Heideggerian letting-be requires active attention, not passive indifference

Evidence

Letting-be became one of the most important concepts in the later Heidegger, denoting a hands-off way of attending to things. It sounds straightforward. ‘What seems easier’, asks Heidegger, ‘than to let a being be just the being that it is?’ Yet it is not easy at all, because it is not just a matter of turning indifferently away and letting the world get on with its business. We must turn towards things, but in such a way that we don’t ‘challenge’ them. Instead, we allow each being to ‘rest upon itself in its very own being’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 588

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the technical term ‘letting-be’ (Gelassenheit) as active non-interference, differentiating it from lazy detachment.
• XREF: connects to: Indifference is a chosen self-blindness, not an innocent lack of awareness; Attention can be deliberately wielded, not just reclaimed; Heidegger’s Kehre was a gradual shift from Dasein’s active demands toward receptive waiting — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 579 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention can be deliberately wielded, not just reclaimed #expands (0.85)