Being-in-the-World

Definition

Being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein) is the fundamental structure of dasein's Being, as articulated by heidegger-martin in Being and Time. It is not a spatial relationship of containment (water "in" a glass) but an existential mode of dwelling: "Being-in" derives from the Old High German "innan" (to reside, dwell, be familiar with). "Being-in is thus the formal existential expression for the Being of Dasein, which has Being-in-the-world as its essential state" (§12, H. 53). Dasein is never proximally free from Being-in-the-world; it is always already alongside entities within a world that matters to it.

Key Thinkers

• heidegger-martin — established Being-in-the-world as the fundamental structure of Dasein in Being and Time (1927), contrasting it with Cartesian subject-object dualism.
• merleau-ponty-maurice — develops the embodied dimension of Being-in-the-world through the concept of the lived-body; "the body is our general medium for having a world" (Phenomenology of Perception).
• norberg-schulz-christian — applies Heidegger's Being-in-the-world to architecture through dwelling and genius loci; the world as an existential space of places and paths.

Related Concepts

• dasein — the entity whose Being is Being-in-the-world.
• dwelling — the concrete mode of Being-in-the-world; "to be on the earth as a mortal."
• thing-ontology — the ready-to-hand and present-at-hand as modes in which entities are encountered within-the-world.
• lived-body — the embodied vehicle of Being-in-the-world; body schema and motility.
• atmosphere — the felt quality of Being-in-the-world; the pre-intellectual impression of a space.
• world-alienation — arendt-hannah's critique: the loss of the stable common world through expropriation and the rise of the social.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss Being-in-the-world:

• heidegger-1927-being-and-time — the foundational analytic; Being-in as dwelling, not spatial containment.
• heidegger-building-dwelling-thinking — building as letting-dwell; space from locations.
• merleau-ponty-1945-phenomenology-of-perception — the lived body as the vehicle of Being-in-the-world.
• norberg-schulz-genius-loci — Being-in-the-world as existential space; the fourfold.
• pallasmaa-2009-thinking-hand — embodied Being-in-the-world; "I am my body."
• arendt-1958-the-human-condition — world alienation as the loss of the common world of things.

Open Questions

• How does Being-in-the-world relate to the financialized, brandable "space" of the neoliberal metropolis?
• Can Being-in-the-world be operationalized for architectural design, or does it remain a philosophical abstraction?
• What is the relationship between Being-in-the-world and digital/virtual environments? phenomenology dwelling worldhood Being-in In-der-Welt-sein