External world (Aussenwelt), 201, 202-208 (§ 43a), 211, 273. See also proof (BT)
(1) whether any entities which supposedly ‘transcend our consciousness’ are at all; (2) whether this Reality of the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’ can be adequately proved; (3) how far this entity, if it is Real, is to be known in its Being-in-itself; (4) what the meaning of this entity, Reality, signifies in general. The following discussion of the problem of Reality will treat three topics with regard to the question of fundamental ontology: (a) Reality as a problem of Being, and whether the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’ can be proved; (b) Reality as an ontological problem; (c) Reality and care. [SZ:202] BTMR §43
Of these questions about Reality, the one which comes first in order is the ontological question of what “Reality” signifies in general. But as long as a pure ontological problematic and methodology was lacking, this question (if it was explicitly formulated at all) was necessarily confounded with a discussion of the ‘problem of the EXTERNAL WORLD’; for the analysis of Reality is possible only on the basis of our having appropriate access to the Real. But it has long been held that the way to grasp the Real is by that kind of knowing which is characterized by beholding [das anschauende Erkennen]. Such knowing ‘is’ as a way in which the soul – or consciousness – behaves. In so far as Reality has the character of something independent and “in itself”, the question of the meaning of “Reality” becomes linked with that of whether the Real can be independent ‘of consciousness’ or whether there can be a transcendence of consciousness into the ‘sphere’ of the Real. The possibility of an adequate ontological analysis of Reality depends upon how far that of which the Real is to be thus independent – how far that which is to be transcended – has itself been clarified with regard to its Being. Only thus can even the kind of Being which belongs to transcendence be ontologically grasped. And finally we must make sure what kind of primary access we have to the Real, by deciding the question of whether knowing can take over this function at all. BTMR §43
The question of whether there is a world at all and whether its Being can be proved, makes no sense if it is raised by Dasein as Being-in-the-world; and who else would raise it? Furthermore, it is encumbered with a double signification. The world as the “wherein” [das Worin] of Being-in, and the ‘world’ as entities within-the-world (that in which [das Wobei] one is concernfully absorbed) either have been confused or are not distinguished at all. But the world is disclosed essentially along with the Being of Dasein; with the disclosedness of the world, the ‘world’ has in each case been discovered too. Of course entities within-the-world in the sense of the Real as merely present-at-hand, are the very things that can remain concealed. But even the Real can be discovered only on the basis of a world which has already been disclosed. And only on this basis can anything Real still remain hidden. The question of the ‘Reality’ of the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’ gets raised without any previous clarification of the phenomenon of the world as such. Factically, the ‘problem of the EXTERNAL WORLD’ is constantly oriented with regard to entities within-the-world (Things and Objects). So these discussions drift along into a problematic which it is almost impossible to disentangle ontologically. [SZ:203] BTMR §43
If one were to conclude that since the Being-present-at-hand of Things outside of us is impossible to prove, it must therefore ‘be taken merely on faith’, one would still fail to surmount this perversion of the problem. The assumption would remain that at bottom and ideally it must still be possible to carry out such a proof. This inappropriate way of approaching the problem is still endorsed when one restricts oneself to a ‘faith in the Reality of the EXTERNAL WORLD’, even if such a faith is explicitly ‘acknowledged’ as such. Although one is not offering a stringent proof, one is still in principle demanding a proof and trying to satisfy that demand. BTMR §43
Even if one should invoke the doctrine that the subject must presuppose and indeed always does unconsciously presuppose the presence-at-hand of the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’, one would still be starting with the construct of an isolated subject. The phenomenon of Being-in-the-world is something that one would no more meet in this way than one would by demonstrating that the physical and the psychical are present-at-hand together. With such presuppositions, Dasein always comes ‘too late’; for in so far as it does this presupposing as an entity (and otherwise this would be impossible), it is, as an entity, already in a world. ‘Earlier’ than any presupposition which Dasein makes, or any of its ways of behaving, is the ‘a priori’ character of its state of Being as one whose kind of Being is care. [SZ:206] BTMR §43
To have faith in the Reality of the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’, whether rightly or wrongly; to “prove” this Reality for it, whether adequately or inadequately; to presuppose it, whether explicitly or not – attempts such as these which have not mastered their own basis with full transparency, presuppose a subject which is proximally worldless or unsure of its world, and which must, at bottom, first assure itself of a world. Thus from the very beginning, Being-in-a-world is disposed to “take things” in some way [Auffassen], to suppose, to be certain, to have faith – a way of behaving which itself is always a founded mode of Being-in-the-world. BTMR §43
The ‘problem of Reality’ in the sense of the question whether an EXTERNAL WORLD is present-at-hand and whether such a world can be proved, turns out to be an impossible one, not because its consequences lead to inextricable impasses, but because the very entity which serves as its theme, is one which, as it were, repudiates any such formulation of the question. Our task is not to prove that an ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’ is present-at-hand or to show how it is present-at-hand, but to point out why Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, has the tendency to bury the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’ in nullity ‘epistemologically’ before going on to prove it. The reason for this lies in Dasein’s falling and in the way in which the primary understanding of Being has been diverted to Being as presence-at-hand – a diversion which is motivated by that falling itself. If one formulates the question ‘critically’ with such an ontological orientation, then what one finds present-at-hand as proximally and solely certain, is something merely ‘inner’. After the primordial phenomenon of Being-in-the-world has been shattered, the isolated subject is all that remains, and this becomes the basis on which it gets joined together with a ‘world’. BTMR §43
Along with Dasein as Being-in-the-world, entities within-the-world have in each case already been disclosed. This existential-ontological assertion seems to accord with the thesis of realism that the EXTERNAL WORLD is Really present-at-hand. In so far as this existential assertion does not deny that entities within-the-world are present-at-hand, it agrees – doxographically, as it were – with the thesis of realism in its results. But it differs in principle from every kind of realism; for realism holds that. the Reality of the ‘world’ not only needs to be proved but also is capable of proof. In the existential assertion both of these positions are directly negated. But what distinguishes this assertion from realism altogether, is the fact that in realism there is a lack of ontological understanding. Indeed realism tries to explain Reality ontically by Real connections of interaction between things that are Real. BTMR §43
Nor is resistance experienced in a drive or will which ‘emerges’ in its own right. These both turn out to be modifications of care. Only entities with this kind of Being can come up against something resistant as something within-the-world. So if “Reality” gets defined as “the character of resisting”, we must notice two things: first, that this is only one character of Reality among others; second, that the character of resisting presupposes necessarily a world which has already been disclosed. Resistance characterizes the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’ in the sense of entities within-the-world, but never in the sense of the world itself. ‘Consciousness of Reality’ is itself a way of Being-in-the-world. Every ‘problematic of the EXTERNAL WORLD’ comes back necessarily to this basic existential phenomenon. [SZ:211] BTMR §43
When the they-self is appealed to, it gets called to the Self. But it does not get called to that Self which can become for itself an ‘object’ on which to pass judgment, nor to that Self which inertly dissects its ‘inner life’ with fussy curiosity, nor to that Self which one has in mind when one gazes ‘analytically’ at psychical conditions and what lies behind them. The appeal to the Self in the they-self does not force it inwards upon itself, so that it can close itself off from the ‘EXTERNAL WORLD’. The call passes over everything like this and disperses it, so as to appeal solely to that Self which, notwithstanding, is in no other way than Being-in-the-world. BTMR §56