Heidegger describes the relationship of being and the world as “Being-in-the-world.” There are two senses in which this phrase could be understood. The first is the sense by which “we mean the relationship of Being which two entities extended ‘in’ space have to each other with regard to their location in that space” (54). This is the general colloquial (or “idle-talk”) sense in which entities are said to be “in the world.” “Both water and glass, garment and cupboard, are ‘in’ space and ‘at’ a location in that space” (54). In this sense ‘I’—meaning my physical, corporeal body—am ‘at’ a table, which is ‘in’ the Honnold Library. It is this sense of “Being-in-the-world” which is being described in the Tractatus, and which Heidegger is not interested.

The other sense of Being-in-the-world “is a state of Dasein’s Being; it is an existantiale” (54). This way of Being-in is different from the previous in that it does involve other entities: “There is no such thing as the ‘side-by-side-ness’ of an entity called ‘Dasein’ with another entity called ‘world’” (55). Instead of being-in a world of other entities, this sense involves being-in a world of possibilities.

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