Understanding Readiness-to-Hand and Presence-at-Hand in Being and Time

Understanding Heidegger is, to a large extent, a matter of understanding his terminology.

Heidegger introduces a large number of terms in his discussion of phenomenology and the

concept of Being. However, his definitions are indirect and confusing. This seems to be

intentional: Heidegger is trying to get away from the philosophical implications of certain words

by replacing them with other words. However, if he were to give clear, straightforward

definitions, this would not solve the problem, because the implications of the words used in the

definition would obscure the meaning he intends. For example, if he were to define Dasein as

conscious beings, we would be caught up in the philosophical implications of consciousness

and of beings. By giving more obscure definitions, Heidegger requires us to pay more attention

to the text to get a fuller sense of what he means by these made up terms. Two of Heideggers

obscure terms are presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand. These terms are used to break up the

various things we encounter in the world, to show not only that we experience different objects

in different ways but also that we experience the same object in different ways. While presence-

at-hand has received a lot of attention from philosophers in the past, readiness-to-hand has been

given almost no attention whatsoever. Heidegger attempts to both rectify this problem and to

explain why it occurred in the first place.

Readiness-to-hand is the way we usually experience items in the world. It should be

noted here that items is, in and of itself, a loaded term, and we should be careful with the way we

think about this word. By item here, I do not mean to refer to an object in terms of the subject-

object relationship, but more like thing or stuff (although even those words are loaded with

meaning). When an item is ready-to-hand, we do not experience it as an object, per se. We

experience it more as an extension of ourselves. The item, basically, disappears for us as an

object, and becomes a part of us. So, when we hit a nail with a hammer, we do not experience

the hammer as such. We experience ourselves hitting the nail, and the hammer is virtually

invisible. The same thing happens when writing with a pen, driving a car, drinking from a cup,

or wearing a shirt. We arent thinking about the pen, car, cup, shirt, or hammer. We arent

explicitly aware of their existence while were using them. We just use them in the same way

we use any part of our body (in fact, our body may also sometimes be seen as ready-to-hand,

although Heidegger doesnt really go into this). As long as the item were using is working well,

we experience it as ready-to-hand.

The problem with readiness-to-hand is that it is self-obfuscating. Things are only ready-

to-hand when we use them. When we look at an item, when we try to figure out what it is or the

way in which it exists, it ceases being ready-to-hand. Just by looking at it in this way, we have

changed its mode of Being from readiness-to-hand to presence-at-hand. For this reason,

philosophers of the past have, by and large, ignored (or, more accurately, missed) readiness-to-

hand when describing the character of Being. Readiness-to-hand can only be discovered in two

ways.

The first is by using something and then, after the use of the item has been concluded,

reflecting on how that item appeared while it was being used. When we do this, we find that it

didnt appear at all in the moment of use. Instead, it disappeared and our action was the only

thing apparent to us. When we use a pen to write on a piece of paper, we dont experience the

task as I moved the pen, and the pens ink produced markings on the paper but as I produced

markings on the paper. For certain tasks, such as drinking from a cup, we may not even have

that much awareness about what occurred. Any attempt to reflect on a ready-to-hand item while

it is being used damages its ability to be ready-to-hand. If we, for example, attempt to reflect on

the hammer while we are trying to hit the nail, we will be far clumsier and more likely to miss

the nail or hit our finger than we would be if we stopped thinking about the hammer and just did

the action unreflectingly. The problem with this method is that you need to know about the

possibility of readiness-to-hand before you can do it. Thus, philosophers prior to Heidegger

probably could not have used this method, because it wouldnt have occurred to them.

The second way in which readiness-to-hand may be discovered is by its lack, by its

breaking-down. When its unusability is thus discovered, equipment becomes conspicuous.

This conspicuousness presents the ready-to-hand equipment as in a certain un-readiness-to-

hand. (BT 102-103/73) When a thing we are using breaks, or when a thing we intend to use is

missing or obstructed, we experience it as un-ready-to-hand. Not only do we experience the

broken item as un-ready-to-hand, but we also experience the related items as un-ready-to-hand.

For example, the broken hammer is un-ready-to-hand, but so are the nail and the piece of wood.

Their unusability makes their previous usability more obvious and more accessible to reflection.

If we ask ourselves what differentiates the broken hammer from a rock, in this moment, we can

come closer to discovering the ready-to-hand nature of the working hammer. Reflecting in this

way reveals the presence-at-hand in what is ready-to-hand. (BT 104/74) That is to say, the

dual ways of Being of the previously ready-to-hand thing is revealed when we see it in this way.

This is the way that readiness-to-hand can be discovered prior to suspecting that it exists, and

probably the way Heidegger initially came across it.

Presence-at-hand is the way we usually think about objects in the world. When we are

thinking about the subject-object relationship, when we are analyzing something, when we are

reflecting on the nature of something, when we are asking about the properties of something, we

are seeing it as present-at-hand. While we may think we spend a great deal of time reflecting on

the world around us, this is not the case. Most of our lives are spent doing things unreflectively.

For example, when opening a door, it is extremely rare that we take the time to reflect on the

way our hand shapes to the knob before touching it, the feel of the knob in our hand, the weight

of the door, the rush of air that accompanies the opening, et cetera. Instead, we just open the

door. However, if we did reflect on the door, it would become present-at-hand. We might take

note that the door is white with a silver knob and brass hinges. We might notice the place where

the paint has been chipped away. However, we would not notice the way we interacted with the

door before we began our reflection (that would be readiness-to-hand), because that type of

interaction ceased when we began our reflection.

When we try to think about the world objectively, we are thinking about its presence-at-

hand. Philosophers generally reflect on the world, and try to think about it objectively. In this

way, they encounter the presence-at-hand at the expense of other modes of Being. When

Descartes, for example, attempted to discover the real Being of the world, he ended up defining

Being as constant presence-at-hand. (BT 129/96) Heidegger is quick to point out that this is

not Descartes fault, per se, but the result of the way we traditionally see the world, where we

skip over the phenomenon of the world and focus on the material things. Unlike readiness-to-

hand, which is self-obfuscating and becomes less apparent the more we reflect on it, presence-at-

hand becomes more apparent the more we reflect on it. Thus, those who spend their time

reflecting on the world will, naturally, find the presence-at-hand of the world. Additionally,

because presence-at-hand is not self-obfuscating in the way readiness-to-hand can be, even those

who only rarely reflect on the world are still likely to find presence-at-hand.

The focus of philosophy on presence-at-hand is not a problem, per se. The problem is

that it has focused on it exclusively, at the expense of all other modes of Being. Since

philosophers of the past have been unaware of any other way of Being (because the other modes

of Being obfuscate themselves), they try to reduce external world to this mode of Being. While

presence-at-hand is a perfectly valid mode of Being, attempting to reduce everything to mere

presence-at-hand is problematic because this is not the way we normally experience the world.

This leads to philosophical doctrines which seem logically valid but still fail to resonate with our

experiences. Heideggers phenomenology gives us a way to see the world which goes beyond

presence-at-hand, so that our philosophical doctrines about existence can become more robust.

The inclusion of both presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand, without trying to reduce one to

the other, can generate philosophical doctrines which are more in line with the way we

experience the world.

WORKS CITED:

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time (BT). Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New

York: Harper & Row, 2008. Print.