possible to arrive at a phenomenological understanding of the structure of world hood as a whole.
c) Determination of the basic structure of worldhood as meaningfulness
The founding of the proximally present handy entity in the always already present extant-on-hand, primarily the founding of these characters of being of handiness and extantness in the presence of what is of concern, has provided us with an initial phenomenological insight into the structure of encounter in worldhood. The function of encounter belonging to this presence of what is of concern has thus shown itself to us in a remarkable priority. If fundamental characters are exhibited in this way, further phenomenological interpretation of this presence must bring about a more transparent categorial understanding of worldhood. It is thus that the constitutive function of familiarity, which was expressly specified as a factor of worldhood, will then become clear. We shall later specify this moment in greater detail in conjunction with a closer determination of the presence of what is of concern, in particular, of the work-world. But now, this analysis of the structure of encounter belonging to the environing world is still in need of a fundamental clarification in the direction of the phenomenon which we simply introduced without further specification at the beginning of our analysis. There we said that environmental things are encountered in references in the character of 'serving to,' 'useful for,' 'conducive to,' and the like; world hood is constituted in references, and these references themselves stand in referential correlations, referential totalities, which ultimately refer back to the presence of the work-world. It is not things but references which have the primary function in the structure of encounter belonging to the world, not substances but functions, to express this state of affairs by a formula of the 'Marburg School.'
α) Misinterpretation of the phenomenon of reference as substance and function
In fact, the analysis we have given of the structure of the environing world could be explained in terms of this particular epistemology of the Marburg School, but this would also spoil our understanding of the phenomenon. To be sure, the contrast between the concepts of substance and function, to which the epistemology of the Marburg School attaches particular importance, has without question permitted us to see something significant, but in the first place only in the investigation of the objectivity of nature as object of the mathematical sciences of nature. This contrast was found right in this context, precisely in