Graduate 157: BT 24: Sec. 18
Part I, Division 1, Chapter 3. The Worldhood of the World
Subdivision A. Analysis of Environmentality and Worldhood in General
Section 18. Involvement and Significance; the Worldhood of the World
"The ready-to-hand is encountered within-the-world. The Being of this entity, readiness-to-hand, thus stands in some ontological relationship towards the world and towards worldhood. In anything ready-to-hand the world is always 'there'. Whenever we encounter anything, the world has already been previously discovered, though not thematically. But it can also be lit up in certain ways of dealing with our environment. The world is that in terms of which the ready-to-hand is ready-to-hand. How can the world let the ready-to-hand be encountered? Our analysis hitherto has shown that what we encounter within-the-world has, in its very Being, been freed for our concernful circumspection, for taking account. What does this previous freeing amount to, and how is this to be understood as an ontologically distinctive feature of the world? What problems does the question of the worldhood of the world lay before us?" (BT 114/83)
Here Heidegger gives a helpful summary of many of the main points and commitments that he's described up to this point. It is interesting to note--and this has come up before but is worth pointing out again--that Heidegger seems to think of 'readiness-to-hand' and 'worldhood' as almost discrete entities. Now we must be very careful in how we speak of these as things. Readiness-to-hand is the kind of being that belongs to entities with which we find ourselves engaged. For that reason, it [i.e. readiness-to-hand] stands in some ontological relationship to the world and to worldhood. The ready-to-hand is that which we already encounter within the world and it is what is disclosed by the world. Toward the end of this quote, Heidegger raises the question about how this encounter or disclosure works. He says that what we encounter within-the-world has been freed for our concernful circumspection. Now we want to look more closely at what is involved in being freed.
This material is helpful in expanding on what was begun in the last entry regarding reference and assignment. The state that is constitutive for the ready-to-hand as equipment is one of reference or assignment. What we want to know is how can entities with this kind of being (i.e. readiness-to-hand) be 'freed' from the world with regard to their being. Along these same lines, we want to know why these are the sorts of entities that we encounter first.
Heidegger writes, "As definite kinds of references we have mentioned serviceability-for-, detrimentality [Abtraglichkeit], usability, and the like. The "towards-which" [das Wozu] of a serviceability and the "for-which" [das Wofur] of a usability prescribed the ways in which such a reference or assignment can become concrete." (BT 114/83) We need to be careful too remember that the serviceability and usability of an entity are not just properties of that entity. So the fact that a sign 'indicates' or that a hammer 'hammers'--'indicating' and 'hammering' are not properties of these things. Heidegger writes, "Anything ready-to-hand is, at the worst, appropriate for some purposes and inappropriate for others; and its 'properties' are, as it were, still bound up in these ways in which it is appropriate or inappropriate, just as presence-at-hand, as a possible kind of Being for something ready-to-hand, is bound up in readiness-to-hand." (BT 115/83) 'Hammering' is not a property of hammers and hammers are not discrete entities that exist independently of any context within the space-time world. Rather, a particular object is either appropriate or inappropriate for use as a hammer. Our way of perceiving it presupposes the goal and actually shapes our understanding of the hammer as useful for hammering. This is possible because equipment possesses 'serviceability' (and serviceability is a reference). Serviceability does not refer to the appropriateness of an entity but is rather that condition which makes it possible for one to define the character of an entity by its appropriateness. If entities were not already serviceable, then we would not be able to see them as referring to some larger context of goals and interests, and we would not be able to come to recognize them as appropriate for certain tasks. The kind of reference involved here has to do with the entity having been assigned or referred to some larger context of goals, interests, and aims. "The character of Being which belongs to the ready-to-hand is just such an involvement. If something has an involvement, this implies letting it be involved in something. The relationship of the "with... in..." shall be indicated by the term "assignment" or "reference"." (BT 115/84) Again, this goes back to the point that a 'sign' does not just direct our attention to something in the world, but it also directs our attention to the totality of involvements and concerns that give that sign meaning. This is true for any tool--we recognize it as the thing it is only because viewing it draws our attention to the context in which it is embedded and that gives it its significance.
"When an entity within-the-world has already been proximally freed for its Being, that Being is its "involvement". With any such entity as entity, there is some involvement. The fact that it has such an involvement is ontologically definitive for the Being of such an entity, and is not an ontical assertion about it." (BT 116/84) Entities, then, are freed for their involvements and that involvement is not something that it happens to have but something that is ontologically definitive for the thing. What an entity is 'involved in' is the "towards-which" of serviceability and the "for-which" of usability. In other words, when ever we speak of something being "serviceable," we always have in mind some "towards-which" for which it is serviceable. Or when we speak of something being "usable" it is always something "for-which" it is usable. No object is serviceable or usable in a vacuum.
"With the "towards-which" of serviceability there can again be an involvement: with this thing, for instance, which is ready-to-hand, and which we accordingly call a "hammer", there is an involvement in hammering; with hammering, there is an involvement in making something fast; with making something fast, there is an involvement in protection against bad weather; and this protection 'is' for the sake of [um-willen] providing shelter for Dasein--that is to say, for the sake of a possibility of Dasein's Being." (BT 116/84) [1]
The context of involvements is always prior to ('earlier than') any single item of equipment. "But the totality of involvements itself goes back ultimately to a "towards-which" in which there is no further involvement: this "towards-which" is not an entity with the kind of Being that belongs to what is ready-to-hand within a world; it is rather an entity whose Being is defined as Being-in-the-world, and to whose state of Being, worldhood itself belongs. This primary "towards-which" is not just another "towards-this" as something in which an involvement is possible. The primary 'towards-which' is a "for-the-sake-of-which". But the 'for-the-sake-of' always pertains to the Being of Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is essentially an issue. We have thus indicated the interconnection by which the structure of an involvement leads to Dasein's very Being as the sole authentic "for-the-sake-of-which"; for the present, however, we shall pursue this no further. 'Letting something be involved' must first be clarified enough to give the phenomenon of worldhood the kind of definiteness which makes it possible to formulate any problems about it." (BT 116-117/84)
The preceding is a nice summation of much that has preceded and draws all of this discussion of the various purposes and "towards-which" and where they find their end. These chains of "towards-which" lead to a final "for-the-sake-of-which," which is found in the being of Dasein, which is the sole authentic "for-the-sake-of-which" and whose being is defined as being-in-the-world and to whose state of being worldhood belongs. [2] But we cannot pursue that point more deeply until we have clarified which is meant by "letting something be involved." Recall that one of the questions raised at the end of the last section had to do with how something that did not have the bear the significance of a piece of equipment could come to do so. Heidegger addresses that in a way in this next paragraph.
"Ontically, "letting something be involved" signifies that within our factical concern we let something ready-to-hand be so-and-so as it is already and in order that it be such. The way we take this ontical sense of 'letting be' is, in principle, ontological. And therewith we Interpret the meaning of previously freeing what is proximally ready-to-hand within-the-world." (BT 117/84-85) Again, that we can 'let something be' and do not have to make it so reflects the way in which a piece of equipment is already caught up in a context of involvements. Such entities are discovered in their readiness-to-hand. "This 'a priori' letting-something-be-involved is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand, so that Dasein, in its ontical dealings with the entity thus encountered, can thereby let it be involved in the ontical sense." (BT 117/85) The way in which 'letting-something-be-involved' is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand means that it is the condition for the possibility of both our encountering it and our failing to encounter it (which may be thought of as a deficient mode of encountering). Another (possibly deficient) way of encountering such an entity is as something, not to be put to use, but to be altered, adjusted, improved, or even smashed to pieces.
"When we speak of having already let something be involved, so that it has been freed for that involvement, we are using a perfect tense a priori which characterizes the kind of Being belonging to Dasein itself." (BT 117/85) [3] In other words, letting an entity be involved, if we understand this ontologically, consists in previously freeing it for its readiness-to-hand within the environment. Our concern encounters it as already ready-to-hand environmentally. Heidegger emphasizes, "[I]t just is not 'proximally' a 'world-stuff' that is merely present-at-hand." (BT 118/85)
"As the Being of something ready-to-hand, an involvement is itself discovered only on the basis of the prior discovery of a totality of involvements." (BT 118/85) Understanding one set of involvements presupposes understanding a more encompassing set of involvements. And this prior understanding must already be possessed. "In this totality of involvements which has been discovered beforehand, there lurks an ontological relationship to the world. In letting entities be involved so that they are freed for a totality of involvements, one must have disclosed already that for which [woraufhin] they have been freed." (BT 118/85) But that for which the ready-to-hand has ultimately been freed cannot be discoverable in this same way. So, hereafter, "discoveredness" shall be reserved as a term for a possibility of being which every entity without the character of Dasein may possess.
But what is involved in this previous disclosure? "To Dasein's Being, an understanding of Being belongs. Any understanding [Verstandnis] has its Being in an act of understanding [Verstehen]. If Being-in-the-world is a kind of Being which is essentially befitting to Dasein, then to understand Being-in-the-world belongs to the essential content of its understanding of Being. The previous disclosure of that for which what we encounter within-the-world is subsequently freed, amounts to nothing else than understanding the world--that world towards which Dasein as an entity always comports itself." (BT 118/85-86) We have already said that Dasein is unique in that its own being is an issue for it. Now Heidegger says that any understanding has its being in an act of understanding. If the kind of being that belongs to Dasein is being-in-the-world, and Dasein has an understanding of that being which it possesses, then an understanding of being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein and to Dasein's understanding. So when we speak of freeing entities as presupposing some prior disclosure of the context of involvements that allows us to recognize that entity as such, what we are referring to is the understanding of being-in-the-world and of the world that already belongs essentially to Dasein.
Whenever we let there be an involvement, we understand that in terms of letting something be involved and the "with-which" and "in-which" of involvements. These and the "towards-which" and the "for-the-sake-of-which" all must be disclosed beforehand with a certain intelligibility. "And what is that wherein Dasein as Being-in-the-world understands itself pre-ontologically? In understanding a context of relations such as we have mentioned, Dasein has assigned itself to an "in-order-to" [Um-zu], and it has done so in terms of a potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which it itself is--one which it may have seized upon either explicitly or tacitly and which may be either authentic or inauthentic." (BT 119/86) [4] From this "in-order-to" follows the "towards-this" and the "in-which" where something can be let to be involved. "That wherein [Worin] Dasein understands itself beforehand in the mode of assigning itself is that for which [das Woraufhin] it has let entities be encountered beforehand. The "wherein" of an act of understanding which assigns or refers itself, is that for which one lets entities be encountered in the kind of Being that belongs to involvements; and this "wherein" is the phenomenon of the world. And the structure of that to which [woraufhin] Dasein assigns itself is what makes up the worldhood of the world." (BT 119/86) So the world is that which is already understood by Dasein. It is that for which entities may be encountered--that is, it the for-the-sake-of-which toward which entities may be encountered as involved. And this structure to which Dasein assigns itself--the "in-order-to"--in terms of a potentiality-for-being is what makes up the worldhood of the world.
"That wherein Dasein already understands itself in this way is always something with which it is primordially familiar." (BT 119/86) This familiarity is not necessarily theoretically transparent or explicit, but even the possibility of an ontologico-existential Interpretation of the world depends upon our already being familiar with it. This familiarity is constitutive of Dasein and makes up Dasein's understanding of being. The possibility of an ontologico-existential Interpretation can be taken up by Dasein insofar as it "has set itself the task of giving a primordial Interpretation for its own Being and for the possibilities of that Being, or indeed for the meaning of Being in general." (BT 119/86) [5]
But we still only laid bare the horizon (the limits) within which our investigation of the world and worldhood is to proceed. We must make still more clear how the context of Dasein's assigning-itself is to be taken ontologically.
We mentioned the act of understanding, which will be discussed further in section 31. In that act of understanding, we said, these various relations are already disclosed and the act of understanding is held in these relations as with something already familiar. The understanding lets itself make assignments both in and of these relationships--relationships of signifying. "In its familiarity with these relationships, Dasein 'signifies' to itself: in a primordial manner it gives itself both its Being and its potentiality-for-Being as something which it is to understand with regard to its Being-in-the-world." (BT 120/87) Caught up in the signification of Dasein's being and potentiality-for-being in its being-in-the-world, the for-the-sake-of-which signifies (draws our attention to) an "in-order-to", a "towards-this", and the "in-which" and "with-which" of involvement. All of these relationships belong to a primordial totality: "they are what they are as this signifying [Be-deuten] in which Dasein gives itself beforehand its Being-in-the-world as something to be understood." (BT 120/87) And this relational totality of signifying is called "significance." "This is what makes up the structure of the world--the structure of that wherein Dasein as such already is. Dasein, in its familiarity with significance, is the ontical condition for the possibility of discovering entities which are encountered in a world with involvement (readiness-to-hand) as their kind of Being, and which can thus make themselves known as they are in themselves [in seinem An-sich]." (BT 120/87) Dasein is able to discover entities in the world that are ready-to-hand as useful for various ends and purposes because it already possesses a familiarity with significance--with the way in which entities are contextualized. This is what allows entities to appear as they are.
"Dasein as such is always something of this sort; along with its Being, a context of the ready-to-hand is already essentially discovered: Dasein, in so far as it is, has always submitted itself already to a 'world' which it encounters, and this submission belongs essentially to its Being." (BT 120-121/87)
Heidegger says that the being of words and of language are founded on 'significations'. Significations can be disclosed because Dasein is always already familiar with significance itself. This familiarity is the ontological condition which makes it possible for Dasein to disclose significations. "The significance thus disclosed is an existential state of Dasein--of its Being-in-the-world; and as such it is the ontical condition for the possibility that a totality of involvements can be discovered." (BT 121/87)
Now one might object, at this point, that since the involvement (which is the being of the ready-to-hand) has been shown to be definable as a context of assignments or references--and since even worldhood may be so defined--then the 'substantial being' of entities within-the-world has been reduced to a set of relations grasped only in the realm of 'pure thinking'.
In answer, Heidegger reminds us of a number of structures or dimensions of this ontological inquiry (problematic) that need to be kept distinct: "1. the Being of those entities within-the-world which we proximally encounter--readiness-to-hand; 2. the Being of those entities which we can come across and whose nature we can determine if we discover them in their own right by going through the entities proximally encountered--presence-at-hand; 3. the Being of that ontical condition which makes it possible for entities within-the-world to be discovered at all--the worldhood of the world. This third kind of Being gives us an existential way of determining the nature of Being-in-the-world, that is, of Dasein." (BT 121/88) In other words, since Dasein has the character of being-in-the-world, understanding the worldhood of the world is especially closely tied to understanding the being of Dasein. The being of entities ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, however, is different from the kind of being that belongs to Dasein. (Here is the distinction between the existential and the categorial.)
Now Heidegger says that one can approach worldhood, which is constituted by that context of assignments and references, as a system of relations. But in doing so, one is apt to miss the real phenomenal contents of those references and assignments. "The phenomenal content of these 'Relations' and 'Relata' --the "in-order-to", the "for-the-sake-of", and the "with-which" of an involvement--is such that they resist any sort of mathematical functionalization; nor are they merely something thought, first posited in an 'act of thinking.'" (BT 121-122/88) Such a way of approaching entities in the world treats them as existing independently and in isolation before being brought, after the fact, into a web of relations. But that is not right. Heidegger says that we are already in that web. "This 'system of Relations', as something constitutive for worldhood, is so far from volatilizing the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world, that the worldhood of the world provides the basis on which such entities can for the first time be discovered as they are 'substantially' 'in themselves'." (BT 122/88) There is no meaningful sense in which an entity is the thing that it is apart from this web of assignments and references. "And only if entities within-the-world can be encountered at all, is it possible, in the field of such entities to make accessible what is just present-at-hand and no more." (BT 122/88) And entities can only be encountered if they already exist within-the-world, alongside-of Dasein.
"By reason of their Being-just-present-at-hand-and-no-more, these latter entities can have their 'properties' defined mathematically in 'functional concepts.' Ontologically, such concepts are possible only in relation to entities whose Being has the character of pure substantiality. Functional concepts are never possible except as formalized substantial concepts." (BT 122/88) [6]
Before delving deeper into our the ontological problematic (investigation) we shall set about clarifying this interpretation of worldhood by considering a case at the opposite extreme.
--
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Note the instance of "possibility of Dasein's being."
[2] Note the instance of "authenticity."
[3] This relatively early reference to time and tense should be noted for later.
[4] Important point for later. Take note.
[5] Another helpful summary statement.
[6] This use of 'functional' and 'formal' needs to be understood more clearly.
--
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 18. Involvement and Significance; the Worldhood of the World
"The ready-to-hand is encountered within-the-world. The Being of this entity, readiness-to-hand, thus stands in some ontological relationship towards the world and towards worldhood. In anything ready-to-hand the world is always 'there'. Whenever we encounter anything, the world has already been previously discovered, though not thematically. But it can also be lit up in certain ways of dealing with our environment. The world is that in terms of which the ready-to-hand is ready-to-hand. How can the world let the ready-to-hand be encountered? Our analysis hitherto has shown that what we encounter within-the-world has, in its very Being, been freed for our concernful circumspection, for taking account. What does this previous freeing amount to, and how is this to be understood as an ontologically distinctive feature of the world? What problems does the question of the worldhood of the world lay before us?" (BT 114/83)
Here Heidegger gives a helpful summary of many of the main points and commitments that he's described up to this point. It is interesting to note--and this has come up before but is worth pointing out again--that Heidegger seems to think of 'readiness-to-hand' and 'worldhood' as almost discrete entities. Now we must be very careful in how we speak of these as things. Readiness-to-hand is the kind of being that belongs to entities with which we find ourselves engaged. For that reason, it [i.e. readiness-to-hand] stands in some ontological relationship to the world and to worldhood. The ready-to-hand is that which we already encounter within the world and it is what is disclosed by the world. Toward the end of this quote, Heidegger raises the question about how this encounter or disclosure works. He says that what we encounter within-the-world has been freed for our concernful circumspection. Now we want to look more closely at what is involved in being freed.
This material is helpful in expanding on what was begun in the last entry regarding reference and assignment. The state that is constitutive for the ready-to-hand as equipment is one of reference or assignment. What we want to know is how can entities with this kind of being (i.e. readiness-to-hand) be 'freed' from the world with regard to their being. Along these same lines, we want to know why these are the sorts of entities that we encounter first.
Heidegger writes, "As definite kinds of references we have mentioned serviceability-for-, detrimentality [Abtraglichkeit], usability, and the like. The "towards-which" [das Wozu] of a serviceability and the "for-which" [das Wofur] of a usability prescribed the ways in which such a reference or assignment can become concrete." (BT 114/83) We need to be careful too remember that the serviceability and usability of an entity are not just properties of that entity. So the fact that a sign 'indicates' or that a hammer 'hammers'--'indicating' and 'hammering' are not properties of these things. Heidegger writes, "Anything ready-to-hand is, at the worst, appropriate for some purposes and inappropriate for others; and its 'properties' are, as it were, still bound up in these ways in which it is appropriate or inappropriate, just as presence-at-hand, as a possible kind of Being for something ready-to-hand, is bound up in readiness-to-hand." (BT 115/83) 'Hammering' is not a property of hammers and hammers are not discrete entities that exist independently of any context within the space-time world. Rather, a particular object is either appropriate or inappropriate for use as a hammer. Our way of perceiving it presupposes the goal and actually shapes our understanding of the hammer as useful for hammering. This is possible because equipment possesses 'serviceability' (and serviceability is a reference). Serviceability does not refer to the appropriateness of an entity but is rather that condition which makes it possible for one to define the character of an entity by its appropriateness. If entities were not already serviceable, then we would not be able to see them as referring to some larger context of goals and interests, and we would not be able to come to recognize them as appropriate for certain tasks. The kind of reference involved here has to do with the entity having been assigned or referred to some larger context of goals, interests, and aims. "The character of Being which belongs to the ready-to-hand is just such an involvement. If something has an involvement, this implies letting it be involved in something. The relationship of the "with... in..." shall be indicated by the term "assignment" or "reference"." (BT 115/84) Again, this goes back to the point that a 'sign' does not just direct our attention to something in the world, but it also directs our attention to the totality of involvements and concerns that give that sign meaning. This is true for any tool--we recognize it as the thing it is only because viewing it draws our attention to the context in which it is embedded and that gives it its significance.
"When an entity within-the-world has already been proximally freed for its Being, that Being is its "involvement". With any such entity as entity, there is some involvement. The fact that it has such an involvement is ontologically definitive for the Being of such an entity, and is not an ontical assertion about it." (BT 116/84) Entities, then, are freed for their involvements and that involvement is not something that it happens to have but something that is ontologically definitive for the thing. What an entity is 'involved in' is the "towards-which" of serviceability and the "for-which" of usability. In other words, when ever we speak of something being "serviceable," we always have in mind some "towards-which" for which it is serviceable. Or when we speak of something being "usable" it is always something "for-which" it is usable. No object is serviceable or usable in a vacuum.
"With the "towards-which" of serviceability there can again be an involvement: with this thing, for instance, which is ready-to-hand, and which we accordingly call a "hammer", there is an involvement in hammering; with hammering, there is an involvement in making something fast; with making something fast, there is an involvement in protection against bad weather; and this protection 'is' for the sake of [um-willen] providing shelter for Dasein--that is to say, for the sake of a possibility of Dasein's Being." (BT 116/84) [1]
The context of involvements is always prior to ('earlier than') any single item of equipment. "But the totality of involvements itself goes back ultimately to a "towards-which" in which there is no further involvement: this "towards-which" is not an entity with the kind of Being that belongs to what is ready-to-hand within a world; it is rather an entity whose Being is defined as Being-in-the-world, and to whose state of Being, worldhood itself belongs. This primary "towards-which" is not just another "towards-this" as something in which an involvement is possible. The primary 'towards-which' is a "for-the-sake-of-which". But the 'for-the-sake-of' always pertains to the Being of Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is essentially an issue. We have thus indicated the interconnection by which the structure of an involvement leads to Dasein's very Being as the sole authentic "for-the-sake-of-which"; for the present, however, we shall pursue this no further. 'Letting something be involved' must first be clarified enough to give the phenomenon of worldhood the kind of definiteness which makes it possible to formulate any problems about it." (BT 116-117/84)
The preceding is a nice summation of much that has preceded and draws all of this discussion of the various purposes and "towards-which" and where they find their end. These chains of "towards-which" lead to a final "for-the-sake-of-which," which is found in the being of Dasein, which is the sole authentic "for-the-sake-of-which" and whose being is defined as being-in-the-world and to whose state of being worldhood belongs. [2] But we cannot pursue that point more deeply until we have clarified which is meant by "letting something be involved." Recall that one of the questions raised at the end of the last section had to do with how something that did not have the bear the significance of a piece of equipment could come to do so. Heidegger addresses that in a way in this next paragraph.
"Ontically, "letting something be involved" signifies that within our factical concern we let something ready-to-hand be so-and-so as it is already and in order that it be such. The way we take this ontical sense of 'letting be' is, in principle, ontological. And therewith we Interpret the meaning of previously freeing what is proximally ready-to-hand within-the-world." (BT 117/84-85) Again, that we can 'let something be' and do not have to make it so reflects the way in which a piece of equipment is already caught up in a context of involvements. Such entities are discovered in their readiness-to-hand. "This 'a priori' letting-something-be-involved is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand, so that Dasein, in its ontical dealings with the entity thus encountered, can thereby let it be involved in the ontical sense." (BT 117/85) The way in which 'letting-something-be-involved' is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand means that it is the condition for the possibility of both our encountering it and our failing to encounter it (which may be thought of as a deficient mode of encountering). Another (possibly deficient) way of encountering such an entity is as something, not to be put to use, but to be altered, adjusted, improved, or even smashed to pieces.
"When we speak of having already let something be involved, so that it has been freed for that involvement, we are using a perfect tense a priori which characterizes the kind of Being belonging to Dasein itself." (BT 117/85) [3] In other words, letting an entity be involved, if we understand this ontologically, consists in previously freeing it for its readiness-to-hand within the environment. Our concern encounters it as already ready-to-hand environmentally. Heidegger emphasizes, "[I]t just is not 'proximally' a 'world-stuff' that is merely present-at-hand." (BT 118/85)
"As the Being of something ready-to-hand, an involvement is itself discovered only on the basis of the prior discovery of a totality of involvements." (BT 118/85) Understanding one set of involvements presupposes understanding a more encompassing set of involvements. And this prior understanding must already be possessed. "In this totality of involvements which has been discovered beforehand, there lurks an ontological relationship to the world. In letting entities be involved so that they are freed for a totality of involvements, one must have disclosed already that for which [woraufhin] they have been freed." (BT 118/85) But that for which the ready-to-hand has ultimately been freed cannot be discoverable in this same way. So, hereafter, "discoveredness" shall be reserved as a term for a possibility of being which every entity without the character of Dasein may possess.
But what is involved in this previous disclosure? "To Dasein's Being, an understanding of Being belongs. Any understanding [Verstandnis] has its Being in an act of understanding [Verstehen]. If Being-in-the-world is a kind of Being which is essentially befitting to Dasein, then to understand Being-in-the-world belongs to the essential content of its understanding of Being. The previous disclosure of that for which what we encounter within-the-world is subsequently freed, amounts to nothing else than understanding the world--that world towards which Dasein as an entity always comports itself." (BT 118/85-86) We have already said that Dasein is unique in that its own being is an issue for it. Now Heidegger says that any understanding has its being in an act of understanding. If the kind of being that belongs to Dasein is being-in-the-world, and Dasein has an understanding of that being which it possesses, then an understanding of being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein and to Dasein's understanding. So when we speak of freeing entities as presupposing some prior disclosure of the context of involvements that allows us to recognize that entity as such, what we are referring to is the understanding of being-in-the-world and of the world that already belongs essentially to Dasein.
Whenever we let there be an involvement, we understand that in terms of letting something be involved and the "with-which" and "in-which" of involvements. These and the "towards-which" and the "for-the-sake-of-which" all must be disclosed beforehand with a certain intelligibility. "And what is that wherein Dasein as Being-in-the-world understands itself pre-ontologically? In understanding a context of relations such as we have mentioned, Dasein has assigned itself to an "in-order-to" [Um-zu], and it has done so in terms of a potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which it itself is--one which it may have seized upon either explicitly or tacitly and which may be either authentic or inauthentic." (BT 119/86) [4] From this "in-order-to" follows the "towards-this" and the "in-which" where something can be let to be involved. "That wherein [Worin] Dasein understands itself beforehand in the mode of assigning itself is that for which [das Woraufhin] it has let entities be encountered beforehand. The "wherein" of an act of understanding which assigns or refers itself, is that for which one lets entities be encountered in the kind of Being that belongs to involvements; and this "wherein" is the phenomenon of the world. And the structure of that to which [woraufhin] Dasein assigns itself is what makes up the worldhood of the world." (BT 119/86) So the world is that which is already understood by Dasein. It is that for which entities may be encountered--that is, it the for-the-sake-of-which toward which entities may be encountered as involved. And this structure to which Dasein assigns itself--the "in-order-to"--in terms of a potentiality-for-being is what makes up the worldhood of the world.
"That wherein Dasein already understands itself in this way is always something with which it is primordially familiar." (BT 119/86) This familiarity is not necessarily theoretically transparent or explicit, but even the possibility of an ontologico-existential Interpretation of the world depends upon our already being familiar with it. This familiarity is constitutive of Dasein and makes up Dasein's understanding of being. The possibility of an ontologico-existential Interpretation can be taken up by Dasein insofar as it "has set itself the task of giving a primordial Interpretation for its own Being and for the possibilities of that Being, or indeed for the meaning of Being in general." (BT 119/86) [5]
But we still only laid bare the horizon (the limits) within which our investigation of the world and worldhood is to proceed. We must make still more clear how the context of Dasein's assigning-itself is to be taken ontologically.
We mentioned the act of understanding, which will be discussed further in section 31. In that act of understanding, we said, these various relations are already disclosed and the act of understanding is held in these relations as with something already familiar. The understanding lets itself make assignments both in and of these relationships--relationships of signifying. "In its familiarity with these relationships, Dasein 'signifies' to itself: in a primordial manner it gives itself both its Being and its potentiality-for-Being as something which it is to understand with regard to its Being-in-the-world." (BT 120/87) Caught up in the signification of Dasein's being and potentiality-for-being in its being-in-the-world, the for-the-sake-of-which signifies (draws our attention to) an "in-order-to", a "towards-this", and the "in-which" and "with-which" of involvement. All of these relationships belong to a primordial totality: "they are what they are as this signifying [Be-deuten] in which Dasein gives itself beforehand its Being-in-the-world as something to be understood." (BT 120/87) And this relational totality of signifying is called "significance." "This is what makes up the structure of the world--the structure of that wherein Dasein as such already is. Dasein, in its familiarity with significance, is the ontical condition for the possibility of discovering entities which are encountered in a world with involvement (readiness-to-hand) as their kind of Being, and which can thus make themselves known as they are in themselves [in seinem An-sich]." (BT 120/87) Dasein is able to discover entities in the world that are ready-to-hand as useful for various ends and purposes because it already possesses a familiarity with significance--with the way in which entities are contextualized. This is what allows entities to appear as they are.
"Dasein as such is always something of this sort; along with its Being, a context of the ready-to-hand is already essentially discovered: Dasein, in so far as it is, has always submitted itself already to a 'world' which it encounters, and this submission belongs essentially to its Being." (BT 120-121/87)
Heidegger says that the being of words and of language are founded on 'significations'. Significations can be disclosed because Dasein is always already familiar with significance itself. This familiarity is the ontological condition which makes it possible for Dasein to disclose significations. "The significance thus disclosed is an existential state of Dasein--of its Being-in-the-world; and as such it is the ontical condition for the possibility that a totality of involvements can be discovered." (BT 121/87)
Now one might object, at this point, that since the involvement (which is the being of the ready-to-hand) has been shown to be definable as a context of assignments or references--and since even worldhood may be so defined--then the 'substantial being' of entities within-the-world has been reduced to a set of relations grasped only in the realm of 'pure thinking'.
In answer, Heidegger reminds us of a number of structures or dimensions of this ontological inquiry (problematic) that need to be kept distinct: "1. the Being of those entities within-the-world which we proximally encounter--readiness-to-hand; 2. the Being of those entities which we can come across and whose nature we can determine if we discover them in their own right by going through the entities proximally encountered--presence-at-hand; 3. the Being of that ontical condition which makes it possible for entities within-the-world to be discovered at all--the worldhood of the world. This third kind of Being gives us an existential way of determining the nature of Being-in-the-world, that is, of Dasein." (BT 121/88) In other words, since Dasein has the character of being-in-the-world, understanding the worldhood of the world is especially closely tied to understanding the being of Dasein. The being of entities ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, however, is different from the kind of being that belongs to Dasein. (Here is the distinction between the existential and the categorial.)
Now Heidegger says that one can approach worldhood, which is constituted by that context of assignments and references, as a system of relations. But in doing so, one is apt to miss the real phenomenal contents of those references and assignments. "The phenomenal content of these 'Relations' and 'Relata' --the "in-order-to", the "for-the-sake-of", and the "with-which" of an involvement--is such that they resist any sort of mathematical functionalization; nor are they merely something thought, first posited in an 'act of thinking.'" (BT 121-122/88) Such a way of approaching entities in the world treats them as existing independently and in isolation before being brought, after the fact, into a web of relations. But that is not right. Heidegger says that we are already in that web. "This 'system of Relations', as something constitutive for worldhood, is so far from volatilizing the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world, that the worldhood of the world provides the basis on which such entities can for the first time be discovered as they are 'substantially' 'in themselves'." (BT 122/88) There is no meaningful sense in which an entity is the thing that it is apart from this web of assignments and references. "And only if entities within-the-world can be encountered at all, is it possible, in the field of such entities to make accessible what is just present-at-hand and no more." (BT 122/88) And entities can only be encountered if they already exist within-the-world, alongside-of Dasein.
"By reason of their Being-just-present-at-hand-and-no-more, these latter entities can have their 'properties' defined mathematically in 'functional concepts.' Ontologically, such concepts are possible only in relation to entities whose Being has the character of pure substantiality. Functional concepts are never possible except as formalized substantial concepts." (BT 122/88) [6]
Before delving deeper into our the ontological problematic (investigation) we shall set about clarifying this interpretation of worldhood by considering a case at the opposite extreme.
--
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Note the instance of "possibility of Dasein's being."
[2] Note the instance of "authenticity."
[3] This relatively early reference to time and tense should be noted for later.
[4] Important point for later. Take note.
[5] Another helpful summary statement.
[6] This use of 'functional' and 'formal' needs to be understood more clearly.
--
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 | 4:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home