of the world?" (BT 101-102/72)
We shall try to make some headway toward answering both these questions in the next section.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Dealings" ('Umgang') literally means 'going around' or 'going about,' somewhat as when speaking of 'going about his business.' 'Intercourse' and 'trafficking' are other possible translations.
[2] "The kind of dealing which is closest to us is as we have shown, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use; and this has its own kind of 'knowledge'." (BT 95/67, italics mine) I don't recall off-hand whether this claim about knowledge is made earlier in Being and Time. At any rate, it is a claim worth noting. Now J.P. Moreland, I believe, has suggested that knowledge-how depends upon knowledge-that, and Heidegger seems to be saying the opposite. Are these claims really opposed or is Heidegger getting at something strictly other than knowledge-how.
[3] In the paragraph that I have been discussing, there have been a couple references to "producing." I didn't focus on this idea much until I saw that it was recurring. I'm not sure what it's import is but figured I should document these couple of quotations. "In the domain of the present analysis, the entities we shall take as our preliminary theme are those which show themselves in our concern with the environment. Such entities are not thereby objects for knowing the 'world' theoretically; they are simply what gets used, what gets produced, and so forth." (BT 95/67) "Those entities which serve phenomenologically as our preliminary theme--in this case, those which are used or which are to be found in the course of production--become accessible when we put ourselves into the position of concerning ourselves with them in some such way." (BT 96/67)
[4] I'm pretty sure that we've already said this. At least I'm pretty sure that the basic idea has been put forward before in these entries.
[5] "Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure". This raises a question as to whether there are objective constraints on what can count as a tool and what makes a particular tool what it is. This line suggests that there is a measure of suitability to a hammer that is distinct from human evaluation.
[6] Note again, the use of 'authentically'.
[7] We just hit page 100 in the Macquarrie and Robinson edition of Being and Time. We're one-fifth of the way through. Only 388 pages to go.
[8] I am beginning to wonder about the distinction between the present-at-hand and the ready-to-hand and the distinction between the theoretical and the concernful approach to entities in the world. The way Heidegger speaks in this passage suggests that science involves encountering entities in a way opposed to the kind of involvement characteristic of the ready-to-hand. But does that mean that there is no involvement involved at all? Clearly not, for elsewhere he speaks of such mere looking as a deficient (but not a negative) mode of involvement (I think). So is it really the case that considering the perspective of the scientist must hide our actual involvement with things since, in fact, it is a way of being involved? It seems to me that Heidegger's account should lead to the conclusion that though this scientistic approach has led people astray in the past, it need not. So his approach is not necessarily superior, but it has definite advantages given the course of history up to this point. Think about this.
[9] Because of Heidegger's style of writing, it is not clear to me whether he is stating a sincere question or presenting what he takes to be a misconceived question. Given all that he has said about the priority of the ready-to-hand, it seems odd that he would concede that there is some priority to the present-at-hand, and he only seems to want to concede this point for the nonce. We shall see where he goes with this.
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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.
Subdivision A. Analysis of Environmentality and Worldhood in General
Section 15. The Being of the Entities Encountered in the Environment
Our interpretation of the being of Dasein (which we are conducting with the hope of ultimately coming to some insight about the character of being in general) begins by looking at being-in-the-world, one of the ways in which Dasein's being is expressed. Being-in-the-world is a unitary phenomena but also possesses a complex structure. We are looking at the first aspect of that structure, worldhood, and disclosing that by looking at the still-more-particular case of Dasein's environment. This analysis of Dasein's environment involves not only looking at Dasein but also at the being of the entities that it encounters proximally and in a concernful way. Heidegger said, toward the end of the last section, 'We shall seek the worldhood of the environment (environmentality) by going through an ontological Interpretation of those entities within-the-environment which we encounter as closest to us." (BT 94/66) Now in this section, we turn to do just that.
"The Being of those entities which we encounter as closest to us can be exhibited phenomenologically if we take as our clue our everyday Being-in-the-world, which we also call our "dealings" in the world and with entities within-the-world." (BT 95/66) [1] Such "dealings" or "going-arounds" do not have the character of bare perceptual cognition (the basic 'awareness' of things in the world) but rather the character of concern which leads to manipulation and use. [2] Our investigation, here, begins by considering the being of those entities that we encounter in this way. But before moving into that, Heidegger stops to make a comment about methodology.
"In the disclosure and explication of Being, entities are in every case our preliminary and our accompanying theme [das Vor-und Mitthematische]; but our real theme is Being." (BT 95/67) Our goal, in focusing on the entities that are encountered proximally and concernfully in Dasein's environment, is not to grasp those entities as such or to understand the world by understanding those entities. Rather, our goal is to use those entities in order to look towards being. "This phenomenological interpretation is accordingly not a way of knowing those characteristics of entities which themselves are [seiender Beschaffenheiten des Seienden]; it is rather a determination of the structure of the Being which entities possess." (BT 95-96/67) Since it is being that is being disclosed, it yields a greater understanding of the being which belongs to Dasein and which 'comes alive' in its dealing with those entities. Now this is not a stance toward entities that we need to try and put ourselves into. Rather, it is the way in which everyday Dasein always is: "when I open the door, for instance, I use the latch." (BT 96/67) Often, when we try to analyze such familiar actions, what we end up doing is leaving the stance of the familiar and actually obscuring what is most familiar about the door and the latch that allows us to interact with it so effortlessly. "The achieving of phenomenological access to the entities which we encounter, consists rather in thrusting aside our interpretative tendencies, which keep thrusting themselves upon us and running along with us, and which conceal not only the phenomenon of such 'concern', but even more those entities themselves as encountered of their own accord in our concern with them." (BT 96/67) [3]
These tendencies toward interpretation that actually hinder our investigation can be seen more clearly when we try to figure out which entities we should take as our object of study. One proposal would be to say that we are trying to study "things." But there's a problem with that answer. It actually presupposes the ontological character of those entities. When we approach an entity merely as a "thing" we approach it with certain eyes and with a view to examining it under certain aspects. "When analysis starts with such entities and goes on to inquire about Being, what it meets is Thinghood and Reality. Ontological explication discovers, as it proceeds, such characteristics of Being as substantiality, materierality, extendedness, side-by-side-ness, and so forth. But even pre-ontologically, in such Being as this, the entities which we encounter in concern are proximally hidden." (BT 96/68) In other words, if we try to understand what it is in virtue of which we are able to interact with objects concernfully by investigating objects just in terms of their basic thinghood, we will never be able to reach our goal. Even if we have the idea that the most familiar way in which we encounter objects is as things, such an approach sets the ontological investigation on the wrong track. Moreover, it will not do to characterize the objects of our investigation as things 'invested with value'. This just introduces more features and characteristics that are left obscure. In addition, we have already indicated that the being of entities that are encountered concernfully is not additive. [4]
Heidegger takes a different route, drawing upon the Greek word for 'things': PRAGMATA--"that is to say, that which one has to do with in one's concernful dealings (PRAXIS)." (BT 96-97/68) Interestingly, Heidegger says that the Greeks did not grasp the 'pragmatic' character of this notion of 'things' but thought of PRAGMATA as 'mere things'. He says, "We shall call those entities which we encounter in concern "equipment". In our dealings we come across equipment for writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement. The kind of Being which equipment possesses must be exhibited. The clue for doing this lies in our first defining what makes an item of equipment--namely, its equipmentality." (BT 97/68)
Heidegger continues with an interesting line: "Taken strictly, there 'is' no such thing as an equipment. To the Being of any equipment there always belongs a totality of equipment, in which it can be this equipment that it is. Equipment is essentially 'something in-order-to...' ["etwas um-zu..."]. A totality of equipment is constituted by various ways of the 'in-order-to', such as serviceability, conduciveness, usability, manipulability." (BT 97/68) What does Heidegger mean when he says, "Taken strictly, there 'is' no such thing as an equipment." Does he actually mean to deny that we can ever meaningfully speak of a hammer or an allen wrench? No, that is not what he is saying. In order to grasp what he's getting at, you have to take seriously the quotation marks around 'is'. There 'is' no such thing as an equipment. Now when Heidegger encloses 'is' in quotation marks or when he speaks of something 'existing,' he does not have in mind 'mere existence.' (We've discussed this in previous entries.) So he is not denying that tools or equipment exist within the space-time continuum as individual and discrete objects. Rather, what he is denying is that any individual thing can be a piece of equipment just in virtue of the properties it possesses in itself. Something is a piece of equipment in virtue of its relationship to other entities and to certain goals ("in-order-to"). What makes a hammer a tool? Is it the fact that it has a certain shape or weight or material composition. Those factors may be part of it, but what is more essential to a particular thing being a hammer is, for instance, the existence of nails. If nails did not exist then hammers would not be hammers because what makes something a hammer is its relationship to nails and to the craft of carpentry.
One important point for Heidegger is that the "totality of equipment" is prior to the particular items that exist within it. He writes, "In the 'in-order-to' as a structure there lies an assignment or reference of something to something." (BT 97/68) What is involved in the idea of an assignment will be treated more in section 17. For now, Heidegger gestures at the idea in this way: "Equipment--in accordance with its equipmentality--always is in terms of [aus] its belonging to other equipment: ink-stand, pen, ink, paper, blotting pad, table, lamp, furniture, windows, doors, room. These 'Things' never show themselves proximally as they are for themselves, so as to add up to a sum of realia and fill up a room." (BT 97-98/68) When we see a pen as a pen, we always see it in terms of its relationship to other things, like papers, and notebooks. We don't encounter it primarily as an object possessing a certain set of dimensions and weight and physical properties. Nor do we perceive it as occupying a space three feet off the ground, two feet from the right hand wall, and seven feet from the far wall; we just perceive it as being on the desk. "Out of this the 'arrangement' emerges, and it is in this that any 'individual' item of equipment shows itself. Before it does so, a totality of equipment has already been discovered." (BT 98/68-69) Without the arrangement, the pen would not emerge as a pen. The totality of equipment is already in the background. The context is there that allows me to see objects for what they are.
"Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure (hammering with a hammer, for example); but in such dealings an entity of this kind is not grasped thematically as an occurring Thing, nor is the equipment-structure known as such even in the using." (BT 98/69) [5] In the course of actual involvement and the pursuit of the "in-order-to," which Heidegger describes as constitutive for the equipment being employed, one approaches a hammer less and less as a 'thing' and, to a greater extent, just makes use of it. In the course of that use, we encounter it as it is--as equipment. "The hammering itself uncovers the specific 'manipulability' ["Handlichkeit"] of the hammer. The kind of Being which equipment possesses--in which it manifests itself in its own right--we call "readiness-to-hand" [Zuhandenheit]. Only because equipment has this 'Being-in-itself' and does not merely occur, is it manipulable in the broadest sense and at our disposal." (BT 98/69) So "readiness-to-hand" is the kind of being that belongs to equipment, and it is that being in virtue of which such an object is manipulable. No amount of just looking at a thing or of approaching it 'theoretically' will reveal that it is equipment or manipulable or is ready-to-hand. That is not to say that our use of it is blind; rather there is a kind of sight that guides our manipulation and gives the object its thingly character. "Dealings with equipment subordinate themselves to the manifold assignments of the 'in-order-to'. And the sight with which they thus accommodate themselves in circumspection." (BT 98/69) In other words, the sight that our dealings with equipment have, that is subordinated and sensitive to the 'in-order-to,' is called circumspection.
Heidegger turns to consider the conventional distinction between the theoretical and the practical (commonly, the 'atheoretical'). He emphasizes that when we are involved in using some piece of equipment (practical), we are not sightless. For both theoretical and practical endeavors are kinds of concern. Both are a kind of concern and both have a kind of sight. Heidegger says that theoretical behaviour involves just looking--and so does not involve circumspection, in the technical sense of that word. But even though it does not involve circumspection, it still has a method.
Heidegger says that the ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all. More interestingly, "The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw [zuruckzuziehen] in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically." (BT 99/69) [6] The idea, here, is that when we are most involved in using tools is when we are least aware of the tools themselves and most focused on the work that is being done. In these cases, even the work--that which is to be produced--is ready-to-hand. "The work bears with it that referential totality within which the equipment is encountered." (BT 99/70) See above for what Heidegger says about the 'totality of equipment'. Heidegger expands on this point: "The work to be produced, as the "towards-which" of such things as the hammer, the plane, and the needle, likewise has the kind of Being that belongs to equipment." (BT 99/70) That being is readiness-to-hand. These items, be they shoes or clocks, have a usability that is essential to them. "[I]n this usability it lets us encounter already the "towards-which" for which it is usable. A work that someone has ordered [das bestellte Werk] is only by reason of its use and the assignment-context of entities which is discovered in using it." (BT 99/70) The idea seems to be that we are generally folded into these layers and layers of involvements and purposes. A cobbler uses a hammer to make a shoe but the shoe also has an already-established purpose and is attached to a context and totality of equipment in its own right.
These layers of use run in both directions. The cobbler uses the hammer to produce the shoe that will serve some further purpose. The shoe is usable for something. But the production of the shoe also involves certain uses. Not only of the hammer itself but of the elements that went into making the hammer and the other tools that the cobbler uses. This can be especially clearly seen when we consider the raw materials that compose our tools. "So in the environment certain entities become accessible which are always ready-to-hand, but which, in themselves, do not need to be produced. Hammer, tongs, and needle, refer in themselves to steel, iron, metal, mineral, wood, in that they consist of these. In equipment that is used, 'Nature' is discovered along with it by that use--the 'Nature' we find in natural products." (BT 100/70) [7] Heidegger refers to these raw materials at always ready-to-hand but not needing to be produced. He says that it is in this context of concerns and aims that nature is first encountered. Recall that we looked at nature in previous entries and Heidegger dismissed it as an unacceptable starting point for understanding the being of those entities closest to Dasein. But he has not forgotten nature and believes that it comes to be understood first in relation to Dasein's interests.
When we encounter nature in this way, Heidegger says, we do not encounter it as present-at-hand. Rather the forest is encountered as a source of timber or the mountain is encountered as a quarry of rock. Even when it comes to seeing nature as something beautiful and to be appreciated, Heidegger says, the kind of being that makes that possible is readiness-to-hand. If we disregard the being of nature as ready-to-hand, "the Nature which 'stirs and strives', which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead of the dale'." (BT 100/70) [8]
Heidegger continues: "The work produced refers not only to the "towards-which" of its usability and the "whereof" of which it consists: under simple craft conditions it also has an assignment to the person who is to use it or wear it." (BT 100/70) He is continuing to highlight all of the circumstances and conditions that make possible the production of work. Where work is concerned or some "towards-which," we do not only find ourselves brought into contact with the ready-to-hand but also with entities having Dasein's kind of being--"entities for which, in their concern, the product becomes ready-to-hand; and together with these we encounter the world in which wearers and users live, which is at the same time ours." (BT 100/71) At it's widest scope, it seems, this world that is encountered is the public world or environing nature. "Any work with which one concerns oneself is ready-to-hand not only in the domestic world of the workshop but also in the public world. Along with the public world, the environing Nature [die Umweltnatur] is discovered and is accessible to everyone. In roads, streets, bridges, buildings, our concern discovers Nature as having some definite direction." (BT 100/71) The idea is that we demonstrate our familiarity with nature and with the course of nature in the ways that we construct buildings, etc. in response to nature. When we use a clock which is clearly ready-to-hand, the environing nature (e.g. the sun's position) is ready-to-hand along with it. "Our concernful absorption in whatever work-world lies closest to us, has a function of discovering; and it is essential to this function that, depending upon the way in which we are absorbed, those entities within-the-world which are brought along [beigebrachte] in the work and with it (that is to say, in the assignments or references which are constitutive for it) remain discoverable in varying degrees of explicitness and with a varying circumspective penetration." (BT 101/71)
As he begins to wrap up this section, Heidegger reminds us that readiness-to-hand is not a mere 'aspect' of entities that are, in the first place, present-at-hand. If that were the case then we would need to encounter entities first as purely present-at-hand and then come to grasp the 'world' and the meaningfulness of its contents. "But this already runs counter to the ontological meaning of cognition, which we have exhibited as a founded mode of Being-in-the-world. To lay bare what is just present-at-hand and no more, cognition must first penetrate beyond what is ready-to-hand in our concern." (BT 101/71) We must be wary of making this mistake.
Here is an interesting remark: "Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are 'in themselves' are defined ontologico-categorially. Yet only by reason of something present-at-hand, 'is there' anything ready-to-hand. Does it follow, however, granting this thesis for the nonce, that readiness-to-hand is ontologically founded upon presence-at-hand?" (BT 101/72) This is an extremely interesting question that Heidegger does not address right here. Instead, he follows it up with another equally difficult question. [9]
We have already said that in our investigation of entities within-the-world, we are presupposing the world. We have also indicated that the 'world' is more than the sum of all the entities that make it up, so that we cannot grasp the 'world' by just adding up what we know about its parts. This raises the question, "But even if, as our ontological Interpretation proceeds further, readiness-to-hand should prove itself to be the kind of Being characteristic of those entities which are proximally discovered within-the-world, and even if its primordiality as compared with pure presence-at-hand can be demonstrated, have all these explications been of the slightest help towards understanding the phenomenon of the world ontologically? ... If, then, we start with the Being of these entities, is there any avenue that will lead us to exhibiting the phenomenon of the world?" (BT 101-102/72)
We shall try to make some headway toward answering both these questions in the next section.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Dealings" ('Umgang') literally means 'going around' or 'going about,' somewhat as when speaking of 'going about his business.' 'Intercourse' and 'trafficking' are other possible translations.
[2] "The kind of dealing which is closest to us is as we have shown, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use; and this has its own kind of 'knowledge'." (BT 95/67, italics mine) I don't recall off-hand whether this claim about knowledge is made earlier in Being and Time. At any rate, it is a claim worth noting. Now J.P. Moreland, I believe, has suggested that knowledge-how depends upon knowledge-that, and Heidegger seems to be saying the opposite. Are these claims really opposed or is Heidegger getting at something strictly other than knowledge-how.
[3] In the paragraph that I have been discussing, there have been a couple references to "producing." I didn't focus on this idea much until I saw that it was recurring. I'm not sure what it's import is but figured I should document these couple of quotations. "In the domain of the present analysis, the entities we shall take as our preliminary theme are those which show themselves in our concern with the environment. Such entities are not thereby objects for knowing the 'world' theoretically; they are simply what gets used, what gets produced, and so forth." (BT 95/67) "Those entities which serve phenomenologically as our preliminary theme--in this case, those which are used or which are to be found in the course of production--become accessible when we put ourselves into the position of concerning ourselves with them in some such way." (BT 96/67)
[4] I'm pretty sure that we've already said this. At least I'm pretty sure that the basic idea has been put forward before in these entries.
[5] "Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure". This raises a question as to whether there are objective constraints on what can count as a tool and what makes a particular tool what it is. This line suggests that there is a measure of suitability to a hammer that is distinct from human evaluation.
[6] Note again, the use of 'authentically'.
[7] We just hit page 100 in the Macquarrie and Robinson edition of Being and Time. We're one-fifth of the way through. Only 388 pages to go.
[8] I am beginning to wonder about the distinction between the present-at-hand and the ready-to-hand and the distinction between the theoretical and the concernful approach to entities in the world. The way Heidegger speaks in this passage suggests that science involves encountering entities in a way opposed to the kind of involvement characteristic of the ready-to-hand. But does that mean that there is no involvement involved at all? Clearly not, for elsewhere he speaks of such mere looking as a deficient (but not a negative) mode of involvement (I think). So is it really the case that considering the perspective of the scientist must hide our actual involvement with things since, in fact, it is a way of being involved? It seems to me that Heidegger's account should lead to the conclusion that though this scientistic approach has led people astray in the past, it need not. So his approach is not necessarily superior, but it has definite advantages given the course of history up to this point. Think about this.
[9] Because of Heidegger's style of writing, it is not clear to me whether he is stating a sincere question or presenting what he takes to be a misconceived question. Given all that he has said about the priority of the ready-to-hand, it seems odd that he would concede that there is some priority to the present-at-hand, and he only seems to want to concede this point for the nonce. We shall see where he goes with this.
--
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.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 11:44 AM
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