On Fri, 2 Feb 1996, Tom Blancato wrote:
> Michael Harrawood wrote:
>
> "So, now, doesn't the ready-to-hand have to be, by definition, "ready" for
> all hands? I wonder whether it makes sense to elevate Heidegger in this
> context as an opponent of consensus. There is a debate about whether
> authenticity in Heidegger throws Dasein back onto itself or whether it is
> impossible without praxis and the polis. But, I don't think Heidegger
> would ever argue that what begins in Kant as transcendence can't
> "transcend" unless it does so for everybody. It's everybody's hammer --
> that's why its the poet who can utter the words that found the state;
> that's why it has to be a painting of the peasant's shoes and not the
> shoes themselves. Have I got this right?"
>
> Well, first off, though I don't know if this is in Heidegger, I see no
> reason whatever why the "ready to hant" must mean "ready for all hands".
> I think that is part of the problem of the workshop example: it is good,
> as far as it goes. Which may not be very far at all. Also in the workshop
> are to be found obscure devices of specific purposes that only a skilled
> watchmaker, for example, can put to youse. One must "have the hands to
> use such a devise", so to speak.
It seems to me that this is everywhere in Heidegger. Ready to hand does
not mean ready for all hands. Heidegger's discussion of worldliness,
dwelling, not to mention his discussion of readiness-to -hand itself,
explicitly suggests situatedness in a specific setting (this is not to
call Da-sein radically individualistic - which Heidegger explicitly
rejects). Dasein is always located, and thus what is ready-to-hand will
vary.
David Fryer
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