So, for Heidegger, equipment operates fluidly within a context of other tools and our general projects. Stopping and staring at a tool congeals it into an inert present-at-hand object, which philosophers retroactively read back into the tool and end up defining everything as substance. Wittgenstein’s later work insists on seeing words in sentences, sentences in language-games, and language-games within our whole form of life.

The problem is that philosophy, as a contemplative activity, stops this ongoing process to stare intently at an object, or word or sentence, often displacing it into unusual situations which sheer off our usual understanding of how to use these things or words, which generates the fantasies of philosophy.

¶ 10:01 AM