351 II. IV
Being and Time

them around, or out of the way, a region has already been discovered. Being-in-the-world that takes care is directed, directing itself. Belonging- somewhere has an essential relation to relevance. It is always factically determined in terms of the context of relevance of the useful things taken care of. The relevant relations are intelligible only in the horizon of a disclosed world. Their horizonal nature also first makes possible the specific horizon of the whereto of regional belonging. The self-directive discovering of a region is grounded in an ecstatically retentive awaiting of the possible hither and whither. As a directed awaiting of region, making room is equiprimordially a bringing-near [Nähern] (or de-distancing) of things at hand and objectively present. De-distancing, taking care comes back out of the previously discovered [369] region to what is nearest [Nächste]. Bringing-near and the estimating and measurement of distances within what is present within the de-distanced world are grounded in a making-present that belongs to the unity of temporality in which directionality is possible, too.

Because Dasein as temporality is ecstatic and horizonal in its being, it can factically and constantly take along space for which it has made room. With regard to this space ecstatically made room for, the here of its actual factical location or situation never signifies a position in space, but the leeway of the range of the totality of useful things taken care of nearby—a leeway that has been opened in directionality and de-distancing.

In bringing-close [Näherung] that makes possible the handling and being occupied that is "absorbed in the matter," the essential structure of care—falling prey—makes itself known. Its existential and temporal constitution is distinguished by the fact that in falling prey, and thus also in the bringing near which is founded in "making present," the forgetting that awaits pursues the present. In the making present that brings something near from its wherefrom, making present loses itself in itself, and forgets the over there. For this reason, if the "observation" of innerworldly beings starts in such a making present, the illusion arises that "initially" only a thing is present, here indeed, but indeterminately, in a space in general.

Only on the basis of ecstatic and horizonal temporality is it possible for Dasein to break into space. The world is not objectively present in space; however, only within a world can space be discovered. The ecstatic temporality of the spatiality of Dasein makes the independence of space upon time comprehensible; but, on the other hand, this same temporality also makes intelligible the "dependency" of Dasein upon space—a dependency that makes itself manifest in the familiar phenomenon that both the self-interpretation of Dasein and the stock of meaning so pervasive in language in general are thoroughly dominated by "spatial representations." This priority of the spatial in the articulation


Martin Heidegger (GA 2) Being & Time (S&S)