simply been annihilated. Of course, something can be unavailable in such a way that it no longer is at all, that it has been annihilated. But the question then arises as to what this annihilation means, whether it can be equated with not-being and nothing. In any event, we see again that even in a rough analysis a multiplicity of intrinsically founded levels of being are manifested within the being of things and of equipment alone. How the understanding of equipment traces back to the understanding of functionality, significance, and world, and hence to the ecstatic-horizonal constitution of the Dasein, has already been roughly shown. We are now interested solely in the mode of being of equipment, its handiness, with regard to its Temporal possibility, that is, with regard to how we understand handiness as such in temporal terms.
From the reference to the possible modification of the being of the handy in becoming unavailable, we can infer that handiness and unavailability are specific variations of a single basic phenomenon, which we may characterize formally as presence and absence and in general as praesens. If handiness or the being of this being has a praesensial meaning, then this would signify that this mode of being is understood Temporally, that is to say, understood from the temporalizing of temporality in the sense of the ecstatic-horizonal unity described earlier. Here, in the dimension of the interpretation of being via time, we are purposely making use of Latinate expressions for all the determinations of time, in order to keep them distinct in the terminology itself from the time-determinations of temporality in the previously described sense. What does praesens mean with regard to time and temporality in general? If we were to answer that it is the moment of the present, that would be saying very little. The question remains why we do not say "the present" instead of "praesens." If nevertheless we employ this term, this new usage must correspond to a new meaning. If the difference in names is to be justified the two phenomena, the present and praesens, should not mean the same thing. But is praesens perhaps identical with the phenomenon of the present which we came to know as the now, the nun, toward which the common interpretation of time is oriented when it says that time is an irreversible sequence of nows? But praesens and now, too, are not identical. For the now is a character of intratemporality, of the handy and the extant, whereas praesens is supposed to constitute the condition of possibility of understanding handiness as such. Everything handy is, to be sure, "in time," intratemporal; we can say of it that the handy "is now," "was at the time," or "will then be" available. When we describe the handy as being intratemporal, we are already presupposing that we understand the handy as handy, understanding this being in the mode of being of handiness. This antecedent understanding of the handiness of the handy should become possible precisely through praesens. The now as a determination of