4.1 USING THE THINGS WHICH ARE GIVEN TO US
Man is a finite creature in that he does not create things; things must be given to him. His intuition, unlike that of an infinite God, is therefore non-creative:
Finite intuition sees that it is dependent upon the intuitable as a being which exists in its own right. Finite intuition … cannot give the object from out of itself. It must allow the object to be given. Finite intuition is intuition that “takes things in stride.” Hence, the character of the finitude of intuition is found in its receptivity. Finite intuition, however, cannot take something in stride unless that which is to be taken in stride announces itself; finite intuition must be solicited or affected by that which is intuitable in it. Organs are necessary for the possible relaying of the announcement. The organs that serve affection are thus sense organs because they belong to finite intuition, i.e., sensibility.
Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929)
Man first discovers the things which are thus given to him when he uses them in his projects:
The predominant comportment whereby we generally discover beings is application, employment of things for use, dealing with tools of transportation, tools for sewing, tools for writing, tools for working—tools in the broadest sense. We get to know tools primarily by dealing with them. It is not as if we have a prior knowledge of these things, in order to then use them. Rather it is the other way around: employment as such is the manner in which we get to know these things primarily and appropriately. Likewise, we do not reveal nature in its might and power by reflecting on it, but by struggling against it and by protecting ourselves from it and by dominating it. Similarly we do not discover the daily circumstances and accidents of happenings within our world of action by merely gaping at the world; but rather it is by seizing and examining opportunities that we primarily learn of inconveniences, obstacles, dispositions, and feelings. The daily dealings with innerworldly beings is the primary—and for many the only—manner of discovering the world.
Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critiques of Pure Reason
However, man does not learn what ‘use’ means by using things. In fact, the word use is not defined in the dictionary in terms of any other, more primordial, word. On the contrary:
We must already understand ahead of time something like tool and tool-character, in order to set about using a certain tool. This understanding of what a tool means opens the horizon for us in advance so that, in using a specific tool, we can comport ourselves towards it. What we learn is not an understanding of what being a tool is in general, but rather we can only learn the use of a specific tool as we anticipate and ask for it. In the same way man always already understands in advance what the power of nature means and only in the light of this “advance understanding” of nature’s power can a specific force of nature overwhelm us.
Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critiques of Pure Reason
We do not first learn what a weapon is when we become familiar with this rifle or with a certain model of rifle. We already know that in advance and must know it; otherwise we could not perceive the rifle as such at all. Because we know in advance what weapon is, and only in this way, does what we see laid out before us becomes visible as what it is. Of course, we know what a weapon is only in general and in an indefinite way. When we come to know this in a special and determined way, we come to know something which we already know. Precisely this “taking cognizance” is the genuine essence of learning.
Martin Heidegger, What is a Thing? (1935)
This prior understanding of the tool-character and of power is a pre-conceptual knowledge which is hidden from us:
We understand such things—though at first and to begin with we do not pay attention to such understanding and do not even know that we understand these sorts of things. We are solely occupied with the specific way in which tools interconnect and are stupefied by specific forces. This prior understanding of the tool-character and of power, without which we could never use a specific tool and could never be taken aback by a specific force of nature, is as such hidden from us. Things like tool-character and power are not specifically comprehended in this understanding; nor are they explicitly made an object of reflection, much less a theme of a conceptual knowledge. This understanding of tool-character and of power is hidden from us, is not made thematic, remains unobjectified, and is pre-conceptual.
Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critiques of Pure Reason
When man employs a thing which is thus ready-to-hand for some use, he does so by getting it involved with something and in something:
With this thing, for instance, which is ready-to-hand, and which we accordingly call a hammer, there is an involvement in hammering; with hammering, there is an involvement in making something fast; with making something fast, there is an involvement in protection against bad weather; and this protection ‘is’ for the sake of providing shelter for man—that is to say, for the sake of a possibility of man’s Being.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time,
This involvement is discovered only on the basis of the prior discovery of a totality of involvements which amounts to nothing else than understanding the world:
Whenever something ready-to-hand has an involvement with it, what involvement this is, has in each case been outlined in advance in terms of the totality of such involvements. In a workshop, for example, the totality of involvements which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand in its readiness-to-hand is earlier than any single item of equipment; so too for the farmstead with all its utensils and outlying lands.
This understanding discloses the structure of the world and guides man’s employment of the beings he encounters in that world. The structure man discovers is that of a connected totality in which involvements are ultimately orientated towards facilitating his own existential needs:
The “for-the-sake-of-which” signifies an “in-order-to”; this in turn, a “towards-this”; the latter, an “in-which” of letting something be involved; and that in turn, the "with-which" of an involvement. These relationships are bound up with one another as a primordial totality. This is what makes up the structure of the world.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time