on a first objectification, but rather upon the complete lack of such an objectification. But this means that signs are not at all discovered as useful things, that ultimately what is "at hand" in the world does not have the kind of being of useful things at all. Perhaps this ontological guideline (handiness and useful things), too, can provide nothing for an interpretation of the primitive world, and certainly for an ontology of thingliness. But if an understanding of being is constitutive for primitive Dasein and the primitive world in general, it is all the more urgent to develop the "formal" idea of worldliness; namely, of a phenomenon which can be modified in such a way that all ontological statements which assert that in a given phenomenal context something is not yet or no longer such and such may acquire a positive phenomenal meaning in terms of what it is not.
The foregoing interpretation of signs should simply offer phenomenal support for our characterization of reference. The relation between sign and reference is threefold: (1) As a possible concretion of the what-for of serviceability, indicating is based upon the structure of useful things in general, upon the in-order-to (reference). (2) As the character of useful things at hand, the indicating of signs belongs to a totality of useful things, to a referential context. (3) Signs are not just at hand along with other useful things, rather, in their handiness, the surrounding world becomes explicitly accessible to circumspection. A sign is something ontically at hand which, as this definite useful thing, functions at the same time as something which indicates the ontological structure of handiness, referential totality, and worldliness. The distinctive characteristic of these things at hand within the surrounding world [83] circumspectly taken care of is rooted here. Thus reference cannot itself be comprehended as a sign if it is ontologically to be the foundation for signs. Reference is not the ontic specification of something at hand since it, after all, constitutes handiness itself. In what sense is reference the ontological "presupposition" of what is at hand, and as this ontological foundation, to what extent is it at the same time constitutive of worldliness in general?
§ 18.
Relevance [Bewandtnis] and Significance [Bedeutsamkeit]:
The Worldliness of the World
Things at hand are encountered within the world. The being of these beings, handiness, is thus ontologically related to the world and to worldliness. World is always already "there" in all things at hand. World is already discovered* beforehand together with everything encountered, although not thematically. However, it can also appear in certain ways of dealing with the surrounding world. World is that
* cleared [gelichtet]