2.82
In a sense, we’re returning to our senses and empirical experience, but we must become attuned to how perception is shaped by our metaphysics and framework for understanding. If, for instance, we perceive things through the filter of causation, understood as efficient cause,[1] or if we perceive things as self-contained, things show themselves in a particular way.
‘Ok, but it sort of seems like you’re saying: check the phenomena — but when I do this, I don’t see stones, for example, as the kind of thing that could have a world. I cannot make sense of this even if I withhold dissent and do as you say: I look at things that way. You can’t simply hide behind claims that I’m not listening deeply enough, that I’m not attending properly. If you want me to understand, with all your provisos about attending and criteria and arguments and reasons set aside for now, you need to provide reasons: the onus is on you to show how your claim could be the case.’
— What is a world? It’s our relation to the whole (not the totality). It’s that wherein beings are related together. It’s an opening before consciousness or perception, for it’s their condition of possibility; we must be openness before we can be conscious or perceptive, which are both intentional (i.e., consciousness of… or perception of…). The world is an opening for us so long as our body is maintained as an inter-permeable membrane or boundary with an environment (§2.43, §2.77): so long as we are a coalescence of forces.
These a stone has.
A stone is related to the whole of beings which it lets be as the beings they are. This means that a stone stands within the clearing of its relations, i.e., in relation to the whole; these relations make it what it is and others what they are. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s open to beings consciously or perceptually; rather, it lets beings be such that they can encounter, impact, or influence the stone, and it them. The way the stone lets beings be isn’t the same way that, for instance, we let beings be or an ostrich lets beings be.
‘But the stone is entirely and essentially closed to all encounters!’
The stone is impactable and influenceable, and, in general, resists through its encounters: it seeks to maintain its integrity (which, we recall, is nested; §2.44). The stone ongoingly stands-forth in the midst of beings.
‘But why think it has a relation to beings as a whole?’
For Heidegger, Dasein encounters ‘beings as a whole’ through fundamental attunements (angst, profound boredom, etc.).[2] Are stones fundamentally attuned? What do we mean by attunement? Attunement is how an entity is attuned to beings: one finds oneself in the midst of beings as a whole, which is distinct from comprehending it: “[H]ow should we who are essentially finite make the whole of beings totally accessible in itself and also for us? […] In the end an essential distinction prevails between comprehending the whole of beings in themselves and finding oneself […] in the midst of beings as a whole. […] [B]eing attuned, in which we ‘are’ one way or another and which determines us through and through, lets us find ourselves among beings as a whole.”[3] Relating to ‘beings as a whole’ isn’t about relating to each individual being, but about being open to any given being, open to all beings. ‘Beings as a whole’ isn’t a mass of beings just sitting there; ‘beings as a whole’ is a relational structuration of beings.
Of course, the way a stone ‘finds itself’ is different from the way Dasein does; ‘finding itself’ doesn’t necessitate reflexivity, but rather gestures to the ‘perspective’ of the stone. The stone finds itself in the midst of beings as a whole, thrown there, with the possibility of encountering any being. For early Heidegger, the aforementioned attunements reveal that Dasein is always metaphysical;[4] the stone, too, is open to ‘beings as a whole,’ beyond its immediate surroundings, insofar as it’s relationally open to involvement with other entities.
[1] Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” p. 7.
[2] Martin Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?” in Pathmarks, trans. David Farrell Krell, p. 86–90; Heidegger, FCM, p. 59, 138–9, 162, 272, 282–4.
[3] Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?,” p. 86–7.
[4] ibid, p. 93–6.