the ready-to-hand circumspectively and does so in the deficient modes of concern.1 Often the region of a place does not become accessible explicitly as such a region until one fails to find something in its place. The space which is discovered in circumspective Being-in-the-world as the spatiality of the totality of equipment, always belongs to entities themselves as the place of that totality. The bare space itself is still veiled over. Space has been split up into places. But this spatiality has its own unity through that totality-of-involvements in-accordance-with-the-world [weltmässige] which belongs to the spatially ready-to-hand. The 'environment' does not arrange itself in a space which has been given in advance; but its specific worldhood, in its significance, Articulates the context of involvements which belongs to some current totality of circumspectively allotted places. The world at such a time always reveals the spatiality of the space which belongs to it. To encounter the ready-to-hand in its environmental space remains ontically possible only because Dasein itself is 'spatial' with regard to its Being-in-the-world.
¶ 23. The Spatiality of Being-in-the-world
If we attribute spatiality to Dasein, then this 'Being in space' must manifestly be conceived in terms of the kind of Being which that entity possesses. Dasein is essentially not a Being-present-at-hand ; and its "spatiality" cannot signify anything like occurrence at a position in 'world-space', nor can it signify Being-ready-to-hand at some place. Both of these are kinds of Being which belong to entities encountered within-the- world. Dasein, however, is 'in' the world in the sense that it deals with entities encountered within-the-world, and does so concernfully and with familiarity. So if spatiality belongs to it in any way, that is possible [105] only because of this Being-in. But its spatiality shows the characters of de-severance and directionality.2
1 'Sie wird selbst nur sichtbar in der Weise des Auffallens bei einem umsichtigen Entdecken des Zuhandenen und zwar in den defizienten Modi des Besorgens.' This sentence too is ambiguous. The pronoun 'Sie' may refer either to the region, as we have suggested, or to its readiness-to-hand. Furthermore, while we have taken 'nur sichtbar in der Weise des Auffallens' as a unit, it is possible that 'in der Weise des Auffallens' should be construed as going with the words that follow. In this case we should read: '... becomes visible only when it becomes conspicuous in our circumspective discovery of the ready-to-hand, and indeed in the deficient modes of concern.'
2 'Ent-fernung und Ausrichtung.' The nouns 'Entfernung' and 'Entfernheit' can usually be translated by 'removing', 'removal', 'remoteness', or even 'distance'. In this passage, however, Heidegger is calling attention to the fact that these words are derived from the stem 'fern-' {'far' or 'distant') and the privative prefix 'ent-'. Usually this prefix would be construed as merely intensifying the notion of separation or distance expressed in the 'fern-'; but Heidegger chooses to construe it as more strictly privative, so that the verb 'entfernen' will be taken to mean abolishing a distance or farness rather than enhancing it. It is as if by the very act of recognizing the 'remoteness' of something, we have in a sense brought it closer and made it less 'remote'.
Apparently there is no word in English with an etymological structure quite parallel to that of 'entfernen'; perhaps 'dissever' comes the nearest, for this too is a verb of separation in which a privative prefix is used as an intensive. We have coined the similar verb 'desever' in the hope that this will suggest Heidegger's meaning when 'remove' and its derivatives seem inappropriate. But with 'desever', one cannot slip back and forth from one sense to another as easily as one can with 'entfernen'; so we have resorted to the expedient of using both 'desever' and 'remove' and their derivatives, depending upon the sense we feel is intended. Thus 'entfernen' will generally be rendered by 'remove' or 'desever', 'entfernt' by 'remote' or 'desevered'. Since Heidegger is careful to distinguish 'Entfernung' and 'Entferntheit', we shall usually translate these by 'deseverance' and 'remoteness' respectively; in the few cases where these translations do not seem appropriate, we shall subjoin the German word in brackets.
Our problem is further complicated by Heidegger's practise of occasionally putting a hyphen after the prefix 'ent-', presumably to emphasize its privative character. In such cases we shall write 'de-sever', 'de-severance', etc. Unfortunately, however, there are typographical discrepancies between the earlier and later editions. Som of the earlier hyphens occur at the ends of lines and have been either intentionally or inadvertently omitted in resetting the type; some appear at the end of the line in the later editions, but not in the earlier ones ; others have this position in both editions. We shall indicate each of these ambiguous cases with an asterisk, supplying a hyphen only if there seems to be a good reason for doing so.
On 'Ausrichtung' see our note 2, p. 135, H. 102 above.