169
§15. Fundamental Problem [240-241]

of it in the sense in which we speak of "nature out there," hill, woods, meadow, brook, the field of wheat, the call of the birds. This being is intraworldly. But for all that, intraworldliness does not belong to nature's being. Rather, in commerce with this being, nature in the broadest sense, we understand that this being is as something extant, as a being that we come up against, to which we are delivered over, which on its own part already always is. It is, even if we do not uncover it, without our encountering it within our world. Being within the world devolves upon this being, nature, solely when it is uncovered as a being. Being within the world does not have to devolve upon nature as a determination, since no reason can be adduced that makes it evident that a Dasein necessarily exists. But if and when a being that we ourselves are exists, when there is a being-in-theworld, then eo ipso beings as intraworldly are also factually uncovered in greater or lesser measure. Intraworldliness belongs to the being of the extant, nature, not as a determination of its being, but as a possible determination, and one that is necessary for the possibility of the uncoverability of nature. Of nature uncovered—of that which is, so far as we comport toward it as an unveiled being—it is true that it is always already in a world; but being within the world does not belong to the being of nature. In contrast, what belongs to the being of the Dasein is not being within the world but being-in-the-world. Intraworldliness cannot even devolve upon the Dasein, at any rate not as it does upon nature. On the other hand, being-in-the-world does not devolve upon the Dasein as a possible determination, as intraworldliness does upon nature; rather, so far as the Dasein is, it is in a world. It "is" not in some way without and before its being-in-the-world, because it is just this latter that constitutes its being. To exist means to be in a world. Being-in-the-world is an essential structure of the Dasein' s being; intraworldliness, being within the world, is not an ontological structure or, more carefully expressed, it does not belong to nature's being. We say "more carefully" because we have to reckon here with a restriction, so far as there is a being which is only insofar as it is intraworldly. There are beings, however, to whose being intraworldliness belongs in a certain way. Such beings are all those we call historical entities—historical in the broader sense of world historical, all the things that the human being, who is historical and exists historically in the strict and proper sense, creates, shapes, cultivates: all his culture and works. Beings of this kind are only or, more exactly, arise only and come into being only as intraworldly. Culture is not in the way that nature is. On the other hand, we must say that once works of culture, even the most primitive tool, have come into the world, they are still capable of being when no historical Dasein any longer exists. There is a remarkable relationship here, which we can only briefly indicate, in that every historical being, in the sense of world history—works of culture—stands with regard


Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA 24) by Martin Heidegger