Positioning a Duck.

The Worldhood of the World

Phenomenon: “That which shows itself as Being and as a structure of Being. (91)

Things:  Entities within the world:  “Things of Nature” and Things ‘invested with value’ (Wertbehaftete) (91)

Things of Nature: Substances (91)

Substantiality: “The characteristic of being which belongs to Things of Nature (substances) and upon which everything is founded” (91-92)

Worldhood: Ontological concept- “stands for the structure of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-world. (92)

World:  A characteristic of Dasein (92)

Worldly:  a kind of Being which belongs to Dasein. (93)

Within-the-world / belonging to the world:  A kind of being which belongs to entities present-at-hand “in” the world. (93)

Nature: “the categorical aggregate of those structures of Being whih a definite entity encountered ‘within-the-world’ may possess.  This can never make ‘worldhood’ intelligible.” (94)

Everydayness:  The kind of being which is closest to Dasein. (94)

Environmentality:  Worldhood of the environment (94)

Umwelt:  Environment (contains an element of spatiality) (94) (spatial reasoning can only be understood in terms of Worldhood.)

‘around’ (Umerherum)- environment without spatiality. (94)

dealings: our everyday-being-in-the-world (95)

Knowledge: The kind of dealings which are closest to us, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use. (95)

Knowing:  The preliminary theme of ‘knowing’ which as phenomenological, looks primarily towards Being, and which in thus Being as its theme, takes these entities as its accompanying theme. (95)

Readiness to-hand: The kind of Being which equipment possess__in which it maifests itself in its own right. (98)

Hadlinchkeit: Manipulability (98)

Heidegger explains the method for conducting this phenomenological rumpus to be ‘Being-in-the-world’.  Based on the readings and the terms described atop this literary marvel, one can rather deduce that Heidegger (in particular) is very interested in describing a “thing” for the things sake.  Ultimately, this seems to be a way of stripping away power structures (Foucault) and all taint of social construction (...more on this later?) in order to examine a beings very being, for instance, a rubber ducky.  This duck(y), is a substance, that has substantiality, and it is a Thing of Nature. 

Heidegger neatly sets up an operational definition of nature, which seeks to limit our understanding of “nature” to something that fits within this framework of Dasein (whatever framework that might be).   Or, at large he is merely applying things to various descriptors so that they fit into a way that we might share understanding of their being (though, I am tempted to say essence).

It seems to me that the gist of this phenomenology is to “undersand” Some/thing.  The ontological outlook of a person (on a thing) determines what that researcher believes is real.  Ontology stretches along a continuum those with the most conservative ontological outlook take a realist view, while the most liberal take a nominalist view.  The realist argues that things that are real are tangible and objective, while the nominalist feels that society determines those things which are real, that labels are socially created, and that these understandings are subjective.

Heidegger sums things up nicely when speaking of phenomenological “access” we are speaking of things in a way that must set aside our “interpretive tendencies” (96).  In this instance, we are asked to take the ducky for the ducky’s sake.  Not for any emotional appeal to nostalgia that it may produce, nor for an aesthetic of “cuteness” or for any other thing at all, except for what the duck in fact, is.  This corrersponds neatly with Uexkull from last week who asked us to consider what things “do”.  This week, we are looking at what things “are”. 

Again, I say that it seems fitting for a “media” class to consider how “media” is situated, or interpreted.  In this instance, we are asked not to interpret, but in that way, not interpreting, is a kind of way of interpreting (The Burke never stops…).  As an example of this Heidegger says that we must not look just at ‘outward appearance’ but that we need to look at the Things readiness-to-hand and how we this in turn is guided by our manipulation of the thing. 

When seen under water, from a phenomenological perspective, has the duck changed?