herself is mathematically projected. In this projection something constantly present-at-hand (matter) is uncovered beforehand, and the horizon is opened so that one may be guided by looking at those constitutive items in it which are quantitatively determinable (motion, force, location, and time). Only 'in the light' of a Nature which has been projected in this fashion can anything like a 'fact' be found and set up for an experiment regulated and delimited in terms of this projection. The 'grounding' of 'factual science' was possible only because the researchers understood that in principle there are no 'bare facts'. In the mathematical projection of Nature, moreover, what is decisive is not primarily the mathematical as such; what is decisive is that this projection discloses something that is a priori. Thus the paradigmatic character of mathematical natural science does not lie in its exactitude or in the fact that it is binding for 'Everyman'; it consists rather in the fact that the entities which it takes as its theme are discovered in it in the only way in which entities can be discovered- by the prior projection of their state of Being. When the basic concepts of that understanding of Being by which we are guided have been worked out, the clues of its methods, the structure of its way of conceiving things, the possibility of truth and certainty which belongs to [363] it, the ways in which things get grounded or proved, the mode in which it is binding for us, and the way it is communicated-all these will be Determined. The totality of these items constitutes the full existential conception of science.
The scientific projection of any entities which we have somehow encountered already lets their kind of Being be understood explicitly and in such a manner that it thus becomes manifest what ways are possible for the pure discovery of entities within-the-world. The Articulation of the understanding of Being, the delimitation of an area of subject-matter (a delimitation guided by this understanding), and the sketching-out of the way of conceiving which is appropriate to such entities-all these belong to the totality of this projecting; and this totality is what we call "thematizing". Its aim is to free the entities we encounter within-the-world, and to free them in such a way that they can 'throw themselves against'1 a pure discovering-that is, that they can become "Objects". Thematizing Objectifies. It does not first 'posit' the entities, but frees them so that one can interrogate them and determine their character 'Objectively'. Being which Objectifies and which is alongside the present-at-hand within-the world, is characterized by a distinctive kind of making-present.xxiii This making-present is distinguished from the Present of circumspection in that
1 '"entgegenwerfen"'. Heidegger is here calling attention to the fact that the word 'object' literally means 'something thrown against'.