But the relation to Being is letting. That all willing should be grounded in letting strikes the understanding as strange. See the lecture “On the Essence of Truth,” 1930.]19
But to know means to be able to stand in the truth. Truth is the openness of beings. To know is accordingly to be able to stand in the openness of beings, to stand up to it. Merely to have information, however wide-ranging it may be, is not to know. Even if this information is focused on what is practically most important through courses of study and examination requirements, it is not knowledge. Even if this information, cut back to the most compelling needs, is “close to life,” its possession is not knowledge. One who carries such information around with him and has added a few practical tricks to it will still be at a loss and [17|24] will necessarily bungle in the face of real reality, which is always different from what the philistine understands by closeness to life and closeness to reality. Why? Because he has no knowledge, since to know means to be able to learn.
Of course, everyday understanding believes that one has knowledge when one needs to learn nothing more, because one has finished learning. No. The only one who knows is the one who understands that he must always learn again, and who above all, on the basis of this understanding, has brought himself to the point where he continually can learn. This is far harder than possessing information.
Being able to learn presupposes being able to question. Questioning is the willing-to-know that we discussed earlier: the open resoluteness to be able to stand in the openness of beings. Because we are concerned with asking the question which is first in rank, clearly the willing as well as the knowing are in a class all their own.
19. This essay is available in Pathmarks.