What is Being-In-The-World?

What is Being-in-the-World?

For Heidegger, to even begin to understand Dasein's Being—meaning, the entities that we ourselves are—we must first look at the ground that allows our being to take on a definite character. This ground, or ‘state of being,’ as Heidegger calls it, is Being-in-the-world. That being said, a question begins to present itself: what is Being-in-the-world?

Being-in-the-world is what Heidegger calls a “unitary phenomenon,” meaning we must take it as a whole and not as some content that can be dissected into several pieces. The wholeness of the phenomenon is what Heidegger wishes to stress. However, Heidegger admits that this does not mean that the wholeness is without “items in its structure.”

In fact, from here, Heidegger proceeds to reveal to us three ways to look at Being-in-the-world. The first way is ‘in-the-world,’ which creates for us the investigation or task of understanding the ontological structure of the world as such, or, to use Heidegger's word, worldhood. The second way concerns the entity that is Being-in-the-world, followed up with the demonstration of “who is in the mode of Dasein’s average everydayness.” Lastly, the third way concerns what is meant by ‘Being-in’ within the expression itself.

Because the third way is the only one that Heidegger does not need a chapter to further elaborate on, unlike the first two ways, this essay will fall short in answering what is meant by Being-in-the-world. However, it will at least show how dense this expression, Being-in-the-world, is. So, let us return to Heidegger’s questioning of Being-in. If we were to guess what Being-in means through our everyday interaction with the word, we would admittedly associate the word as a spatial metaphor referring to things in the world. Heidegger provides us with an example:

“By this ‘in’ we mean the relationship of Being which two entities extended ‘in’ space have to each other with regard to their location in that space. Both water and glass, garment and cupboard, are ‘in’ space and ‘at’ that location, and both in the same way”(pg 79).

Noticeably, we can see that Heidegger is stressing both ‘in’ and ‘at’ to express how deeply spatial our understanding is. Not to mention how this ‘in’ has the ability to stack itself. For example, my laptop is ‘in’ my room, the room is ‘in’ my house, the house is ‘in’ the city, the city is ‘in’ the state, and so on. Heidegger calls this stacking ‘world-space.’ Therefore, my laptop is ‘in’ world-space. All things that have this spatial relationship are what Heidegger terms Being-present-at-hand. Essentially, anything that is not Dasein will have this kind of Being-present-at-hand and also what Heidegger views or names as “categorical” (pg 79).

But this is not what ‘Being-in’ means for Heidegger. Rather, ‘Being-in’ strictly refers to Dasein, ourselves. Being-in is a “state of Dasein’s Being; it is an existentiale.” What, then, is an existentiale? Previously, in the first chapter of Being and Time, Heidegger addresses this question by wanting to investigate and analyze Dasein in terms of existence. Meaning, he wants to explore the character of existence that structures Dasein—us. Therefore, Dasein must be understood in relation to existence, and any term that provides us with that understanding is what Heidegger calls an ‘existentiale.’ Essentially, we are not a what but a who, which is why Heidegger stresses the distinction between existentiales and categories.

That is all to say that ‘Being-in’ refers to the existence-structure of Dasein; it is what constitutes us as us. Heidegger breaks down the German word ‘innan’ for us, where the ‘in’ means to dwell or reside, and the ‘An’ means “I am familiar.” Here I quote at length:

“The expression ‘bin’ is connected with ‘bei,’ and so ‘ich bin’ [‘I am’] means in its turn ‘I reside’ or ‘dwell alongside’ the world, as that which is familiar to me in such and such a way. ‘Being’ [Sein], as the infinitive of ‘ich bin’ (that is to say, when it is understood as an existentiale), signifies ‘to reside alongside...’, ‘to be familiar with...’. ‘Being-in’ is thus the formal existentiale expression for the Being of Dasein, which has Being-in-the-world as its essential state. ‘Being alongside’ the world in the sense of being absorbed in the world (a sense which calls for still closer interpretation) is an existentiale founded upon Being-in. (pg 80)”

So, it is here that our Being-in is what allows us, Dasein, to be “absorbed in the world” and alongside it. If we want to further understand what it means to ‘Be alongside’ (Being-in), Heidegger recommends that we begin by contrasting the two ontological distinctions of existentiale and categorial. What is especially important for Heidegger is that we do not confuse these distinctions. If we do, we might become tempted to think that the Being-present-at-hand together of Things also applies to Dasein. The consequence of this mistake would be that we begin to think of Dasein as somehow a separate entity from the world, as just another entity. Rather, in order for anything to be ‘encountered,’ it must involve an entity that has Being-in: Dasein. Entities that are simply present-at-hand are fundamentally ‘worldless’ in relation to other things that are also present-at-hand; therefore, they cannot be ‘alongside’ each other.

However, Heidegger notes that Dasein itself can be disregarded and treated as a thing, as present-at-hand. As a result, Heidegger introduces something very specific to Dasein, what he calls ‘presence-at-hand,’ which is the way Dasein understands itself as fact, or, to put it another way, as the fact of its being:

“And yet the ‘factuality’ of the fact [Tatsache] of one’s own Dasein is at bottom quite different ontologically from the factual occurrence of some kind of mineral, for example. Whenever Dasein is, it is as a Fact; and the factuality of such a Fact is what we shall call Dasein’s ‘facticity’” (pg 82).

Simply put, the fact of ourselves is ontologically different from the fact of things. Facticity, then, is another way of saying that we are entangled, enmeshed by Being-in-the-world, which creates an understanding of ourselves that cannot be separate from the entities we encounter—those that have Being-present-at-hand. Nevertheless, this is not to imply that there is no spatiality to Dasein; there is, but we must first understand Being-in-the-world before we begin to address the spatiality of Dasein.

Now that we have addressed some of the preliminary remarks on Being-in, Heidegger goes on to say that we are dispersed in the world such that we have a multiplicity of ways of Being-in:

“The multiplicity of these is indicated by the following examples: having to do with something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go, undertaking, accomplishing, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, determining…. All these ways of Being-in have concern as their kind of Being–a kind of Being which we have yet to characterize in detail. Leaving undone, neglecting, renouncing, taking a rest–these too are ways of concern; but these are all deficient modes, in which the possibilities of concern are kept to a ‘bare minimum’ (pg 83).”

What is striking in this passage is the obscurity within Heidegger's description of concern and its apparent deficient mode. I am tempted to say that Heidegger’s understanding of “bare minimum” might have to do with the degree to which we find ourselves occupied or, perhaps, the intensity with which we are occupied with something. Maybe concern has more to do with the amount of effort and attention something requires, which qualifies the ways in which Heidegger considers our Being-in. However, what exactly is Heidegger’s definition of concern?

“Here, ‘concern’ means something like apprehensiveness. (pg 83)”

So, concern is something ‘like’ apprehensiveness, and unfortunately, the translators do not address what Heidegger means by apprehensiveness. However, we could perhaps gather that it does not mean to fear or to worry because that would make little sense given the examples Heidegger has provided. Instead, we find a minor footnote that addresses only partially what Heidegger means by concern:

“‘Besorgen’ stands rather for the kind of ‘concern’ in which we ‘concern ourselves’ with activities that we perform or things that we procure. (pg 83)”

If this is even approximately accurate, then maybe concern does have to do with the way we occupy ourselves in the world. Not to mention, Heidegger uses the words "practical" and "economic" to describe his use of concern, but his main point is how concern is a possible way of Being-in-the-world that becomes seeable by care. Care is not how we colloquially understand it, but at the same time, it is what allows us to both care in the colloquial sense and also be carefree. Nonetheless, care as an ontological concept will be addressed at another time by Heidegger, but for the time being, what is important for us to know is that “Being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein, its Being towards the world is essentially concern (pg 84).” At last, Heidegger grants us a sense that concern is our towardness, our directionality (non-spatial) at the world.

A possible misunderstanding would be to assume that Being-in is a property of Dasein and that having a relationship with the world is some extra thing added on. Rather, it is because Dasein is always already Being-in-the-world that such a relationship with the world is possible. This also includes those entities that are being-present-at-hand, which are fundamentally worldless without Dasein, meaning such entities cannot be discovered until they are within a world constituted by Dasein.

What about man’s environment? What about the claim that we have an environment? For Heidegger, it is by virtue of Being-in that having an environment is made possible. It is because Dasein can encounter, which appears to be a key word that is only attached to Dasein. To restate this more clearly, Dasein can encounter because it is always already Being-in-the-world that it can know and discover entities.

The essential problem that we discover in understanding Being-in is precisely how we have interpreted this state of being for Dasein. For Heidegger, we have interpreted Being-in horribly wrong, meaning we have provided an interpretation that involved entities that we are not—being-present-at-hand. And because Being-in-the-world includes familiarity with it, it also implies knowing of it. The problem in its fullest clarity is stated here by Heidegger:

“Knowing the world–or rather addressing oneself to the ‘world’ and discussing it–thus functions as the primary mode of Being-in-the-world, even though Being-in-the-world does not as such get conceived. But because this structure of Being remains ontologically inaccessible, yet is experienced ontically as a ‘relationship’ between one entity (the world) and another (the soul), and because one proximally understands Being by taking entities as entities within-the-world for one’s ontological foothold, one tries to conceive the relationship between world and soul as grounded in these two entities themselves and in the meaning of their Being–namely, to conceive it as Being-present-at-hand (pg 86).”

Remember, Being-in-the-world is a unitary phenomenon which, according to Heidegger, we have split and confused with other entities that are being-present-at-hand—objects. Such a mistaken interpretation creates the problem of the subject-object divide when we do not properly provide an adequate interpretation. Instead, Being-in-the-world withdraws and becomes hidden when we interpret it in such a way. Heidegger then proposes to us that it is this primary mode of Being-in-the-world, our knowing, as an exemplar, that has resulted in this trouble and obfuscation of Being-in.

To conclude, Being-in is not a spatial relationship with things but an existentiale of Dasein. It is our concern, our towardness to the world, an existence-structure that constitutes Dasein—an a priori state of being that makes encountering any entity possible within a world. We are alongside the world and always already familiar with it. And because we are familiar with it, we are dispersed with all the ways we can have concern with the world—care. Although Being-in is primary for Heidegger, it can also pose problems for us when we do not adequately provide an ontological interpretation, where knowing itself becomes a primary mode of Being-in, creating false epistemological problems such as the object-subject divide. Or at least, this is what I imagine Heidegger to be claiming.

Source: Heidegger, Being and Time translation by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson