We have thus indicated the interconnection by which the structure of an involvement leads to Dasein's very Being as the sole authentic "for-the-sake-of-which"; for the present, however, we shall pursue this no further. 'Letting something be involved' must first be clarified enough to give the phenomenon of worldhood the kind of definiteness which makes it possible to formulate any problems about it.
Ontically, "letting something be involved" signifies that within our factical concern we let something ready-to-hand be so-and-so as it is already and in order that it be such.1 The way we take this ontical sense of 'letting be' is, in principle, ontological. And therewith we Interpret the [85] meaning of previously freeing what is proximally ready-to-hand within-the-world. Previously letting something 'be' does not mean that we must first bring it into its Being and produce it; it means rather that something which is already an 'entity' must be discovered in its readiness-to-hand, and that we must thus let the entity which has this Being be encountered. This 'a priori' letting-something-be-involved is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand, so that Dasein, in its ontical dealings with the entity thus encountered, can thereby let it be involved in the ontical sense.2 On the other hand, if letting something be involved is understood ontologically, what is then pertinent is the freeing of everything ready-to-hand as ready-to-hand, no matter whether, taken ontically, it is involved thereby, or whether it is rather an entity of precisely such a sort that ontically it is not involved thereby. Such entities are, proximally and for the most part, those with which we concern ourselves when we do not let them 'be' as we have discovered that they are, but work upon them, make improvements in them, or smash them to pieces.
When we speak of having already let something be involved, so that it has been freed for that involvement, we are using a perfect tense a priori which characterizes the kind of Being belonging to Dasein itself.3 Letting an entity be involved, if we understand this ontologically, consists in previously freeing it for [auf] its readiness-to-hand within the environment. When we let something be involved, it must be involved in something; and in terms of this "in-which", the "with-which" of this involvement is freed.4
1 'Bewendenlassen bedeutet ontisch; innerhalb eines faktischen Besorgens ein Zuhandenes so und so sein lassen, wie es nunmehr ist und damit es so ist.'
2 '... es im ontischen Sinne dabei bewenden lassen kann.' While we have translated 'dabei' simply as 'thereby' in this context, it. is possible that it should have been construed rather as an instance of the special use of bet with bewenden lassen . A similar ambiguity occurs in the following sentence.
3 'Das auf Bewandtnis hin freigebende Je-schon-haben-bewenden-lassen ist ein apriorisches Perfekt, das die Seinsart des Daseins selbst charakterisiert.