As our dealing geared to equipment in Being and Time is included in
the work-world, so is the work-character of the world also in this lecture
understood in relation to human being as worker. As equipment only is in
our dealing geared to equipment and in our focus on its work, so is the
relation with timber here characterized in the following way: the timber is
originary at work, provided that the carpenter has it in hand. “What is able-to-be
(the wood lying before in the workshop), that is in work, is there as
able-to-be precisely when it is taken up into work.” The whole of nature
is therefore being-at-work—the phusis is “worker of itself”—but originary
being-at-work is nature precisely in our dealing with it: “In work, one has
the surrounding world (also that which is of interest, and the like). We are
concerned with the surrounding world in hand.” Work is thus understood
in a relational way, as the unity of the being-at-work of the work-world and
human work with regard to this world, and concerns therefore the appearance
of the world as being-at-work and our human responsiveness to the
world of work as worker.
Also in Being and Time, our dealing geared by equipment is explicitly
called “work”; the work-world “is found when one is at work,” we meet
other people “at work,” etc. It is precisely this handling or working with
equipment with regard to the works of labor, which is called being-in-theworld
by Heidegger.
