For heidegger, “context” typically refers to the practical contexts in which we live. The German word translated here as “context,” Zusammenhang, can also pick out the coherence which is distinctive of these practical contexts, the way they are tied together with these various kinds of relations. Etymologically, the word highlights the way the things in some context “hang” (hang) “together” (zusammen) in a cohesive and coherent way. These contexts are constituted by two kinds of relations – those that make different things cohere together, and those that make the things cohere with our ends or purposes. Our ends or purposes help organize the context, which in turn shapes the things into the unique entities they are. This entry focuses on two, related uses of the idea of a context – what Heidegger calls a “referential context” (Verweisungszusammenhang), and what he calls an “equipmental context” (Zeugzusammenhang).