Haugeland (2013:6-8) – remissão referencial [Verweisungsbezug]

Imaginemos, por exemplo, que as regras do xadrez não estavam explicitamente codificadas, mas eram observadas apenas como um conjunto de normas de conformismo — "como se atua" em circunstâncias de jogo de xadrez. Assim, é correto (socialmente aceitável) mover o rei em qualquer uma das oito direções, mas apenas uma casa de cada vez. Para que isto seja uma norma, os jogadores e os mestres/juízes devem ser capazes de "dizer" (responder de forma diferente, dependendo) qual a peça que é o rei, quais as casas e direções, o que conta como um movimento, etc. De acordo com outras normas, o rei começa numa determinada casa, deve ser protegido sempre que for atacado, não pode atravessar uma casa ameaçada, pode "rocar" em determinadas condições, etc. O ponto importante é que é o mesmo rei, o mesmo tipo instituído, que está envolvido em cada norma: por conseguinte, as próprias normas estão inter-relacionadas, dependendo do mesmo tipo de circunstâncias. Chamamos papel a um tipo que está envolvido em muitas normas inter-relacionadas (por exemplo, o papel do rei no xadrez). Muitas normas estão também relacionadas através da ordenação de quadrados, movimentos, ameaças, outros tipos de peças, etc. Obviamente, de fato, todas as normas e papéis do xadrez estão ligados num conjunto profundamente interdependente.

Imagine, for instance, that the rules of chess were not   explicitly codified but were observed only as a body of conformists’ norms—“how one acts” when in chess-playing circumstances. Thus, it is proper (socially acceptable) to move the king in any of eight directions, but only one square at a time. For this to be a norm  , players and teacher/censors must be able to “tell” (respond differentially, depending on) which piece is the king, what the squares and directions are, what counts as a move, and so on. According to other norms, the king starts on a given square, must be protected whenever attacked, cannot cross a threatened square, can “castle” under certain conditions, and so on. The important point is that it is the same king, the same instituted sort, that is involved in each norm: hence, the norms themselves are interrelated in depending on the same sorting of circumstances. We call a sort that is involved in many interrelated norms a role (e.g., the role of the king in chess). Many norms are also related through the sorting of squares, moves, threats, other kinds of pieces, and what have you; obviously, in fact, all the norms and roles of chess are bound up in a deeply interdependent bundle.

Heidegger makes these points in terms of the equipment and paraphernalia of everyday life, but the upshot is the same. Hammers, nails, boards, and drills, screwdrivers, screws, and glue are all bound together in a (large) nexus of intertwined roles, instituted by the norms of carpentry practice, and that is what makes them what they are. Consider what marks off our use of tools from the uses apes sometimes make of sticks, or ants or aphids. It is not that people use things more cleverly or more effectively or that we use them only to fashion other things, though all of these may be true. The main difference is that tools have proper uses—for each tool, there is “what it’s for.” If an ape uses a stick to get bananas, whether cleverly or not, whether successfully or not, it has in no sense used it either properly or improperly. You or I, on the other hand  , might use a screwdriver properly to drive in screws or improperly to carve graffiti on a subway wall; either way, the propriety is independent of our cleverness or success. One misuses (or abuses) a screwdriver to gouge walls—that is not what screwdrivers are for. An ape could not misuse a stick, no matter what it did.

[7] Being a screwdriver, like being a chess king, is being that which plays a certain role in relation to other things with interdetermined roles. These mutually defining role relations are constitutive of equipment or paraphernalia as such. Though Heidegger distinguishes and names quite a few varieties (especially SZ   sections 15-17), we need only his generic term, ‘referral’: [1] ]

Taken strictly, there never “is” an equipment. … In the structure [essential to equipment] there lies a referral of one thing to another. . . . Equipment always accords with its [own] equipmentality by belonging to other equipment: pen, nib, ink, blotter, table, lamp, furniture, windows, doors, room. (SZ 68) [2]

The totality of all paraphernalia cum referral relations is called the “referral nexus of significance,” but since the term ‘paraphernalia’ is taken broadly enough to include practically everything with which we ordinarily work, cope, or bother (except other people), this totality is tantamount, in fact, to the everyday world.

The everyday world, of course, is not the universe or the planet Earth but rather the “world” of daily life and affairs—the world that has the business world and the wide world of sports as specialized portions. [3] It is essentially a cultural product, given determinate character by—instituted by—the norms of the conformists who live in it:

The anyone itself. . . articulates the referral nexus of significance. (SZ 129)

[8] This is a central thesis   of Being and Time, which I venture to sum up in a memorable slogan: all constitution is institution. [4]