uncreated being. And man in tum is also a part of the world understood in this sense. Yet man is not simply regarded as a part of the world within which he appears and which he makes up in part. Man also stands over against the world. This standing-over-against is a 'having' of world as that in which man moves, with which he engages, which he both masters and serves, and to which he is exposed. Thus man is, first, a part of the world, and second, as this part he is at once both master and servant of the world.
However crude this distinction may be, it does indicate man's ambivalent position in relation to the world—as well as the ambivalent character of the concept of world itself. Initially and for some time to come we shall employ the word 'world' in this ambivalent sense. Historical reflection is capable of bringing these connections into sharper focus.
In contrast to this historical path toward an understanding of the concept of world, I attempted in Being and Time to provide a preliminary characterization of the phenomenon of world by interpreting the way in which we at first and for the most part move about in our everyday world. There I took my departure from what lies to hand in the everyday realm, from those things that we use and pursue, indeed in such a way that we do not really know of the peculiar character proper to such activity at all, and when we do try to describe it we immediately misinterpret it by applying concepts and questions that have their source elsewhere. That which is so close and intelligible to us in our everyday dealings is actually and fundamentally remote and unintelligible to us. In and through this initial characterization of the phenomenon of world the task is to press on and point out the phenomenon of world as a problem. It never occurred to me, however, to try and claim or prove with this interpretation that the essence of man consists in the fact that he knows how to handle knives and forks or use the tram. The path followed in Being and Time in the attempt to shed light on the phenomenon of world really requires a very broad and wide-ranging perspective which cannot even remotely be made visible here in this lecture.
Instead we have chosen to follow a third path at this point-the path of a comparative examination. As we said, man is not merely a part of the world but is also master and servant of the world in the sense of "having" world. Man has world. But then what about the other beings which, like man, are also part of the world: the animals and plants, the material things like the stone, for example? Are they merely parts of the world, as distinct from man who in addition has world? Or does the animal too have world, and if so, in what way? In the same way as man, or in some other way? And how would we grasp this otherness? And what about the stone? However crudely, certain distinctions immediately manifest themselves here. We can formulate these distinctions in the following three theses: [1.] the stone (material object) is worldless; [2.] the animal is poor in world; [3.] man is world-forming.