116 I. 3
Being and Time

When an entity within-the-world has already been proximally freed for its Being, that Being is its "involvement". With any such entity as entity, there is some involvement. The fact that it has such an involvement is ontologically definitive for the Being of such an entity, and is not an ontical assertion about it. That in which it is involved is the "towards-which" of serviceability, and the "for-which" of usability.1 With the "towards-which" of serviceability there can again be an involvement: with this thing, for instance, which is ready-to-hand, and which we accordingly call a "hammer", there is an involvement in hammering; with hammering, there is an involvement in making something fast; with making something fast, there is an involvement in protection against bad weather; and this protection 'is' for the sake of [um-willen] providing shelter for Dasein—that is to say, for the sake of a possibility of Dasein's Being. Whenever something ready-to-hand has an involvement with it, what involvement this is, has in each case been outlined in advance in terms of the totality of such involvements. In a workshop, for example, the totality of involvements which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand in its readiness-to-hand, is 'earlier' than any single item of equipment; so too for the farmstead with all its utensils and outlying lands. But the totality of involvements itself goes back ultimately to a "towards-which" in which there is no further involvement: this "towards-which" is not an entity with the kind of Being that belongs to what is ready-to-hand within a world; it is rather an entity whose Being is defined as Being-in-the-world, and to whose state of Being, worldhood itself belongs. This primary "towards-which" is not just another "towards-this" as something in which an involvement is possible. The primary 'towards-which' is a "for-the-sake-of-which".2 But the 'for-the-sake-of' always pertains to the Being of Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is essentially an issue.


1 'Bewandtnis ist das Sein des innerweltlichen Seienden, darauf es je schon zunächst freigegeben ist. Mit ihm als Seiendem hat es je eine Bewandtnis. Dieses, class es eine Bewandtnis hat, ist die ontologische Bestimmung des Seins dieses Seienden, nicht eine ontische Aussage über das Seiende. Das Wobei es die Bewandtnis hat, ist das Wozu der Dienlichkeit, das Wofür der Verwendbarkeit.' This passage and those which follow are hard to translate because Heidegger is using three carefully differentiated prepositions ('zu', 'fur', and 'auf') where English idiom needs only 'for'. We can say that something is serviceable, usable, or applicable 'for' a purpose. and that it may be freed or given free rein 'for' some kind of activity. In German, however, it will be said to have 'Dienlichkeit zu . . .', 'Verwendbarkeit fur . . .'; and it will be 'freigegeben auf . . .'. In the remainder of this section we shall use 'for' both for 'für' and for 'auf' as they occur in these expressions; we shall, however, continue to use 'towards-which' for the 'Wozu' of 'Dienlichkeit'. See note 1, p. 109, H. 78 above.


2 'Dieses primare Wozu ist kein Dazu als mi>gliches Wobei einer Bewandtnis. Das primare "Wozu" ist ein Worum-willen.'


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger