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Present-at-hand objects possess 'insideness': one extended thing contains another, but such objects are not, for Heidegger, in the world. The spatial ways of being of things that are ready-to-hand and of Da-sein itself are different (and prior to the presence-at-hand of innerworldy beings).
Being ready-to-hand implies that a thing has a degree of nearness, plus a direction, in which it is accessible. In practical dealings in the world nearness is not a matter of measuring distances but of each thing being in its right place. Places are where things belong, corresponding to what they are for, and in relation to their equipmental totality. Such places - characterised by direction and remoteness/nearness - have their being within a region. The region, discovered already at hand in heedful association, is the 'whither' or 'whereto in general' that makes it possible for equipment to belong somewhere at all.
Da-sein's way of 'being in space' is not like that of any object. Instead it accords with its own way of being 'in' the world. It is 'in' the world 'in the sense of a familiar and heedful association with the beings encountered within the world'.
Da-sein's spatiality is manifest in 'de-distancing' (M&R: 'desevering') and 'directionality'.
De-distancing is an existential, and is active. It means making distance disappear, and indicates Da-sein's essential tendency to bring things near in heedful circumspection. M&R's footnote explains: 'It is as if by the very act of recognizing the 'remoteness' of something, we have in a sense brought it closer and made it less 'remote'.' By not conceiving remoteness as an objectively measurable distance a charge of subjectivity is risked, but this 'subjectivity' reveals the actual ready-to-hand world: 'The circumspect de-distancing of everyday Da-sein discovers the being-in-itself of the 'true' world, of beings with which Da-sein as existing is always already together'.
Directionality also characterises Da-sein's spatial being-in: 'Circumspect heedfulness is directional de-distancing'.
Space is found first through Da-sein's circumspect involvement in the world. It is disclosed because Da-sein's being-in-the-world is spatial, in the way of de-distancing and of taking a direction. Yet this disclosed space is not explicitly in view. Rather, a region is inconspicuously encountered as the context in which a totality of ready-to-hand objects have relevance, for-the-sake-of whatever is in hand. As Da-sein encounters innerworldy beings - and as a part of its being-in-the-world - it 'makes room' for them ('making room' is an existential belonging to Da-sein's being-in-the-world). Because Da-sein discovers space in this way it is possible to make it an object of inquiry.
'Space is neither in the subject nor is the world in space,' Heidegger declares. Instead 'space is 'in' the world since the being-in-the-world constitutive for Da-sein has disclosed space'. We discover space (as regions) when we practically deal with things in the surrounding world: so Da-sein is primordially spatial and space is a priori. However, as we seek a thematic understanding of space this necessarily implies the loss of 'relevance', the disappearance of the 'aroundness' of the world and the reduction of regions to pure dimensions; in short the creation of the natural scientists' natural world.