Heidegger no realist but enjoys honey for breakfast

In Being and Time (Section 44) Martin Heidegger does not want to be identified as a realist. But he does not question the reality of the external world. And there's the issue: the reason he does not question it, is not that he is not interested in questioning it, or because he already has the answer to that question, or because it is a question that is too hard to answer. The reason that he does not ask whether the external world exists is because he thinks that is an "inappropriate formulation of the question."

So what does Heidegger mean by 'realist' if he is not one and yet he does not deny the existence of what he calls 'entities within-the-world'?

Heidegger says his view differs from every kind of realism because "realism holds that the Reality of the 'world' not only needs to be proved but also is capable of proof." Wrong on both counts says MH. He says that realism, which thinks in this way, has got the structure of of reality wrong in the first place and then with that wrong structure in mind, it asks its question. More soon...

Meanwhile, while listening to Heidegger expert, Hubert Dreyfus, (on free mp3 lectures) it was encouraging to hear him say that for 30 years he has been wrestling with Heidegger's views on realism and still isn't sure he has understood him correctly.