releasement

is the idea that We need to say “yes” and “no” to technology simultaneously; while using these technical devices in our everyday lives, we can still say “no” to their attempt to claim our entire being.

But Heidegger ends on a positive note. Perhaps we are nearer than we think to regaining contact with the soil. We cannot simply abandon radios, newspapers, and power plants. Yet perhaps while using these technical devices in our everyday lives, we can still say “no” to their attempt to claim our entire being. We need to say “yes” and “no” to technology simultaneously. To describe this mixed attitude, Heidegger revives an old German word: releasement. The meaning of the technical world is hidden. It is a secret, and like all secrets it both shows itself and withdraws at the same time.

is marked by a double attitude; giving ourselves to the things of modern technology and retaining an openness to their secret in such a way that will give us a new rootedness in a soil where the creation of lasting works can take root.

Releasement to the things and openness to their secret belong together as two faces of the same attitude. If we can achieve this double attitude, it will give us a new rootedness in a soil where the creation of lasting works can take root.

is opening up a space for thinking, not an object thought, with a style of faltering movements of pause and restart.

It is such a space for thinking, not an object thought, which the dialogue opens out with its faltering movements of pause and restart. This Heidegger terms ‘releasement’ (Gelassenheit).

is that which lies - if we may use the word lie - beyond the distinction between activity and passivity ... because releasement does not belong to the domain of the will.

The trouble with this interpretation is that Heidegger himself never accepts the duality that it presupposes. "Releasement lies - if we may use the word lie - beyond the distinction between activity and passivity ... because releasement does not belong to the domain of the will."

releasement, n.All

releasement