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 Heidegger
insisted that we typically pass over, ignore,
misunderstand or presuppose what he called "the
phenomenon of world" (p. 104). World is the
"totality of equipment," (97), the "referential
totality," (107) the "totality of involvements
which is... 'earlier' than any single item of
equipment" (116). As he explained in The Basic
Problems of Phenomenology:
"How
do the beings with which we dwell show
themselves to us primarily and for the most
part? Sitting here in the auditorium, we do not
in fact apprehend walls--not unless we are
getting bored. Nevertheless, the walls are
already present even before we think them as
objects. Much else also gives itself to us
before any determining of it by thought. Much
else--but how? Not as a jumbled heap of things
but as an environs, a surroundings, which
contains within itself a closed, intelligible
contexture What is given to us primarily is the
unity of an equipmental whole, a unity that
constantly vaires in range, expanding or
contracting, and that is expressly visible for
the most part only in excerpts" (1975/1982, p.
162-3).
We
know this whole, and the entities in it,
practically, not reflectively: this contexture
stands in view "not for the contemplator as though
we sitting here in order to describe the things"
but instead "completely unobtrusive and unthought,
[in] the view and sight of practical
circumspection, of our practical everyday
orientation" (p. 163).
And
world provides the ground against which entities
show up. It provides the "upon-which" of
being--this is what Heidegger called, rather
confusingly, "the meaning of being." World,
context, "narrower or broader-room, house,
neighborhood, town, city--is the prius, within
which specific beings, as beings of this or that
character, are what they are and exhibit them- IE
selves correspondingly" (p. 164).
John
Caputo calls this upon-which "the nourishing
principle" which makes it possible for an
entity--and for Dasein--to be. As Caputo points
out, "Heidegger was never concerned with a simple
Being/beings distinction There was always a third
thing, beyond Being, which ultimately held his
interest" (Caputo, 1987, ' p. 85). This "third
thing" was world and context, culture and history.
Heidegger wrote, for example, that "in order to
understand in the contexture of their functionality
the beings that are closest to us and all the
things we encounter and their equipmental
contexture, we need an antecedent understanding of
functionality-whole, significance-contexture, that
is, world in general" (1975/1982, p. 171). In this
respect, Heidegger "is already engaged in a
destruction of ontology, an overcoming of the
metaphysics of Being as presence" (Caputo, 1987, p.
85).
World
is, ontologically, "a characteristic of Dasein
itself' (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p. 92). World is not
what is, or even the totality of things that are.
It is not the physical universe; it is "so to
speak, Dasein-ish. It is not extant like things but
it is da, there-here, like the Dasein, the being-da
which we ourselves are. [T]he world... has
Dasein's mode of being" (Caputo, 1987). In other
words, world is social, cultural, a human
production, the product of collective human
activity.
The
being of humans is defined by the context of
"world" too. To be human is to understand and
interpret: to have an understanding, albeit tacit,
partial, and unarticulated, of the being of
entities, of our own being, and of the world we are
in. We encounter entities with a kind of concern
that grasps them and puts them to use, not with a
bare perceptual cognition. To grasp an entity in
practical activity is to project it into and onto
the world that is its context. What shows up is the
being of the entity, and at the same time we get a
practical sense of who we are:
"For
Heidegger, our everyday action always embodies
an interpretation of who we are, albeit one
generally concealed and misunderstood. Each of
us grows up in and into a traditional way of
interpreting ourselves, which lays out
possibilities for our being. Grasping these
possibilities, we take a stand on our existence.
Heidegger's analysis loosens up and dissolves
the hardened paint of the traditional picture of
individuality, subjectivity and objectivity,
knowledge, reason and emotion, thought and
action, identity, and inquiry. Sixty years
later, theflux he initiated continues to swell"
(Packer & Addison, 1989).
Heidegger
pointed out that the things around us are not first
of all objects for our inspection, they are tools
or items of equipment. When action is going
smoothly what we are aware of is the point of the
activity of project for which the tool is grasped.
And a tool functions as a "prosthetic device," like
an extension to the body: it provides the tool-user
with a feel for the material being worked on, and a
sense of how they are doing, as well as a way of
making something.
Notice how compatible this way of thinking is with
the presumptions of conversation analysis. An
utterance is one kind of entity, like any other
except it is made on the spot, off hand, in the
moment: it is an improvised artifact. When we say
that an utterance is a "conversational device" we
mean that it is produced to make a point, and that
its use provides the speaker with a feel for the
other person (through their response), and gives
her a sense of herself (she discovers herself in
her words), as well as a means to accomplish
something socially.
To
understand a speech act is to grasp it in practical
activity; to recognize its point. It is a matter of
grasping where the speaker is coming from, not in
the sense of beliefs that are expressed, but in the
sense of grasping where they are going, what they
are getting at--what their practical concern is.
And just as the way a , , tool is projected will
depend on (1) the ongoing project in which it is
employed; (2) the "upon-which"; and (3) the
practices of the "anyone", the way an utterance is
understood depends on (1) the ongoing conversation
of which it is a part, (2) the context: the
here-&-now, and (3) familiarity with the public
conventions and maxims of language which together
make up the "fore-structure" of interpretation. The
conversation is an ongoing project, a way of being
involved: the "fore-view."
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