Practical involvement precedes detached reflection in his ontology

Evidence

Heidegger is philosophy’s great reverser. In Being and Time, it is everyday Being rather than the far reaches of cosmology or mathematics that is most ‘ontological’. Practical care and concern are more primordial than reflection. Usefulness comes before contemplation, the ready-to-hand before the present-at-hand, Being-in-the-world and Being-with-others before Being-alone. We do not hover above the great rich tangle of the world, gazing down from on high. We are already in the world and involved in it — we are ‘thrown’ here. And ‘thrownness’ must be our starting point. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 221

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Compact intro to thrownness and the ready-to-hand vs present-at-hand reversal.
• QUESTION: How does Heidegger’s thrownness stance connect to Merleau-Ponty’s embodied perception, which presumably comes later in this book?

Related

• Heidegger reverses philosophy by grounding ontology in everyday practical Being-in-the-world (similarity 0.93)
• Heidegger drew a hard line between ontic sciences and ontological philosophy (similarity 0.80)
• Everyday Being is practical engagement with tools, not detached contemplation (similarity 0.79)
• Dasein’s own Being makes it the privileged starting point of ontology (similarity 0.79)