Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 00:04:07 +0100
Subject: Re: A minor question


Cologne, 04 November 1998 

Ed Wall schrieb:
> Folks
>
>    I was reading on page 148 in the Stambaugh translation of Being and
> Time, and came across this passage "...(omitted to save bandwidth) .. This
> leveling down of the primordial "as" of circumspect interpretation to the
> as of the determination of objective presence is the specality of the
> statement. Only in this way does it gain the possibility of a pointing
> something out in a way that we sheerly look at it."
>
>    My question is about "sheerly". What does Heidegger (or Stambaugh) mean
> by "sheerly?" There seem to be a number of possibilities most of which
> don't 'feel' right (possibly a bad criterion for me in my present
> understanding of Heidegger).

Ed,
I think I’ve found the German on SuZ 158:
“Das ‘Als’ wird in die gleichmaessige Ebene des nur Vorhandenen 
zurueckgedraengt. Es sinkt herab zur Struktur des bestimmenden Nur-sehen-lassens 
von Vorhandenem. Diese Nivellierung des urspruenglichen ‘Als’ der umsichtigen 
Auslegung zum Als der Vorhandenheitsbestimmung ist der Vorzug der Aussage. Nur 
so gewinnt sie die Moeglichkeit puren hinsehenden Aufweisens.”

translation:
“The ‘as’ is pushed back into the uniform level of what is only present-at-hand 
(just lying there). It sinks down to the structure of allowing only the 
present-at-hand to be seen and thus defined. This levelling of the originary 
‘as’ of an interpretation that looks about [in guiding Dasein’s 
being-in-the-world] to the ‘as’ of the defining determination of 
presence-at-hand is the statement’s advantageous feature. Only in this way does 
it achieve the possibility of pointing-out purely by looking.” 

There’s a reduction going on here, a “levelling”, a “sinking down” from one As 
to another As. The As’s here are the way in which something is understood and 
articulated in its being. H. is using the example of the hammer in this section. 
The hammer is understood ‘as’ something that is good for hammering by the 
guiding looking-about of Dasein in its everyday life. Being good for hammering 
is the hammer’s being which is open (in its truth) to Dasein’s circumspective 
gaze. 

By making statements about the hammer, e.g. that it is about 30 cm long, light 
brown handle with a dark steel, curved head, etc., this context of Dasein’s 
being-in-the-world is blotted out, i.e. the openness of the hammer to a 
possibility of Dasein’s existence is concealed, covered over. The understanding 
of the hammer’s being (being-good-for-hammering, one of Dasein’s existential 
possibilities) is lost, and pure looking can only make (correct = ‘true’ in a 
derivative sense) statements about the hammer which implicitly assume that it is 
something simply lying there in front of us (vorhanden. vorliegend). It’s being 
is reduced to Vorhandenheit (presence-at-hand).

Michael
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