Martin Heidegger

Introduction: Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher born in 1889; his most important contribution is his book "Being and Time." He raises an ontological question of "What is Being?" Throughout the history of Western philosophy, he believed past figures were mistaken about how we engage our world. The discovery of Heidegger made a preliminary phenomenological study of human experience. Heidegger was concerned in our contemporary life on how we viewed the world; with the rise of modern science emerging, an aim view of reality took shape in the West. An objective view of material objects and their causal interactions are reducible to mass, space-time position, velocity, and other quantifiable properties. This modern view by the scientist in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reduced our worldview as the everyday use of efficient causalities; an example is when a painter paints an object and regards the painter's motion painting the object as the efficient cause of painting an object. Heidegger was concerned with the meaning and making sense of our worldview. I will explain "Dasein" and how Heidegger posits being as "Dasein," the present-to-hand and readiness-to-hand, and the relation and differences.

    For Heidegger, he argued a distinction between “existentia” and” existence,” the term “existentia “relates to presence-at-hand” and for “existence” is allotted to Dasein. The essence of Dasein lies in its existence. In “Being and Time” by Heidegger, “To avoid getting bewildered, we shall always use the Interpretative expression “presence-at-hand” for the term “existential” while the term “existence” as a designation of Being, will be allotted solely to Dasein. The “essence” of Dasein lies in its existence.” For Heidegger, he did not posit “existential” like “properties” present-at-hand of an entity. He designated “existence” with the term “Dasein” as Being. In “Being and Time,” by Heidegger, “So when we designate this entity with the term ‘Dasein’ we are expressing not its “what” (as if it were a table, house or tree) but its Being.”

Dasein's existence becomes alive when dealing with entities or how Heidegger would call "equipment." For Heidegger, "ready-to-hand" is when we encounter the features of the world or tasks. Still, in such a way that it is unnoticed, "equipment" or entities we encounter in the world, as Heidegger would call "readiness-to-hand" is reducible to present-at-hand things. Heidegger argued that Dasein (being) and the world are an indissoluble unity. For example, a carpenter becomes absorbed in the activity to hammer the nails, a harmony between the carpenter and the action to hammer. In the book "Being and Time" by Heidegger, he writes: "The less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiled is it encountered as that which it is-as equipment." Heidegger then concludes that this being which this equipment possesses is called "readiness-to-hand."

This “present-at-hand” is distinct from the “readiness-to-hand” as I have described. The “readiness-to-hand” is unaware and becomes absorbed in this subject-object model all-encompassing unity. That there is a reciprocal relationship between the everyday activities and our identity as agents; how a carpenter uses a hammer to hammer nails, or as a college teacher being a college teacher and its everyday activities. All these relate to daily activities that require little consciousness or observation from the individual in which it is “readiness-to-hand.” It is when the hammer stops working then it becomes “present-at-hand”. In “Being and Time”, Heidegger writes, “The tool turns out to damaged, or the material unsuitable. In each of these cases equipment is here, ready-to-hand.” Heidegger explains by discovering the unsuitability requiring mental activities, in which circumspection posits awareness. The” equipment” has been present-at-hand, but the withdraw of such equipment is when present-at-hand announces itself when it exits to the readiness-at-hand in a way we put it back into repair.

In the book “Being and Time”, Heidegger writes, “The more urgently we need what is missing. And the more authentically it is encountered in its unreadiness-to-hand, all the more obtrusive does that which is ready-to-hand become so much so that it seems to lose its character of readiness-to-hand. It reveals itself as something just present-at-hand and no more…” When this “equipment” loses its character of readiness-to-hand, it becomes something as present-at-hand. The concern of everydayness of “Being-in-the-world” are modes in which we concern ourselves to something, the entities in which it closely relates us to ready-to-hand. Conspicuousness brings “equipment” in a certain way of unreadiness-to-hand. Obtrusiveness is the urgency of what is missing and authentically “equipment” becomes, in such a way that the “equipment” loses the character of readiness-to-hand as I have explained it reveals just as present-at-hand and no more. Anything that is un-ready-to-hand is of a disturbance, which enables us to see it as” obstinacy” in such a way we must enable a concern for ourselves before doing anything. These characteristics for Heidegger brought forth the present-at-hand in “what is ready-to-hand.”