involvement

Bewandtnis  

Signs of the kind we have described let what is ready-to-hand   be encountered; more precisely, they let some context of it become accessible in such a way that our concernful dealings take on an orientation and hold it secure. A sign is not   a Thing which stands to another Thing in the relationship of indicating; it is rather an item of equipment which explicitly raises a totality of equipment into our circumspection so that together with it the worldly character of the ready-to-hand announces itself. In a symptom or a warningsignal, ‘what is coming’ ‘indicates itself’, but not in the sense of something [SZ  :80] merely occurring, which comes as an addition to what is already presentat-hand; ‘what is coming’ is the sort of thing which we are ready for, or which we ‘weren’t ready for’ if we have been attending to something else. In signs of something that has happened already, what has come to pass and run its course becomes circumspectively accessible. A sign to mark something indicates what one is ‘at’ at any time. Signs always indicate primarily ‘wherein’ one lives, where one’s concern dwells, what sort of INVOLVEMENT there is with something. BTMR §17

We have indicated that the state which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand as equipment is one of reference or assignment. How can entities with this kind of Being be freed by the world with regard to their Being? Why are these the first entities to be encountered? As definite, kinds of references we have mentioned serviceability-for-, detrimentality [Abträglichkeit  ], usability, and the like. The "towards-which" [das Wozu  ] of a serviceability and the "for-which" [das Wofür] of a usability prescribed the ways in which such a reference or assignment can become concrete. But the ‘indicating’ of the sign and the ‘hammering’ of the hammer are not properties of entities. Indeed, they are not properties at all, if the ontological structure designated by the term ‘property’ is that of some definite character which it is possible for Things to possess [einer möglichen Bestimmtheit   von Dingen]. 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. Serviceability too, however, as a constitutive state of equipment (and serviceability is a reference), is not an appropriateness of some entity; it is rather the condition (so far as Being is in question) which makes it possible for the character of such an entity to be defined by its appropriatenesses. But what, then, is "reference" or "assignment" to mean? To say that the Being of the ready-to-hand has the structure of assignment or reference means that it has in itself the character of having been assigned or referred [Verwiesenheit  ]. An entity is discovered when it has been assigned or referred to something, and referred as that entity which it is. With any such entity there is an INVOLVEMENT which it has in something. 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" . BTMR §18

[SZ:84] 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. That in which it is involved is the "towards-which" of serviceability, and the "for-which" of usability. 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. Whenever something ready-to-hand has an INVOLVEMENT with it, what INVOLVEMENT this is, has in each case been outlined in advance in terms of the totality of such INVOLVEMENTS. In a workshop, for example, the totality of INVOLVEMENTS which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand in its readiness-to-hand, is ‘earlier’ than any single item of equipment; so too for the farmstead with all its utensils and outlying lands. 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. BTMR §18

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. Letting an entity be involved, ‘if we understand this ontologicailly, consists in previously freeing it for [auf  ] its readiness-to-hand within the environment. When we let something be involved, it must be involved in something; and in terms of this "in-which", the "with-which" of this INVOLVEMENT is freed. Our concern encounters it as this thing that is ready-to-hand. To the extent that any entity shows itself to concern – that is, to the extent that it is discovered in its Being – it is already something ready-to-hand environmentally; it just is not ‘proximally’ a ‘world-stuff’ that is merely present-at-hand. BTMR §18

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. So in any INVOLVEMENT that has been discovered (that is, in anything ready-to-hand which we encounter), what we have called the "worldly character" of the ready-to-hand has been discovered beforehand. 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. But that for which something environmentally ready-to-hand has thus been freed (and indeed in such a manner that it becomes accessible as an entity within-the-world first of all), cannot itself be conceived as an entity with this discovered kind of Being. It is essentially not discoverable, if we henceforth reserve "discoveredness" as a term for a possibility of Being which every entity without the character of Dasein may possess. BTMR §18

Whenever we let there be an INVOLVEMENT with something in something beforehand, our doing so is grounded in our understanding such things as letting something be involved, and such things as the "with-which" and the "in-which" of INVOLVEMENTS. Anything of this sort, and anything else that is basic for it, such as the "towards-this" as that in which there is an INVOLVEMENT, or such as the "for-the-sake-of-which" to which every "towards-which" ultimately goes back – all these must be disclosed beforehand with a certain intelligibility [Verständlichkeit  ]. 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. This "in-order-to" prescribes a "towards-this" as a possible "in-which" for letting something be involved; and the structure of letting it be involved implies that this is an INVOLVEMENT which something has – an INVOLVEMENT which is with something. Dasein always assigns itself from a "for-the-sake-of-which" to the "with-which" of an INVOLVEMENT; that is to say, to the extent that it is, it always lets entities be encountered as ready-to-hand. 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. BTMR §18

In the act of understanding [Verstehen], which we shall analyse more thoroughly later (Compare Section 31), the relations indicated above must have been previously disclosed; the act of understanding holds them in this disclosedness. It holds itself in them with familiarity; and in so doing, it holds them before itself, for it is in these that its assignment operates. The understanding lets itself make assignments both in these relationships themselves and of them. The relational character which these relationships of assigning possess, we take as one 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. The "for-the-sake-of-which" signifies an "in-order-to"; this in turn, a "towards-this"; the latter, an "in-which" of letting something be involved; and that in turn, the "with-which" of an INVOLVEMENT. These relationships are bound up with one another as a primordial totality; they are what they are a s this signifying [Be-deuten] in which Dasein gives itself beforehand its Being-in-the-world as something to be understood. The relational totality of this signifying we call "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-sieh]. 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 submission1 belongs essentially to its Being. BTMR §18

If we have thus determined that the Being of the ready-to-hand (INVOLVEMENT) is definable as a context of assignments or references, and that even worldhood may so be defined, then has not the ‘substantial Being’ of entities within-the-world been volatilized into a system   of Relations? And inasmuch as Relations are always ‘something thought’, has not the Being of entities within-the-world been dissolved into ‘pure thinking’? [SZ:88] BTMR §18

– 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.’ They are rather relationships in which concernful circumspection as such already dwells. 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’. 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. 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. BTMR §18

Dasein, in its very Being, has this Being as an issue; and its concern discovers beforehand those regions in which some INVOLVEMENT is decisive. BTMR §22

With anything encountered as ready-to-hand there is always an INVOLVEMENT in [bei  ] a region. BTMR §24

To the totality of INVOLVEMENTS which makes up the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world, there belongs a spatial INVOLVEMENT which has the character of a region. BTMR §24

By reason of such an INVOLVEMENT, the ready-to-hand becomes something which we can come across and ascertain as having form and direction. BTMR §24

If this is ready-to-hand, then there lies in the kind of Being which belongs to it (that is, in its INVOLVEMENT) an essential assignment or reference to possible wearers, for instance, for whom it should be ‘cut to the figure’. BTMR §26

In Being-familiar with this significance and previously understanding it, Dasein lets what is ready-to-hand be encountered as discovered in its INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §26

In Dasein’s Being, the context of references or assignments which significance implies is tied up with Dasein’s ownmost Being – a Being which essentially can have no INVOLVEMENT, but which is rather that Being for the sake of which Dasein itself is as it is. BTMR §26

What we encounter has detrimentality as its kind of INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §30

In terms of the significance which is disclosed in understanding the world, concernful Being-alongside the ready-to-hand gives itself to understand whatever INVOLVEMENT that which is encountered can have. BTMR §32

In interpreting, we do not, so to speak, throw a ‘signification’ over some naked thing which is present-at-hand, we do not stick a value on it; but when something within-the-world is encountered as such, the [SZ:150] thing in question already has an INVOLVEMENT which is disclosed in our understanding of the world, and this INVOLVEMENT is one which gets laid out by the interpretation  . BTMR §32

Thus it is essentially incapable of having an INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §40

In anxiety one does not encounter this thing or that thing which, as something threatening, must have an INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §40

Environmental entities no longer have any INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §68

The world in which I exist has sunk into insignificance; and the world which is thus disclosed is one in which entities can be freed only in the character of having no INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §68

The present-at-hand must be encountered in just such a way that it does not have any INVOLVEMENT whatsoever, but can show itself in an empty mercilessness. BTMR §68

This way of taking what is dealt with, is forced upon us also if we consider that character of Being which belongs distinctively to equipment that is ready-to-hand – namely, INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §69

We understand the term “INVOLVEMENT” ontologically. BTMR §69

The kind of talk in which we say that something has with it an INVOLVEMENT in something, is not meant to establish a fact ontically, but rather to indicate the kind of Being that belongs to what is ready-to-hand. BTMR §69

The relational character of INVOLVEMENT – of its ‘with … BTMR §69

Our concernful dealings can let what is ready-to-hand be encountered circumspectively only if in these dealings we already understand something like the INVOLVEMENT which something has in something. BTMR §69

The Being-alongside which discovers circumspectively in concern, amounts to letting something be involved – that is, to projecting an INVOLVEMENT understandingly. BTMR §69

Neither does the retaining of that which has an INVOLVEMENT signify holding it fast thematically. BTMR §69

The making-present which awaits and retains, gets held   up with regard to its absorption in relationships of INVOLVEMENT, and it gets held up by what will exhibit itself afterwards as damage. BTMR §69

On the other hand, the only way in which the making-present itself can meet up with anything unsuitable, is by already operating in such a way as to retain awaitingly that which has an INVOLVEMENT in something. BTMR §69

On the other hand, when one is making present something ready-to-hand by awaiting, the possibility of one’s getting surprised by something is based upon one’s not awaiting something else which stands in a possible context of INVOLVEMENT with what one awaits. BTMR §69

When, in one’s concern, one lets something be involved, one’s doing so is founded on temporality, and amounts to an altogether pre-ontological and non-thematic way of understanding INVOLVEMENT and readiness-to-hand. BTMR §69

The INVOLVEMENT-character of the ready-to-hand does not first get discovered by deliberation, but only gets brought close by it in such a manner as to let that in which something has an INVOLVEMENT, be seen circumspectively as this very thing. [ BTMR §69

But if Dasein is to be able to have any dealings with a context of equipment, it must understand something like an INVOLVEMENT, even if it does not do so thematically: a world must have been disclosed to it. BTMR §69

Belonging-somewhere has an essential relationship to INVOLVEMENT. BTMR §70

Relationships of INVOLVEMENT are intelligible only within the horizon   of a world that has been disclosed. BTMR §70

Abandoned to the ‘world’ which is discovered with its factical “there”, and concernfully submitted to it, Dasein awaits its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world; it awaits it in such a manner that it ‘reckons’ on and ‘reckons’ with whatever has an INVOLVEMENT for the sake of this potentiality-for-Being – an INVOLVEMENT which, in the end, is a distinctive one. BTMR §80

The ‘then’ with which Dasein concerns itself gets dated in terms of something which is connected with getting bright, and which is connected with it in the closest kind of environmental INVOLVEMENT – namely, the rising of the sun. “ BTMR §80

Thus Dasein dates the time which it must take, and dates it in terms of something it encounters within the world and within the horizon of its abandonment to the world – in terms of something encountered as having a distinctive INVOLVEMENT for its circumspective potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. BTMR §80

Inasmuch as this reconstruction and ‘rounding-out’ of the traditional ontology of the ‘world’ results in our reaching the same entities with which we started when we analysed the readiness-to-hand of equipment and the totality of [SZ:100] INVOLVEMENTS, it seems as if the Being of these entities ‘has in fact been clarified or has at least become a problem. BTMR §21

Its belonging-somewhere at the time [Die jeweilige Hingehörigheit] corresponds to the equipmental character of what is ready-to-hand; that is, it corresponds to the belonging-to [Zugehörigkeit] which the ready-to-hand has towards a totality of equipment in accordance with its INVOLVEMENTS. BTMR §22

This discovery of regions beforehand is co-determined [mitbestimint] by ,the totality of INVOLVEMENTS for which the ready-to-hand, as something encountered, is freed. [ BTMR §22

The ‘environment’ does not arrange itself in a space which has been given in advance; but its specific worldhood, in its significance, Articulates the context of INVOLVEMENTS which belongs to some current to tality of circumspectively allotted places. BTMR §22

This discovery, which is founded upon the worldhood of the world, is one which we have characterized as freeing entities for a totality of INVOLVEMENTS. BTMR §24

To free a totality of INVOLVEMENTS is, equiprimordially, to let something be involved at a region, and to do so by de-severing and giving directionality; this amounts to freeing the spatial belonging-somewhere of the ready-to-hand. BTMR §24

a possible totality of spaces determined by INVOLVEMENTS, this making-room is what makes possible one’s factical orientation at the time. BTMR §24

When entities are encountered, Dasein’s world frees them for a totality of INVOLVEMENTS with which the “they” is familiar, and within the limits which have been established with the “they’s” averageness. BTMR §27

It shows itself within a context of INVOLVEMENTS. BTMR §30

The totality of INVOLVEMENTS is revealed as the categorial whole of a possible interconnection of the ready-to-hand. BTMR §31

In the mere encountering of something, it is understood in terms of a totality of INVOLVEMENTS; and such seeing hides in itself the explicitness of the assignment-relations (of the “in-order-to”) which belong to that totality. [ BTMR §32

The ready-to-hand is always understood in terms of a totality of INVOLVEMENTS. BTMR §32

As the appropriation of understanding, the interpretation operates in Being towards a totality of INVOLVEMENTS which is already understood – a Being which understands. BTMR §32

In its function of appropriating what is understood, the ‘as’ no longer reaches out into a totality of INVOLVEMENTS. BTMR §33

Here the totality of INVOLVEMENTS of the ready-to-hand and the presentat-hand discovered within-the-world, is, as such, of no consequence; it collapses into itself; the world has the character of completely lacking significance. BTMR §40

When Being-out-for-something comes up against resistance, and can do nothing but ‘come up against it’, it is itself already alongside a totality of INVOLVEMENTS. BTMR §43

But the concernful actualization of equipment which is ready-to-hand (as in producing it, getting it ready, readjusting it, and so on) is always merely relative, since even that which has been actualized is still characterized in terms of some INVOLVEMENTS – indeed this is precisely what characterizes its Being. BTMR §53

The discoveredness of the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand is based on the disclosedness of the world for if the current totality of INVOLVEMENTS is to be freed, this requires that significance be understood beforehand. BTMR §60

Any discovering of a totality of INVOLVEMENTS goes back to a “for-the-sake-of-which”; and on the understanding of such a “for-the-sake-of-which” is based in turn the understanding of significance as the disclosedness of the current world. BTMR §60

What is essential to it is that one should have a primary understanding of the totality of INVOLVEMENTS within which factical concern always takes its start. BTMR §69

But if deliberation is to be able to operate in the scheme of the ‘if – then’, concern must already have ‘surveyed’ a context of INVOLVEMENTS and have an understanding of it. BTMR §69

Circumspective concern includes the understanding of a totality of INVOLVEMENTS, and this understanding is based upon a prior understanding of the relationships of the “in-order-to”, the “towards-which”, the “towards-this”, and the “for-the-sake-of”. BTMR §69