¶ 24. Space and Dasein's Spatiality
As Being-in-the-world, Dasein has already discovered a 'world' at any time. This discovery, which is founded upon the worldhood of the world, is one which we have characterized as freeing entities for a totality of involvements. Freeing something and letting it be involved, is accomplished by way of referring or assigning oneself circumspectively, and this in turn is based upon one's previously understanding significance. We have now shown that circumspective Being-in-the-world is spatial. And only because Dasein is spatial in the way of de-severanc and directionality can what is ready-to-hand within-the-world be encountered in its spatiality. To free a totality of involvements is, equiprimordially, to let something be involved at a region, and to do so by de-severing and giving directionality; this amounts to freeing the spatial belonging-somewhere of the ready-to-hand. In that significance with which Dasein (as concernful Being-in) is familiar, lies the essential co-disclosedness of space.1
The space which is thus disclosed with the worldhood of the world still lacks the pure multiplicity of the three dimensions. In this disclosedness which is closest to us, space, as the pure "wherein" in which positions are ordered by measurement and the situations of things are determined, still remains hidden. In the phenomenon of the region we have already indicated that on the basis of which space is discovered beforehand in Dasein. By a 'region" we have understood the "whither" to which an equipment-context ready-to-hand might possibly belong, when that context is of such a sort that it can be encountered as directionally desevered—that is, as having been placed.2 This belongingness [Gehörigkeit] is determined [111] in terms of the significance which is constitutive for the world, and it Articulates the "hither" and "thither" within the possible "whither". In general the "whither" gets prescribed by a referential totality which has been made fast in a "for-the-sake-of-which" of concern, and within which letting something be involved by freeing it, assigns itself. With anything encountered as ready-to-hand there is always an involvement in [bei] a region. To the totality of involvements which makes up the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world, there belongs a spatial involvement which has the character of a region. By reason of such an involvement, the ready-to-hand becomes something which we can come across and ascertain as having form and direction.3 With the factical Being of
1 '... die wesenhafte Miterschlossenheit des Raumes.'
2 'Wir verstehen sie als das Wohin der möglichen Zugehörigkeit des zuhandenen Zeugzusammenhanges, der als ausgerichtet entfernter, d. h. platzierter sol! begegnen können.'
3 'Auf deren Grunde wird das Zuhandene nach Form und Rich tung vorfindlich und bestimmbar'. The earliest editions have 'erfindlich', which has been corrected to 'vorfindlich' in a list of errata.