Returning to the terms

Use this guide when a term interrupts your reading. The lesson references lead back to the examples and arguments that explain each term; there is no need to learn the list before you begin. Whether a term is useful remains open to assessment.

Term	A way back into its explanation
Being; a being; Dasein	A cup or a person is a being. Being concerns what it means for beings to be, including how they are intelligible; it is not a further object. Dasein names the being for whom its own being is at issue: a being, not simply a viewpoint. Lesson 01, returning in lesson 12.
Ontic; ontological	An ontic inquiry asks about beings and their particular characteristics; an ontological inquiry asks about their being and its structures. The distinction does not make factual inquiry dispensable. Lesson 01.
Being-in-the-world; world	Our involvement in an intelligible setting comes before the picture of an isolated mind looking out at objects. “World” here concerns meaningful relations, not merely the planet or everything physically present. Lessons 01–02; its later historical use develops in lessons 09–10.
Ready-to-hand; present-at-hand	Equipment is encountered through practical involvements; something can also be considered as an object with properties. The terms are not simply names for inattention and attention, and a breakdown need not instantly produce detached observation. Lesson 02.
Being-with; the they	Being-with concerns the social character of existence, including being alone. “The they” names shared, anonymous ways of understanding and acting, not just an oppressive crowd. Neither concept establishes consent or justice. Lesson 03.
Attunement; thrownness; projection; care	A situation already matters in some way; we find ourselves in conditions we did not first choose, and we live toward possibilities. Care names the connected structure of that situated involvement, not the virtue of kindness. Lesson 04.
Anxiety; being-toward-death	Anxiety differs from fear of a particular threat. Being-toward-death concerns one’s relation to a finite existence, not a prediction of when one will die. The lesson assesses whether these experiences deserve the philosophical priority Heidegger gives them. Lesson 05.
Authenticity; conscience; existential guilt; resoluteness	Owning a life involves taking responsibility within unchosen conditions and finite possibilities. Conscience supplies no policy manual. Existential guilt is not blame for having been born; resoluteness is not inflexibility, and authenticity is not a guarantee of goodness. Lesson 06.
Temporality; historicality; retrieval; fate; destiny	Future possibilities, having-been and present involvement belong together in a lived situation, and inherited possibilities can be taken up again through change. Fate is the resolute taking over of an inherited possibility, not a script that decides for us; destiny is the shared occurrence of a community, a people, and not merely an aggregate of individual fates. None of this replaces clocks or gives anyone authority to impose a collective mission. Lessons 07–08.
Disclosure; correctness; letting-be; concealment	Disclosure opens a field in which beings can be encountered. Correctness concerns whether a claim fits what it is about. Letting-be allows beings to show themselves in engaged attention; concealment concerns what a revealing leaves hidden, including its own limits. None of them makes a false claim true. Lesson 09.
World and earth; strife	In the art essay, a work opens meaningful relations while what Heidegger calls earth resists exhaustive disclosure. Their strife is not just a dispute among viewers. Gathering a people does not establish that its world is just. Lesson 10.
Discourse; language	In the early work, discourse articulates intelligibility; the later Letter gives language a distinctive place in the relation to being. The brief comparison does not claim that words manufacture physical reality. Lesson 10.
Dwelling; fourfold	Dwelling concerns a way of inhabiting and safeguarding that goes beyond occupying a residence. The fourfold names earth, sky, divinities and mortals together. The divinities should not silently disappear in paraphrase, though readers need not share religious belief. Lesson 11.
Bringing-forth; challenging-forth	Bringing-forth lets something emerge into presence, as in growth or craft. Challenging-forth demands secured availability within a system of further ordering. These modes of revealing are not a simple contrast between good old tools and bad new machines. Lesson 12.
Standing-reserve; enframing; destining	Standing-reserve is how beings appear as available for further ordering. Enframing names the gathering demand for such ordering. Destining concerns the historical ways of revealing in which we find ourselves, without making history an agent or choices inevitable. Lesson 12.

The same word can take on a different role as the argument changes. In particular, earth in the art essay and earth in the discussion of dwelling should not be treated as interchangeable definitions, and ready-to-hand equipment should not simply be renamed standing-reserve. When a compressed entry begins to look like an answer in its own right, return to the cases.