Heidegger- "Being in Time" II

If we are attentive to Heidegger’s formulation, we are, as it were, presented with the gradual unfolding of an account or an Interpretation of the Being of Dasein. An account whose promise is not yet present, and whose unfolding is on its way towards the possibility of something like a fundamental ontology. The existential analytic has thus far uncovered the Being of Dasein as Being-in-the-world. Furthermore, this Being-in-the-world has thus far been encountered in terms of a “circumspective absorption in references and assignments constitutive for the readiness-to-hand of a totality of equipment.” In other words Dasein’s Being-in-the-world, as concern, takes place in an environment wherein Dasein finds itself always already located in a meaningful way. As such, Dasein’s way of Being is always already located in meaningful contexts within which it unfolds its possibilities. In this particular passage, Heidegger points toward a kind of intentionality far more basic than the intentionality previously articulated by the tradition. It is an intentionality that is, quite simply, operant in the sense that Dasein is always already meaningfully engaged with the world.
Circumspection, if we attend to Heidegger’s formulation, is a non-theoretical way of ‘seeing’ which discloses entities in the world in a certain way. In other words, when Dasein is at its best it engages or is involved in a context, or environment, which it already understands circumspectively. Even further, ready-to-hand entities are always encountered circumspectively in terms of their ‘in-order-to’ functions. Or, in other words, the ready-to-hand entities, which Heidegger calls ‘equipment,’ are always already rendered determinate in terms of their ‘references’ and ‘ assignments.’ These ‘references’ and ‘assignments’ are already determined in light of the totality of equipment, or the world wherein and within which they appear. As such the ready-to-hand, as opposed to the present-at-hand, is not a thing which we might examine in terms of its properties, nor something we might subject to some kind of theoretical account of its nature. Rather, it is something we would encounter in the flow of our unfolding, such that it would afford itself to something we are already engaged in. For example, we would not need to think of the hammer in order to nail two boards together, rather the hammer would simply offer itself, as if assigned to our intention, to hammer in a kind of effortless movement a seemingly thoughtless way of skillfully engaging with the world. Furthermore, hammers would make no sense circumspectively in a world without nails and boards and things that require hammering. As such hammers make no sense outside a context of reference to the equipmental totality.
Being-in-the-world, has thus far presented itself as a meaningful way of being situated. It is, as Heidegger articulates it, a way of coping with the world pre-reflexively in light of the activity we are already engaged in, namely the activity of Being-in-the-world. As such, we encounter equipment, which offers itself to our understanding gaze, in terms of the possibilities it affords and the totality of equipment from which it comes. Any attempt to speak, or say what it is we are doing, or any failure in the performance of the task will draw us out of the state wherein we find ourselves already meaningfully engaged and place us before present-at-hand items and contexts which we seem to no longer understand.