existential analytic

is an investigation into how we encounter beings; or into the kind of being possessed by beings in different modes. A being can be (1) wrapped up in use as equipment or tools-in-use (e.g. skillful hammering) [ready-to-hand] (2) interrogated theoretically as some object of thought (e.g. looking at a hammer-stick-blob) [present-at-hand] (3) encountered as broken or malfunctioning, demanding attention to return it to smooth activity.

How, then, does the existential analytic unfold? Heidegger argues that we ordinarily encounter entities as (what he calls) equipment, that is, as being for certain sorts of tasks (cooking, writing, hair-care, and so on). Indeed we achieve our most primordial (closest) relationship with equipment not by looking at the entity in question, or by some detached intellectual or theoretical study of it, but rather by skillfully manipulating it in a hitch-free manner. Entities so encountered have their own distinctive kind of Being that Heidegger famously calls readiness-to-hand. Thus: The less we just stare at the hammer-thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is—as equipment. The hammering itself uncovers the specific ‘manipulability’ of the hammer. The kind of Being which equipment possesses—in which it manifests itself in its own right—we call ‘readiness-to-hand’. (Being and Time 15: 98)

is a phenomenological description of Dasein's within-the-world encounters with entities, the world itself, being-in, and the within-ness of Dasein.

What the existential analytic has given us so far is a phenomenological description of Dasein's within-the-world encounters with entities. The next clarification concerns the notion of world and the associated within-ness of Dasein.

is not at all pursued through proof (by the rules of the 'logic of consistency) or by grounding any propositions by constructing a deductive argument for it, but rather by "laying bare" or "exhibiting" phenomena.

His "existential analytic ... does not do any proving at all by the rules of the 'logic of consistency'" (363/315). He is not "grounding'' a proposition by constructing a deductive argument for it, but rather "laying bare" or "exhibiting" phenomena (28/8). If one looks for formalizable arguments in Being and Time, with identifiable premises and conclusions, one will find precious few.

existential analytic, n.Definitions

existential analytic