But this is merely a semblance. At bottom this plethora of information can seduce us into failing to recognize the real problem. We shall not get a genuine knowledge of essences simply by the syncretistic activity of universal comparison and classification. Subjecting the manifold to tabulation does not ensure any actual understanding of what lies there before us as thus set in order. If an ordering principle is genuine, it has its own content as a thing [Sachgehalt], which is never to be found by means of such ordering, but is already presupposed in it. So if one is to put various pictures of the world in order, one must have an explicit idea of the world as such. And if the 'world' itself is something constitutive for Dasein, one must have an insight into Dasein's basic structures in order to treat the world-phenomenon conceptually.
In this chapter we have characterized some things positively and taken a negative stand with regard to others; in both cases our goal has been to promote a correct understanding of the tendency which underlies the following Interpretation and the kind of questions which it poses. Ontology can contribute only indirectly towards advancing the positive disciplines as we find them today. It has a goal of its own, even if, beyond the acquiring of information about entities, the question of Being is the spur for all scientific seeking.