148 I. 3
Being and Time

selbst], as because the possibilities of Being in general have not been in principle transparent, and an Interpretation of them in terms of ontological concepts has been lacking. If we are to understand the ontological problem of space, it is of decisive importance that the question of Being must be liberated from the narrowness of those concepts of Being which merely chance to be available and which are for the most part rather rough; and the problematic of the Being of space (with regard to that phenomenon itself and various phenomenal spatialities) must be turned in such a direction as to clarify the possibilities of Being in general.

In the phenomenon of space the primary ontological character of the Being of entities within-the-world is not to be found, either as unique or as one among others. Still less does space constitute the phenomenon of the world. Unless we go back to the world, space cannot be conceived. Space becomes accessible only if the environment is deprived of its worldhood; and spatiality is not discoverable at all except on the basis of the world. Indeed space is still one of the things that is constitutive for the world, just as Dasein's own spatiality is essential to its basic state of Being-in-the-world.1


1 '... so zwar, class der Raum die Welt doch mitkonstituiert, entsprechend der wesenhaften Räumlichkeit des Daseins selbst hinsichtlich seiner Grundverfassung des In-der-Welt-seins.'


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger