"A Preliminary Sketch of Being-in-the-World, Section I: Being-in" by Hubert Dryfus

The opening section of the third chapter of Hubert Dryfus’ treatise on Being and Time concerns itself with explaining the “being-in” of Dasein. Dryfus tells us “Heidegger calls the activity of existing, ‘being-in-the-world.’” (40) He then sets out distinguishing “being-in-the-world” as an existential concept rather than the more common reading, one might suspect, of the term as referring to a metaphysical concept. As one might suspect, a good chunk of this explanation turns on his discussion of the “being-in” part of “being-in-the-world”.

Dryfus begins by noting the priority with which we treat “in” as it refers an object contained within another object in space. He goes on to juxtapose this common interpretation of the preposition against the “primordial sense of ‘in’ [which] is ‘to reside’, ‘to dwell’.” (42) To dwell and reside are active ways of being, Operating with this understanding we are faced with the problem of being first, and objective in-ness only afterwards. Thus the usual manner of understanding “in” as a relationship between objects is not basic but subsidiary to being-in-the-world.

This distinguishing exercise is supplemented by a discussion on the distinction between what Dryfus calls the metaphorical/literal distinction in language. One reading of Heidegger’s concept of being-in has it that “in” is used metaphorically. This view has it that “being in trouble” is metaphorical since one cannot literally be in trouble: trouble is not one thing in which another can occupy space. This reading misses the take-home message regarding being-in as relating to residing and actively engaging. “Heidegger wants us to see that at an early stage of language the distinction metaphorical/literal has not yet emerged.” (42) Being in trouble is not only metaphorical, it is also contextually definable in the being which finds itself troubled in the world.

From here Dryfus turns towards relating being-in to being-in-the-world. “Being-in as being involved is definitive of Dasein.” (43) As such, Dasein is by defined by its involvement in a world. Further, “Dasein alone can be touched, that is, moved, by objects and other Daseins,” and it is due to the involvement of Dasein with objects and other Daseins that Dasein comes to acquire know-how. “Not only is Dasein's activity conditioned by cultural interpretations of facts about its body, such as being male or female, but since Dasein must define itself in terms of social roles that require certain activities, and since its roles require equipment, Dasein is at the mercy of factual events and objects in its environment. (44)” This last point is what pushes us from being-in to being-in-the world, what we have translated as being-alongside and what Dreyfus calls being-amidst: “What Heidegger is getting at is a mode of being-in we might call "inhabiting." When we inhabit something, it is no longer an object for us but becomes part of us and pervades our relation to other objects in the world.“ (45) This pervasive feature of my objects as they relate to my being and other beings has been obscured by the tradition, even though it “is Dasein's basic way of being-in-the-world.” (45)


"A Preliminary Sketch of Being-in-the-World, Section I: Being-in" by Hubert Dryfus in Being-in-the-world : A Commentary On Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.