2.46
As Heidegger points out, we don’t encounter being anywhere except ‘as’ beings; and we don’t encounter beings anywhere except ‘as’ this stone, this stream, this deer, and so on. This isn’t due to some limitation on our part: it’s because this is how these ‘concepts’ ‘are.’ – Being ‘is’ a hinge of what is common between worlds.
To feel the stoniness of the stone (§1.43) isn’t simply to feel the stone as it rests in your hand in your world; it’s to feel how the world of the stone is stony. The stoniness of the stone is the way of being of the stone, which is the way of the stone’s world. This is how it opens to things as a stone: its world is stony. The stone sits on a path, and this path is encountered stonily by the stone; the stone rolls into a root, and rolling and root are both encountered stonily by the stone.
The world as stony is also un-stony, for this stone stonily encounters things that aren’t in the way of being of a stone. Such encounters (possible or actual) are what determine the stoniness of the stone. To feel the stone’s stoniness is thus also to feel its un-stoniness; how it would never, could never, make or encounter everything stony. This is what allows it to be stony.
In this way, we are and are not how we are (§1.42). Ways of being are metaphoric, crossing-over, for they always cross over towards other ways of being. Everything we encounter is both like and unlike us.