distance

Category: Heidegger - Being and Time etc
Submitter: Murilo Cardoso de Castro

distance

Distance (Abstand, a category), 102, 105-108, 105fn, 122, 126, 269, 361, 369, 381. See also De-distancing; estimating; farness; nearness (BT)



[SZ:105] When we speak of deseverance as a kind of Being which Dasein has with regard to its Being-in-the-world, we do not understand by it any such thing as remoteness (or closeness) or even a DISTANCE. We use the expression “deseverance” in a signification which is both active and transitive. It stands for a constitutive state of Dasein’s ‘ Being – a state with regard to which removing something in the sense of putting it away is only a determinate factical mode. “De-severing” amounts to making the farness vanish – that is, making the remoteness of something disappear, bringing it close. Dasein is essentially de-severant: it lets any entity be encountered close by as the entity which it is. De-severance discovers remoteness; and remoteness, like DISTANCE, is a determinate categorial characteristic of entities whose nature is not that of Dasein. De-severance, however, is an existentiale; this must be kept in mind. Only to the extent that entities are revealed for Dasein in their deseveredness [Entferntheit], do ‘remotenesses’ ‘ [“Entfernungen”] and distances with regard to other things become accessible in entities within-the-world themselves. Two points are just as little desevered from one another as two Things, for neither of these types of entity has the kind of Being which would make it capable of desevering. They merely have a measurable DISTANCE between them, which we can come across in our de-severing. BTMR §23

De-severing does not necessarily imply any explicit estimation of the fatness of something ready-to-hand in relation to Dasein. Above all, remoteness never gets taken as a DISTANCE. If farness is to be estimated, this is done relatively to deseverances in which everyday Dasein maintains itself. Though these estimates may be imprecise and variable if we try to compute them, in the everydayness of Dasein they have their own definiteness which is thoroughly intelligible. We say that to go over yonder is “a good walk”, “a stone’s throw”, or ‘as long as it takes to smoke a pipe’. These measures express not only that they are not intended to ‘measure’ anything but also that the remoteness here estimated belongs to some entity to which one goes with concernful circumspection. But even when we avail ourselves of a fixed measure and say ‘it is half an hour to the house’, this measure must be taken as an estimate. ‘Half an hour’ is not-thirty minutes, but a duration [Dauer] which has no ‘length’ at all in the sense of a quantitative stretch. Such a duration is always interpreted in terms of well-accustomed everyday ways in which we ‘make provision’ [“Besorgungen”]. Remotenesses are estimated proximally by circumspection, even when one is quite familiar with ‘officially’ calculated measures. Since what is de-severed in such estimates is ready-to-hand, it retains its character as specifically within-the-world. This even implies that the pathways we take towards desevered entities in the course of our dealings will vary in their length from day to day. What is ready-to-hand in the environment is certainly not present-at-hand for an eternal observer exempt from Dasein: but it is encountered in Dasein’s circumspectively concernful everydayness. As Dasein goes along its ways, it does not measure off a stretch of space as a corporeal Thing which is present-at-hand; it does not ‘devour the kilometres’; bringing-close or de-severance is always a kind of concernful Being towards what is brought close and de-severed. A pathway which is long ‘Objectively’ can be much shorter than one which is ‘Objectively’ shorter still but which is perhaps ‘hard going’ and comes [SZ:106] before us as interminably long. Yet only in thus ‘coming before us is the current world authentically ready-to-hand. The Objective distances of Things present-at-hand do not coincide with the remoteness and closeness of what is ready-to-hand within-the-world. Though we may know these distances exactly, this knowledge still remains blind; it does not have the function of discovering the environment circumspectively and bringing it close; this knowledge is used only in and for a concernful Being which does not measure stretches – a Being towards the world that ‘matters’ to one [... Sein zu der einen “angehenden” Welt]. BTMR §23

When one is primarily and even exclusively oriented towards remotenesses as measured distances, the primordial spatiality of Being-in is concealed. That which is presumably ‘closest’ is by no means that which is at the smallest DISTANCE ‘from us’. It lies in that which is desevered to an average extent when we reach for it, grasp it, or look at it. Because Dasein is essentially spatial in the way of de-severance, its dealings always keep within an ‘environment’ which is desevered from it with a certain leeway [Spielraum]; accordingly our seeing and hearing always go proximally beyond what is distantially ‘closest’. Seeing and hearing are distance-senses [Fernsinne] not because they are far-reaching, but because it is in them that Dasein as deseverant mainly dwells. When, for instance, a man wears a pair of spectacles which are so close to him distantially that they are ‘sitting on his nose’, they are environmentally more remote from him than the picture on the opposite wall. Such equipment has so little closeness that often it is proximally quite impossible to find. Equipment for seeing – and likewise for hearing, such as the telephone receiver – has what we have designated as the inconspicuousness of the proximally ready-to-hand – So too, for instance, does the street, as equipment for walking. One feels the touch of it at every step as one walks; it is seemingly the closest and Realest of all that is ready-to-hand, and it slides itself, as it [SZ:107] were, along certain portions of one’s body – the soles of one’s feet. And yet it is farther remote than the acquaintance whom one encounters ‘on the street’ at a ‘remoteness’ [“Entfernung”] of twenty paces when one is taking such a walk. Circumspective concern. decides as to the closeness and farness of what is proximally ready-to-hand environmentally. Whatever this concern dwells alongside beforehand is what is closest, and this is what regulates our de-severances. BTMR §23

If Dasein, in its concern, brings something close by, this does not signify that it fixes something at a spatial position with a minimal DISTANCE from some point of the body. When something is close by, this means that it is within the range of what is proximally ready-to-hand for circumspection. Bringing-close is not oriented towards the I-Thing encumbered with a body, but towards concernful Being-in-the-world – that is, towards whatever is proximally encountered in such Being. It follows, moreover, that Dasein’s spatiality is not to be defined by citing the position at which some corporeal Thing is present-at-hand. Of course we say that even Dasein always occupies a place. But this ‘occupying’ must be distinguished in principle’ from Being-ready-to-hand at a place in some particular region. Occupying a place must be conceived as a desevering of the environmentally ready-to-hand into a region which has been circumspectively discovered in advance. Dasein understands its “here” [Hier] in terms of its environmental “yonder”. The “here” does not mean the “where” of something present-at-hand, but rather the “whereat” [Wobei) of a de-severant Being-alongside, together with this de-severance. Dasein, in accordance with its spatiality, is proximally never here but yonder; from this “yonder” it comes back to its “here”; and it comes back to its “here” only in the way in which it interprets its concernful Being-towards in terms of what is ready-to-hand yonder. This becomes quite plain if we consider a certain phenomenal peculiarity of tlae de-severance structure of Being-in. [SZ:108] BTMR §23

As Being-in-the-world, Dasein maintains itself essentially in a desevering. This de-severance – the farness of the ready-to-hand from Dasein itself – is something that Dasein can never cross over. Of course the remoteness of something ready-to-hand from Dasein can show up as a DISTANCE from it, if this remoteness is determined by a relation to some Thing which gets thought of as present-at-hand at the place Dasein has formerly occupied. Dasein can subsequently traverse the “between” of this DISTANCE, but only in such a way that the DISTANCE itself becomes one which has been desevered. So little has Dasein crossed over its de-severance that it has rather taken it along with it and keeps doing so constantly; for Dasein is essentially de-severance – that is, it is spatial. It cannot wander about within the current range of its de-severances; it can never do more than change them. Dasein is spatial in that it discovers space circumspectively, so that indeed it constantly comports itself de-severantly towards the entities thus spatially encountered. BTMR §23

Solicitude proves to be a state of Dasein’s Being – one which, in accordance with its different possibilities, is bound up with its Being towards the world of its concern, and likewise with its authentic Being towards itself. Being with one another is based proximally and often exclusively upon what is a matter of common concern in such Being. A Being-with-one-another which arises [entspringt] from one’s doing the same thing as someone else, not only keeps for the most part within the outer limits, but enters the mode of DISTANCE and reserve. The Being-with-one-another of those who are hired for the same affair often thrives only on mistrust. On the other hand, when they devote themselves to the same affair in common, their doing so is determined by the manner in which their Dasein, each in its own way, has been taken hold of. They thus become authentically bound together, and this makes possible the right kind of objectivity [die rechte Sachlichkeit], which frees the Other in his freedom for himself. BTMR §26

In one’s, concern with what one has taken hold of, whether with, for, or against, the Others, there is constant care’ as to the way one differs from them, whether that difference is merely one that is to be evened out, whether one’s own Dasein has lagged behind the Others and wants to catch up in relationship to them, or whether one’s Dasein already has some priority over them and sets out to keep them suppressed. The care about this DISTANCE between them is disturbing to Being-with-one-another, though this disturbance is one that is hidden from it. If we may express this existentially, such Being-with-one-another has the character of distantiality [Abständigkeit]. The more inconspicuous this kind of Being is to everyday Dasein itself, all the more stubbornly and primordially does it work itself out. BTMR §27

That in the face of which we fear, the ‘fearsome’, is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world and which may have either readiness-to-hand, presence-at-hand, or Dasein-with as its kind of Being. We are not going to make an ontical report on those entities which can often and for the most part be ‘fearsome’: we are to define the fearsome phenomenally in its fearsomeness. What do we encounter in fearing that belongs to the fearsome as such? That in the face of which we fear can be characterized as threatening. Here several points must be considered. 1. What we encounter has detrimentality as its kind of involvement. It shows itself within a context of involvements. 2. The target of this detrimentality is a definite range of what can be affected by it; thus the detrimentality is itself made definite, and comes from a definite region. 3. The region itself is well known as such, and so is that which is coming from it; but that which is coming from it has something ‘queer’ about it. 4. That which is detrimental, as something that threatens us, is not yet within striking DISTANCE [in beherrschbarer Nähe], but it is coming close. In such a drawing-close, the detrimentality radiates out, and therein lies its threatening character. 5. This drawing-close is within what is close by. Indeed, something may be detrimental in the highest degree and may even be coming constantly closer; but if it is still far off, its fearsomeness remains veiled. If, however, that which is detrimental draws close and is close by, then it is threatening: it can reach us, and yet it may not. As it draws close, this ‘it can, and yet in the end it may not’ becomes aggravated. We say, “It is fearsome”. 6. This implies that what is detrimental as coming-close close by carries with it the patent possibility that it may stay away and pass us by; but instead of lessening or extinguishing our fearing, this enhances it. [SZ:141] BTMR §30

Why is it that what we are talking about – the heavy hammer – shows itself differently when our way of talking is thus modified? Not because we are keeping our DISTANCE from manipulation, nor because we are just looking away [absehen] from the equipmental character of this entity, but rather because we are looking at [ansehen] the ready-to-hand thing which we encounter, and looking at it “in a new way’ as something presentat-hand. The understanding of Being by which our concernful dealings with entities within-the-world have been guided has changed over. But if, instead of deliberating circumspectively about something ready-to-hand, we ‘take’ it as something present-at-hand, has a scientific attitude thus constituted itself? Moreover, even that which is ready-to-hand can be made a theme for scientific investigation and determination, for instance when one studies someone’s environment – his milieu – in the context of a historiological biography. The context of equipment that is ready-to-hand in an everyday manner, its historical emergence and utilization, and its factical role in Dasein – all these are objects for the science of economics. The ready-to-hand can become the ‘Object’ of a science without having to lose its character as equipment. A modification of our understanding of Being does not seem to be necessarily constitutive for the genesis of the theoretical attitude ‘towards Things’. Certainly not, if this “modification” is to imply a change in the kind of Being which, in understanding the entity before us, we understand it to possess. BTMR §69

In analysing the historical character of equipment which is still presentat-hand, we have not only been led back to Dasein as that which is primarily historical; but at the same time we have been made to doubt whether the temporal characterization of the historical in general may be oriented primarily to the Being-in-time of anything present-at-hand. Entities do not become ‘more historical’ by being moved off into a past which is always farther and farther away, so that the oldest of them would be the most authentically historical. On the other hand, if the ‘temporal’ DISTANCE from “now and today” is of no primary constitutive significance for the historicality of entities that arc authentically historical, this is not because these entities are not ‘in time’ and are timeless, but because they exist temporally in so primordial a manner that nothing present-at-hand ‘in time’, whether passing away or still coming along, could ever – by its ontological essence – be temporal in such a way. [SZ:382] BTMR §73

Submitted on:  Tue, 01-Mar-2022, 23:52