For example, if part of what it is to be a teacher is to assess student work, then student work will be that which is to be assessed by the teacher, and anything that meets that standard will count as an instance of student work. So, from the norms governing what it is to be some sort person arise the norms governing what it takes to be certain sorts of entities—that is, the involvements that make up the totality of involvements and give the what-being of ready-to-hand entities. Heidegger puts this by saying that the ability-to-be on which a case of Dasein projects is the for-the-sake-of-which that organises the world as a referential context of significance. Self-disclosing as a teacher organises the world of the teacher. Heidegger also puts the point more dynamically, calling the organising of the world as a network of references, ‘signifying’ (be-deuten) (SZ: 87). Self-disclosing as a teacher is signifying. This signifying is the worlding of the teacher’s world.2 In this way, Dasein’s disclosing is the worlding of the world.
It is also the being of entities. Or rather, Dasein’s disclosing and the being of entities are correlated happenings, which always happen together and which each need the other in order to occur themselves. ‘Worlding’ is an intermediate term that invokes both and can also be identified with either side of the correlation: worlding is Dasein’s disclosing, and worlding is the being of entities. In the remainder of this section, I will argue for these claims. I begin by addressing one immediate objection: Heidegger says that the being of a ready-to-hand entity is its involvement (SZ: 84, 85, 87) and involvements are among the elements that make up the world. This appears to show quite definitively that the being of entities cannot be worlding.
Involvement is the in order to and towards which of an entity. A student’s essay, for instance, is in order to be assessed by the teacher as a demonstration of the student’s understanding of and engagement with course material, towards the goal of learning. Since this in order to and towards which together give the (rough) definition and
2 Heidegger himself says that significance (not signifying) ‘makes up the structure of the world’ (SZ: 87) and that such significance is worldhood (not worlding) or the being of the world. My formulation captures the dynamism of being.