regard that being as something in space too. This spatiality of things at hand has not yet been grasped phenomenally in an explicit way and its interconnection with the structures of being of what is at hand has not yet been demonstrated. That is now the task.
To what extent have we already bumped up against this spatiality in our characterization of what is at hand? We spoke of what is initially [zunachst] at hand. This means not only beings which we encounter first [zuerst] before others, but means at the same time beings that are "near by" ["in der Nähe"]. The things at hand of everyday dealings have the character of nearness [Nähe]. To be exact, this nearness of useful things is already hinted at in the term which expresses their being, in ''handiness." Beings "at hand" have their various nearnesses which are not ascertained by measuring distances. Their nearness is determined by the handling and use that circumspectly "calculate." The circumspection of taking care of things at the same time establishes what is thus near with respect to the direction in which useful things are always accessible. The structured nearness of useful things means that they do not simply have a place in space, objectively present somewhere, but as useful things are essentially installed, put in their place, set up, and put in order. Useful things have their place, or else they "lie around," which is fundamentally different from merely occurring in a random spatial position. The actual place is defined as the place of this useful thing for ... in terms of a totality of the interconnected places of the context of useful things at hand in the surrounding world. Place and the multiplicity of places must not be interpreted as the where of a random being present of things. Place is always the definite "over there" and the "there" of a useful thing belonging there. In each and every case belonging there corresponds to the [103] useful character of what is at hand, that is, to its relevant belonging to a totality of useful things. But a whereto in general, in which the positional totality is referred to a context of useful things, underlies the positional belonging somewhere of a totality of useful things as the condition of their possibility. This whereto of the possible belonging somewhere of useful things, which is circumspectly held in view in advance and in heedful dealings, we call the region.
"In the region of" means not only "in the direction of," but also in the orbit of something that lies in that direction. The kind of place which is constituted by direction and remoteness-nearness is only a mode of the latter-is already oriented toward a region and within that region. Something akin to a region must already be discovered if there is to be any possibility of referring and finding the places of a totality of useful things available to circumspection. This regional orientation of the multiplicity of places of what is at hand constitutes the aroundness [Umhafte], the being around [Um-uns-herum] us of beings encountered initially in the surrounding world [umweltlich]. There is never a three-dimensional multiplicity of possible positions