Product Description
Continuum's "Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to fathom, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material. Existentialism is often studied by students with little or no background in philosophy; either as an introduction to the idea of studying philosophy or as part of a literary course. Although it is often an attractive topic for students interested in thinking about questions of 'self' or 'being', it also requires them to study difficult thinkers and texts. This Guide begins with the question of 'What is Existentialism?' and then moves on to provide a brief analysis of the key thinkers, writers and texts - both philosophical and literary - central to existentialism. Chapters focus particularly on Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus but also discuss other philosophers and writers such as Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka.The second section of the Guide introduces key topics associated with existentialist thought; Self, Consciousness, the question of God and Commitment. Each chapter explains the concepts and debates and provides guidance on reading and analysing the philosophical and literary texts addressed, focusing throughout on clarifying the areas students find most difficult. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Being here
Existentialism is an enigma in philosophy as well as literature; both realms sometimes appear to disown this strange subject looking for a home. I have not come across anyone who has given a satisfactory and lucid explanation sufficient to comfort a beginner in his entry to the study of Existentialism. Steven Earnshaw's attempt seemed admirable but his endeavour to bring Existentialism within the realm of literature may have made the subject more perplexing than had he not tried. In this sense, Robert Olson's "An Introduction to Existentialism" is a clearer exposition of the substance and boundaries of Existentialism. Earnshaw's work "Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed" divides the book, and by that act, dividing the subject into two parts - the thinkers of Existentialism (such as Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger) and the themes in Existentialism (such as freedom, ethics; being and existence; and phenomenology and consciousness). Each of the chapters were concise and clear, with the exception of the chapter on Heidegger - but that is more Heidegger's fault than Earnshaw's. The most important question ultimately, is whether Existentialism remains relevant today? In this regard, I think Olson has a clearer idea than Earnshaw. In the final analysis, I think Earnshaw's book is an admirable contemporary and up-to-date exposition of Existentialism, but far from being a guide for the perplexed, it is really a book for the initiated. The perplexed should read Olson. ... Read more

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Leading scholars address the ethical and practical dimensions of Heidegger's thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fiat Lux!
I had eagerly anticipated the publication of this book, but ultimately found it disappointing.Most disappointing is the sheer obscurity of what purports to be a collection of essays "elucidating" Heidegger's thought on crucial issues like politics, ethics, society, and technology.What this book does show is that Heidegger does have important things to say about these issues; what it fails to accomplish is to provide anything like a meaningful explanation of his ideas.The only exceptions to this trend in this collection are the essays by Kisiel and Sheehan, both of whom are justly praised scholars of Heidegger who have labored long and hard to make his thought understandable and engaging.The other essays simply pile on neo-logisms, needless hyphenations, half-baked arguments by analogy and explanations that wind up leaving a reader more confused than Heidegger himself ever could.

The sad fact is that this book is typical of the majority of Anglophone Heidegger scholarship, which, on the whole, does little to elucidate the work of one of the twentieth century's most controversial and exciting thinkers.My advise to scholars of Heidegger:"Fiat lux!"

A good assessment of Heidegger studies
Almost 15 years after the so-called Heidegger affair, Raffoul and Pettigrew's book shows that Heidegger studies is alive and well within the states, even in the once dreaded area of Heidegger's politics. To save some words here, let's quickly review some of the best and worst essays in the book. John Sallis, as always, does a professional job of elucidating Heidegger, but, as usual, there are no surprises in his reading. Other essays better at providing new insights into Heidegger and Practical philosophy are written by Nancy, Birmingham,Jacerme, Raffoul, Wood, and Richardson. Brogan's essay would have been much better had he bothered to cite Jean-Luc Nancy's work on Being-with and finitude, whose work he is obviously repeating from such works as The Inoperative Community and his book on Freedom. Otherwise, Brogran does an admirable job of rehearsing the themes of community and being-with and extending them to the Beitrage of the late 30's. However, it did make me uncomfortable that Brogan so religiously follows Heidegger's political thought at that time, given that he was likely writing those notebooks with a Nazi lapel on his suit jacket. One can always read an author otherwise and certainly not every text needs to read Heidegger as a Nazi, which is just a means of not having to confront his thought, but it would have helped Brogan's essay to at least mark out, say, the distinction between Heidegger's ontological views at the time, which might be helpful, and his less than glorious ontic views on the German Volk. Dastur's essay takes up perhaps the most difficult part of Being and Time, the sections relating to the so-called conscience. Just having an essay that could lay out what is at stake in these chapters would have been helpful. Dastur does this and pulls us farther into showing how Heidegger, contra Levinas, has a 'workable' notion of alterity already in BT. The worst essays are by Kisiel, Schmidt and Scott, probably the best known scholars in the book. While the latter are just pompous attempts at good writing - one imagines they thought they were rather clever writing with a glass of wine in one hand - Kisiel shows that he has long since given up thought - as Heidegger himself viewed it - on the alter of some Heideggerian theology. He rehearses a number of Heidegger's public communiques on the notions of the political up to an including the Nazi period, but leaves little room to think, say, the relation between these writings and what Heidegger included in his so-called philophical work. My only gripe with the text is that one can easily target the book as evidence of the hermetic seal surrounding Heidegger scholars from the outside world. Excempting Birmingham and Nancy's texts, you would never get the indication that anyone was writing from a modern standpoint. As evidence of this would be the overuse of references to Heideggerian Greek, but no discussion of latter-day practical problems. If indeed this is a work on 'practical philosophy' - even given the way in which we must reread, after Heidegger, the link between theoria and praxis - it would have been helpful to see what Heidegger gives us beyond more theory. For Nancy, Dastur, Birmingham, and a few others, we see how re-reading Heidegger, perhaps in new ways, gives us very interesting accounts of ethics, politics etc. For the others, it seems, there is less concern over the praxis of our own historical epoch than that of the Greeks. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

PAPERS FROM A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR AND FOUNDER OF LOGOTHERAPY
Viktor Emil Frankl (1905-1997) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, as well as the founder of logotherapy, a form of existential psychotherapy.His most famous book (which also describes his experiences in the Holocaust) is Man's Search for Meaning.

He states in the Foreword to this 1967 book, "This volume consists mainly of a number of my papers in the field of logotherapy published during recent years. I have selected for reprinting those essays which I believe will provide the clearest and most direct understanding of the principles of logotherapy and their therapeutic applications."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Man is free to rise above the plane of somatic and psychic determinants of his existence."
"(B)oth the will to pleasure and the will to power are derivatives of the original will to meaning."
"It is a tenet of logotherapy that meaning can be found in life not only through acting or through experiencing values but also through suffering."
"Man is free to be responsible, and he is responsible for the realization of the meaning of his life, the logos of his existence."
"Since logotherapy, as its name implies, focuses on meaning, it cannot avoid confronting the patient with pain, death, and guilt, or, as I call it, the tragic triad of human existence."

Psychotherapy and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapy
Am very satisfied with the delivery service as well as the books that are delivered. ... Read more

Product Description
In this enlightening new Very Short Introduction, Simon Critchley shows us that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition. He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida. He also introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomonology, by explaining their place in the Continental tradition.
The perfect guide for anyone interested in the great philosophers, this volume explains in lucid, straightforward language the split between Continental and Anglo-American philosophy and the importance of acknowledging Continental philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Critchley attempts the impossible... and almost pulls it off
This is a very ambitious book. Operating on multiple levels, Simon Critchley attempts to a) discuss the analytical/continental divide and set it in its historical context, b) trace the development of both disciplines from Kant, noting the different metatheoretical trajectories they have taken, c) provide a brief history of the development of modern continental philosophy, with a particular focus on Heidegger, d) offer his opinion on the 'threat' of nihilism, discussing Nietzsche's treatment of the subject, and finally e) explore the metaphysical basis of our phenomenological experience as a'brute-fact' that should be utilised as a kind of 'clarifying' tool preventing -on the one hand- scientific research being turned into scientism (a la the Logical Positivists), and on the other, guarding against the monolithic 'metaphysical' entities that are accepted implicitly in the work of Heidegger (dasein), Foucault (Power), Derrida (deconstruction), and so forth.

In short, this is complicated stuff. Despite the author's evident interest in phenomenology, this book is slightly reminiscent of a Foucaultian Archaeology- the author could almost be read as exploring the discursive factors that have shaped the discourses of Continental and Analytical Philosophy, showing how -despite the hostility- there are deeper underlying structures that both sides share. Whilst one would not want to push this analogy too far, Critchley certainly utilises thinkers -Bentham, Carnap etc- that one would not expect to find in a book on this subject, and, rather than focussing on thinkers such as Badiou, Zizek, Derrida, Foucault, Althussier, Deleuze, Barthes, Adorno, Habermas, Lyotard -and so on- he instead starts with an indepth treatise on Kant.

Whilst this book doesn't eclipse the stunning Foucault: A Very Short Introduction it is an ambitious and robustly argued piece of work that is excellent for filling in the holes of the philosophical family tree. I would recommend this alongside German Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction which almost reads like a companion volume, and also the slightly breezier -and more informal- Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction. (I would, however, avoid Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction, as it is neither particularly sympathetic to its subject matter, nor particularly well informed.)

The root of modern philosophical and even political disputes
This is a wonderfully accesible (clear, small, well written) and much needed book for everyone interested in penetrating modern philosophical disputes. Really illuminating, admirably balanced.

If that is not enough, it also delivers, at least in my opinion and between lines, a dissection of what is at the rootof modern disputes between science and alternatives ways of knowledge, and even between political ideologies (left-right, extremists, etc).

A book in the crossroads between analytic and continental philosophy only comparable to Richard Rorty's writings (e.g., Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity)

An absolutely brilliant book
A number of reviewers have dinged this book for being misnomered.And I can understand and even agree with their complaint.It is not, strictly speaking, a very good survey of continental philosophy.It is true that this book will not give a very comprehensive overview of what has happened in continental philosophy over the course of the past two centuries.It barely mentions several major figures in European philosophy and doesn't even touch many of the major issues that have been at the forefront of European philosophy.

Nevertheless, this is a brilliant book.In fact, this is quite probably the best book that I have read in the Very Short Introductions series.I did all the work for a Ph.D. in philosophy except write my dissertation (well, and pass that danged German exam).My philosophical background was somewhat astride the Anglo-American and European traditions.My two favorite philosophers are Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard and my thesis was to have been Kierkegaard and Kant's understanding of the role of sin in ethics (interesting, because they were perhaps the last two philosophers to take the notion of sin seriously).Despite this, I was never very impressed by those writing in the Analytic tradition (though I did very much like some of the Ordinary Language philosophers like Gilbert Ryle and J. L. Austin and love historian of Analytic Philosopher Michael Dummett) and I thought far too many European philosophers were unforgivably and intentionally obtuse (I honestly believe it is a sin to write like Derrida).I never felt that I belonged in either camp and increasingly I came to find more help in thinkers like Thoreau, Montaigne, Marcus Aurelius, Proust, and Samuel Johnson than any phenomenologist or philosopher of language (though Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard continued to speak to me, and I've continued to read Charles Taylor and Kwame Antony Appiah with considerable interest).

This book speaks perfectly to those who, like me, find Continental Philosophy too vague and logically loose to be completely trustworthy and Analytic Philosophy too disconnectedness from the real world to be relevant.Critchley does a wonderful job of explaining how the two traditions came to exist, how they historically originated in the thought of Kant.He also makes an excellent case for a rapprochement between the two, for the accuracy and precision of the Analytic tradition and the concern of the Continental tradition to combine theory and practice.We already see this in some of the finest philosophers.I mentioned Charles Taylor and Appiah.They feel little compunction about discussing ideas of thinkers from either tradition.

In a way, Critchley not only explains how and why the two traditions have converged, but why -- at least from the Analytic side -- the two sides have been coming somewhat closer.At least, more and more Anglo-American philosophers seem to have less hesitation about reading philosophers from "the other side."Though I should interject that I've sometimes wondered if the gap was as complete as we sometimes suppose.One of my graduate school advisors, a close friend of Gilbert Ryle, told me that Ryle was reading extensively and with considerable passion the writings of Kierkegaard during the last of his life.And a former colleague of Rudolf Carnap told me that Carnap enjoyed reading Kierkegaard as well listening to Beethoven, both of them belonging to the range of things that were not susceptible to scientific proof.But there is no question that for a very large number of those in the Analytic tradition there is no trucking with Marxists, phenomenologists, poststructuralists, Lacanians, or existentialists.And there ought to be.There is a very great deal in Heidegger that can -- and should -- be dismissed.His works are riddled with sheer verbiage, long strings of pseudo points that depend largely on opaque terminology, and ponderous metaphysical assumptions that I frankly find untenable.But there is also a great deal of value in Heidegger.There is even more in Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, and Habermas.Embracing these thinkers for many would mean changing the way they think about philosophy.But that is Critchley's point.

So, strictly speaking, this may not be an ideal survey of Continental Philosophy, but it is a brilliant essay on how Continental and Anglo-American traditions of philosophy could empower the other.

Knowledge and Wisdom in Contemporary Philosophy
Simon Critchely's little book on "Continental Philosophy" (2001) for Oxford University Press' "Very Short Introduction" series delivers less than its title and more.From the title, I assumed that Critchley would offer a discussion of various Continental thinker, briefly explaining their ideas and exploring their similarities and differences from each other. Critchley does in fact do some of this, but it is not the focus of his study.In that sense, the book promises less than it delivers. Critchley also offers an account of different contemporary approaches to philosophy, specifically the so-called "analytic" approach practiced in Britain and the United States and the "Continental" approach associated with Europe. This rough-and-ready distinction, Critchley realizes is inadequate in many ways. Critchley gives a broad summary of the reasons for the divergent trends in contemporary philosophy, and he tries to offer a means for reconciling them. This is a long-standing, daunting task.It was part of the philosophic enterprise when I began to study philosophy 40 years ago and remains so today. Critchley is both Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex and Directeur d Programme at the College International de Philosophie, Paris.

The crux of the book is a distinction between philosophy as knowledge and philosophy as a search for wisdom. Under the former approach, philosophy serves as the hand-maiden of the sciences and explains the nature of knowledge. Under the latter approach, philsophy is concerned with meaning and the good life.The search for wisdom is a matter separate from the teachings of the sciences. A philosophy limited to knowledge, for Critchley, risks falling into skepticism and scientism under which people become beasts.Philosophies ignoring the sciences run the risk of obscurantism in which case, for Critchley, people become lunatics.The task is to find a way of incorporating the best of both these broad approaches to philosophy.

Critchley devotes substantial space to a historical study of analytic and Continental thought, pointing out where and how they diverged.His watershed philosopher is Kant. Critchley emphasises how analytically-oriented philosophers focused on the transcendental deduction of the categories in the first critique while continental phhilosophers followed the path of speculative idealism to avoid the dualism of Kant's system. Philosophers of knowledge tend to be problem or issue oriented and to slight the way prior philosophers addressed issues.Philosophers seeking wisdom tend to engage in hermenutics by studying how certain earlier philosophers framed and explored questions and by reinterpreting the answers they gave.

Critchley traces similar distinctions in the conflict that Mill saw between Bentham and Coleridge in England, in Frege and Husserl's related yet diverging approaches to formal logic, and in the distinction between "Two Cultures", scientific and literary, that C.P. Snow drew in a famous lecture.

Critchley offers an excellent discussion of Nietzsche and the question of nihilism.Nietzsche thought that traditional philosophy, with its search for transcendence and permanence led to a dead end and ultimately to nihilism. His goal was to reshape philosophy, to revalue what earlier philosophers had found important and what trivial, and to find a way of overcoming nihilism without permanence, God, or transcendence.The subsequent development of continental philosophy took Nietzsche most seriously as different thinkers offered different solutions to the problems Nietzsche identified in nihilism.

Critchley devotes a chapter to a famous dispute between the positivist philosopher Carnap and the continental philosopher Heidegger. Heidegger had delivered an address on the relationship between philosophy and the sciences in which he postured about "nothing" and about how "nothing nothings itself".Carnap subjected this difficult piece of obscurantism to scathing ridicule.Yet, for all the darkness of his expression, Heidegger was drawing distinction between science and other aspects of human life that science alone tended to deprecate. And Carnap, although justly critical, relied on unexamined metaphysical assumptions in developing his positivism that were at least as open to question as Heidegger's verbal pyrotechnics.

Critchley's solution to the divide between the two schools of thought is to adopt a phenomenological approach without obscurantism. In other words, the success of science is predicated on common life and on the activities of people in their cultures.It is the task of philosophy to explore meaning by articulating what people already know but don't always notice -- the basis of their activities and preconceptions in daily life. This is a more modest goal than pontificating about "Being" or about religion, says Critchley. But it is attainable and avoids the perils of both scientism and obscurantism.His approach, which is only sketched here, owes a great deal to Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein.

Although Critchley has written a "very short introduction" this book is not simple.Philosophy is unlike the sciences in that it does not progress from simple matters to the more complex. Its questions come complete at the outset.Every person must work through these questions for themselves in what Critchley describes as "sapere audi" --daring to think for oneself. (p. 125) Put another way, Critchley's book fulfills the purpose of philosophy that he quotes at the end of his book from the American philosopher, Stanley Cavell. (p.127)Philosophy is "the education of grown-ups."


Robin Friedman

Good book if you don't want any postmodernism
This book is very good overview of the history and origin of the continental tradition with an inspiring vision of continental thought in action. It reaches a high point in chapter 6 with an apology for continental philosophy in the court of analytical rigor. The books only glaring flaw lies in Critchley's own vision of philosophy's proper character- a rather dour and chained down phenomenology. As with everything I find unfortunate in the philosophical discourse of the last one hundred years, I blame England.

Also, Marxist, Psychoanalytic, and twentieth century French thought receives very little narrative attention despite the obvious importance of these schools to contemporary academic discourse. Zizek, Althusser, and the rest of the new motley crew doesn't even receive a passing mention. Instead, this book is heavy with (non-Marxist) Germans: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, and especially Heidegger who serve as the central axis around which everything turns.

From time to time, Critchley comes off a self-hating continental philosopher. For example, he fears both obscurantist tendencies in the field and the immanent end of the field in its entirety. After praising, clarifying, defending, and employing continental philosophy's method of getting at issues through authors and contexts (as opposed to disembodied arguments of the now delivered as intuitions from the gods of logic) he blames the very same method for stifling originality. Go figure! This disharmony is probably aided by Chritchley's having compiled the book from prior works. But, after all, what is a good journey through German thought without self-hatred and eschatology? ... Read more

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Robert Solomon, widely recognized as a leading authority of continental philosophy and respected as a philosopher in his own right, here brings together twelve of his published articles focusing on key issues in the writings of major continental philosophers including Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus.The essays not only shed light on the thought and interrelations of these writers, but also develop a set of provocative and forcefully argued original theses, and encapsulate some of the central ideas of Solomon's most important books. ... Read more

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Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch has also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy.

Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

"These essays, even more than the novels, changed me and the way I looked at the world."--A. S. Byatt

"At a time when much academic philosophy is hopelessly arcane, morally bankrupt, and barbarously written . . . Murdoch has provided a lucid and compelling counterexample." --The Wall Street Journal

"One of Murdoch's most valuable books." --San Francisco ChronicleAmazon.com Review
Iris Murdoch is a poet, philosopher, novelist, and playwright, and in this collection of her most careful thinking and writing on the relationship between art and philosophy, we are treated to the fruits of decades of good work. Murdoch's changing ideas about the search for meaning in literature and life lead us down a richly rewarding path. Along the way she discusses T. S. Eliot, Dante Alighieri, Matthew Arnold, and many other major literary figures. For cognitive power, a sweeping overview of Western thought and art, and a respectful engagement with the reader, put it on the shelf beside the collected works of Kenneth Burke. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Clear enough for the moment
I don't read this book often. It has a few dialogues at the end that cling to the issues identified by Plato in a society largely shaped by dramatic appreciation of entertainment values and perverse insight. I don't get much from darmatic readings. A literary life is good training for competence in the kinds of things I think about, so Iris Murdoch deserves to be known by those who read and would like to know about what they are reading. Part Four of this book is called: The Need for Theory, 1956-66. I thought I would be interested in a chapter called:

Mass, Might and Myth

and I was delighted to discover that it was a review published in 1962 of the book Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. She praises Canetti for calling Christianity "a religion of lament." (p. 190). By providing new concepts for the behaviors that create vicious circles in our lives, "He has also shown, in ways which seem to me entirely fresh, the interaction of `the mythical' with the ordinary stuff of human life. The mythical is not something`extra'; we live in myth and symbol all the time." (p. 191). "Rich concepts have histories." (p. 190). The interaction of various intellectual approaches is probably dying out in a nation of shoppers, but books like this are still for sale for those who want them.

Almost all of Murdoch's philosophizing in a single package
Except for Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, which is disorganized and verges on the incoherent, almost all of Murdoch's explicitly philosophical writing is here.So if you are going to be working on Murdoch'sphilosophy, this is a resource you need to have.However, if you're new toMurdoch's philosophical writing, you might do better taking a look at TheSovereignty of Good; it's got three of her best four essays, and it's awhole lot shorter and easier to find your way around in.

Re-Affirming a Canon
Murdoch's essays each shine on their own, but collected here you get the full, accumulated brilliance in one volume.She is a needed voice in the post-modernist wilderness --- assuring the careful reader that there are works, though they may be formalist or outmoded or dated, that are worthyof the veneration and study of future generations.And, just as there areworks of art that are "good" and that are superior to others,there are also actions and thoughts and moralities that are better thanothers.Her style is lucid and affecting and is never pedantic --- you areenthralled and rapt while you are being educated.Literature, like theother arts, is a form of communication that never ends.Art speaks to eachgeneration; but some specific works of art transcend time and arecontemplated anew by different human minds.Murdoch takes your chin andpoints your eyes towards these works, and you can see the eternal veritiesand the truths that shine out from them. ... Read more

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Between them, the movements of Logical Positivism and Existentialism dominated philosophy in Europe for much of the 20th century, and the influence they exerted can still be felt today. In this publication Frederick Copleston provides a detailed and objective introduction to these two highly controversial areas of recent thought. Originally written in 1956, and revised in 1972, it explores the work of many of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, including Ayer, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book should prove useful to anyone looking for a general introduction to either of these influential philosophical movements. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Contemporary Philosophy, By Fredrick Copleston
I bought this book las December, and I have never received it, although I paid for it.

I sent many letters reporting this to you, asking for help, and always reported the sale's number, and received from you the same request again and again without any results. I have kept all your letters and my letters in a file, and I plan to write a letter of complaint along with the file to the Attorney's general office. The way you treated me was very undfair!

Michael H. Mitias ... Read more

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"... an excellent translation of an extremely important book." -- The Modern Schoolman

This early version of Being and Time (1927) offers a unique glimpse into the motivations that prompted the writing of this great philosopher's master work and the presuppositions that gave shape to it. Theodore Kisiel's outstanding translation permits English readers to appreciate the central importance of this text for the development of Heidegger's thought.

Customer Reviews (4)

Excellent Preparation for Being and Time
`Heidegger's History of the Concept of Time', translated by Kisiel, is a compilation of Heidegger's lecture notes from a 1925 course taught at the University of Marburg.These lectures cover much of the same ground articulated in `Being and Time' (1927), and can be read as an draft of Heidegger's magnum opus.

Often one of the greatest challenges that students face in reading historic thinkers is the question of context.That is, what is the intellectual milieu that the writer is working within, and, what question(s) are they seeking to address?Getting a feel for these considerations can be particularly difficult with an abstruse writer such as Heidegger.As such, these lecture notes are invaluable in situating the reader and providing valuable context.

Kisiel's translation of `History of the Concept of Time' is clear and accessible possessing a smoothness that is absent in some English translations of Heidegger.John Drabinski's `Between Husserl and Heidegger'(available on-line course), is an excellent companion to when reading this text - it discusses History of the Concept of Time in addition to other works by Husserl and Heidegger.Drabinski is a capable commentator and his pedagogical approach of working from within Heidegger's language, while challenging for the novice, is an ultimately rewarding approach.

Overall, `The History of the Concept of Time' is an excellent addition to the corpus of Heideggerian work available in English.I highly recommended it for all students of Heidegger, particularly those approaching Being and Time for first time.

Considered the best exposition of phenomenology
Anyone coming from a rational empiricist background need not be offended by Heidegger's thinking since he does manage to look at matters from a radically different perspective that is novel and worthy of consideration.In this way, he expands our own thinking and puts into critical relief our own position.This is considered by scholars to be the best exposition of phenomenology.The fact Heidegger is able to explain other thinkers and other philosophers in such a superb manner seems to indicate how thoroughly he thought through to get to his own position.Paul Edwards cursory dismissal of Heidegger, although a worthy cause in itself, doesn't do justice to Heidegger.

Extremely helpful
As a student with a great deal of interest in Heidegger's ontologicalinquiry, I found this to be an indispensable supplement to Being and Time. Where Being and Time seems unbearably difficult to understand, History ofthe Concept of Time offers clarification.Since it is a collection oflecture/notes, the writing is usually more straight-forward, which as weknow is a blessing when it comes to Heidegger.I would recommend readingBeing and Time and History of the Concept of Time in tandem.

An early draft of `Being and Time'.
Perhaps, one of the first and least interesting of Heidegger's long phenomenology books from the 1920s. Most of what is contained within this text is worked out brilliantly in his masterwork `Being and Time, e.g., theontological/ontic structures of temporality.Ironically, there is littleexposition of `history' or the history of the `concept of time' in thiswork.I read this work during my thesis on Heidegger's thinking onspatiality.It contains some insights regarding this aspect of Heidegger'sthought, but does not add much to `Being and Time.'I recommend this toserious and budding Heidegger scholars, but others with only a passinginterest I would recommend `Being and Time' and `The Basic Problems OfPhenomenology' as much better choices. ... Read more

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Existentialism For Beginners is a lighthearted romp through the history of a philosophical movement that had broad-reaching influence on Western culture, politics and the arts during the period of mid-19th century through the late 20th century, and still exerts influence in the 21st century. Tracing its beginning with close-up views of seminal 19th century writers like Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, Existentialism For Beginners follows the trail of existential thought and literature through 20th century German philosophers Jaspers and Heidegger, and finally through to the flowering of the movement in Postwar France brought forth by Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and beyond.
With dazzling, gritty illustrations Existentialism For Beginners takes an affectionate, good-humored look at a style of thinking that, while pervasive in influence, has often been seen as obscure, difficult, cryptic and dark. Existentialism For Beginners helps to draw the movement’s many diverse elements together to create a palatable introduction for people who have always had difficulty defining or understanding existentialism, and an enjoyable historical review packed with richly fascinating quotes from existentialism’s most notable purveyors for those who are already appreciators of existentialism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A brilliant synthesis of existentialism, concise and comprehensive
I studied existentialism in college as part of a philosophy minor. I also designed and taught an undergraduate course entitled "Topics and Problems on Humanistic/Existential Psychology." You might reasonably conclude that I know something significant about the subject area. So did I until I read David Cogswell's clear, concise and rigorous examination of existentialism, from its precipitating rebellion against the philosophies of Friedrich Hegel to the disarming impact of existentialism on today's arts, politics and culture.

Between these two bookends, David Cogswell examines all the great thinkers and writers who have propelled this philosophy, helping his readers understand comparisons and contrasts within such an eclectic group. In this most readable book he accomplishes what my college studies did not: a synthesized, 50,000 ft. overview across two centuries and the work of fifteen great philosophers. What I found to be most remarkable about the author's accomplishment is the extent to which he simplifies an enormous body of writing, teaching his readers fundamentals while not forcing us to wade through nonessential details, digressions and debates (so characteristic of the movement). It takes a keen mind to condense so much information in an accessible and interesting expose, and David Cogswell certainly has accomplished this.

The author has done an enormous amount of research to bring life to these philosophers, augmented by interesting historical and biographical details that make them more human--more men and women in the context of the times in which they lived and thought and wrote.

Illustrations by collaborator Joe Lee are surprisingly helpful because they invite the reader to think more deeply--a form of "hot medium" that Marshall McLuhan described, requiring active engagement on the part of the receiver to lend interpretation and meaning to the message.

My only regret is that the author's book was not available when I was in college so that I could have seen the larger picture and gained deeper appreciation of the whole. The book is well worth reading today for any serious professional focused on contemporary politics, creative arts, sociology, psychology and culture. As you finish the final pages of the book, you will be impressed with how extensively existentialism has pervaded our lives today and how entertainingly this author has taken you on a thought-provoking journey into the most essential questions about human life.

superb overview!
I have read over 100 books on this topic. This is superb overview.The combo of the author's fast-moving (but accurate) text with the illustrator's funny/thought-provoking images is a big WINNER.

Good summary
This is a well done introduction of to a very complex subject.Cogswell covers all of the main contributors to the field of existentialism, even those in litterature, psychology and art.I found some philosphers easier to grasp than others, as for example, the incomprehensible Hegel,Husserl and Dilthey compared to the exciting Kierkgaard, Camus, Rilke and Piercy. This is the best a book like this can offer and it serves its purpose if it gets you to explore authors you might be interested in but whose subject matter seemed too intimidating.

An Existential Smorgasboard
Existentialism for Beginners provides an overview of the existential philosophy, told mostly through the lives of its adherents.The book starts with an introduction to existentialism and provides some basic statements of the problems that Existentialism is trying to solve and some of the core ideas.The book then describes the lives and thoughts of various existential philosophers, starting in the 1800s.The existentialists that I'm familiar with are Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus, but Cogswell draws from a wider pool than these.He does discuss how people have looked so hard for existential thought in philosophers who wrote long before the term existed that the term has lost a lot of meaning.He strikes a good balance, though, in his choice of existentialists to write about, and by starting in the 1800s we get a good historical background to the 1900s.

Cogswell writes a bit about each philospher's life, describing their background and the aspects of their life that led them to their philosophy.He also includes passages of their writing.Along with their philosophy he discusses some of the rivalry and the relationships between the different philosophers, with the most interesting being between Sartre and Camus and Sartre and de Beauvoir.My favorite existential philosopher is Camus, and the book did a good job of describing his life and ideas.

The book doesn't end with French existentialism, though,It goes on to discuss other ones, such as Ortega y Gassett.It then discusses how Existentialism became part of modern society, in movies, theater, art, music, and politics.While the famous existentialists are dead, the philosophy lives on. Cogswell suggests that one can pretty much pick a modern movie at random and find Existential themes.I know I've always thought Gilligan's Island was an existential story, for example, so now I'll have to try applying this to other movies.

The book works well as an introduction to existentialism, which is of course what it professes to be.It covers a lot of different areas of the philosophy and from there one can pick the specific areas of existentialism or the philosophers themselves that they wish to look into.I think I'll read The Rebel next. ... Read more

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Explores such themes as philosophy versus poetry, post-World War II German thought, art, tradition, and truth in a collection of essays. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

To love this world more than the reward in some other
In the first two- chapters of this book which Walter Kaufmann says were written after the other chapters he presents a kind of credo of his own. He oddly does this by taking as his major opponent T.S. Eliot who he sees as misreading the role of Christianity in world - culture. Like his mentor Nietzsche, Kaufmann believes that Christianity has brought a false concept of Equality to the world. Kaufmann harkens back to Aristotle in defining the hero or great man who will be the subject of the tragic Literature of the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare. Kaufmann focuses on the tragic hero in Shakespeare and sees him one who acts without concept of reward and punishment. Great action is action in sacrifice and even suffering but without expectation of otherwordly reward. The great hero is one who 'claims much for himself and gives much'. In another essay in which he compares Rilke and Nietzsche, he praises them both for their this - worldliness. He too has high - words of praise for the Biblical prophets, for those he conceives of as having struggled courageously against the masses for their own conception of Right. Kauffman writes in this work of Goethe, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,Rilke,Freud, Jaspers, Heidegger, Toynbee. And in doing so he presents his own this- worldly creed of the existensial struggle of mankind to live heroically, without guarantee of any future promise of bliss or immortality.
One of the most enjoyable parts of this book for me was the quotations presented from the great thinkers and poets he writes about.
Kauffman is one who too has a strong sense of the aesthetic. One of the many powerful quotations he presents is Nietzsche's concluding words in 'The Birth of Tragedy'. ' How much did this people have to suffer, to become so beautiful.'

Philosophy matters
Walter Kaufmann's essay collection is well worth reading, if only for one reason: he believes passionately that the act of reading, and the things read, matter. It's rare to encounter anyone who really cares about ideas, and who really believes that what you read says a lot about you. Books are normally treated as throwaway objects, like most television shows: turn them on, watch them for a little while, and move on to the next thing. Reading Kaufmann reminded me that there have been people who felt great passion in what they read; for a few hours, I was in the company of a man who valued the same things that I did, and it felt deeply relaxing.

The content of the book is an elaboration of the idea that existentialism isn't very new at all -- that it in fact has very strong roots in Shakespeare and even as far back as Socrates, and that the existentialist worldview, properly understood, is nothing more than the philosophical worldview. An existentialist, says Kaufmann, realizes that we are alone in the world without God to justify our existence; viewed as the greatest thinkers have viewed it, this confers enormous power on us, rather than desolation. Without God, we are free to shape the life we want and live it in all its potential and excess.

Kaufmann says that this was Nietzsche's dominant idea, while embodying the true philosopher's rejection of all ideologies. We should believe nothing unless we've examined it critically, said Nietzsche (or rather, says Kaufmann about Nietzsche; I've not yet read much of Uncle Fritz himself); From Shakespeare to Existentialism is, in essence, a mirror held up to philosopher after philosopher, examining whether they've achieved the Nietzschean ideal. Kaufmann is largely displeased.

When it comes to Heidegger, Kaufmann is not only dissatisfied with what he sees as Heidegger's abandonment of critical thinking, but objects to the apparently widespread belief that Heidegger invented the notion of modern man's being "thrown into the world" without moorings. This idea dates back at least to Nietzsche, says Kaufmann (who is, it's fair to say, perhaps unhealthily obsessed with Nietzsche), but probably would take us back to Shakespeare, and possibly even back to the Aristotelian "great-souled man." Indeed, one of Kaufmann's main arguments is that the Greek understanding of tragedy -- in which great-souled men are destroyed by their fate, and hold their heads high as they fall -- prefigured much of "modern" existentialism.

It's fair to say that Kaufmann sees much of existentialism -- in its modern understanding -- as a perversion of all that was hopeful in Nietzsche and in the Greeks. While Nietzsche would have told us that being thrown into the world is liberating, Kaufmann sees many anti-rationalist philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries as fundamentally pessimistic and hopeless; he singles out Jaspers, Kierkegaard and Heidegger for much criticism on this score, even while praising Jaspers and Kierkegaard in other respects. Kaufmann is scrupulous in his adherence to Nietzsche's standard: don't believe in any idea just because someone with a great name believes it.

Kaufmann's erudition is immense, and one of the greatest joys of the book is the discovery of new, interesting, important works to read. Nietzsche (of course), Freud, and Goethe are the big ones, and I inch ever closer to reading Kant and Hegel at Kaufmann's prodding. Under Kaufmann's gaze, all these philosophers become great defenders of the beauty and richness of life, rather than the black-turtleneck-clothed, clove-cigarette-smoking, morose Germans or Austrians that they've become over the past century. Understanding how German philosophy came to be viewed as a rather morbid and incomprehensible beast, and stripping off that imposing garb, is Kaufmann's great goal. Inasmuch as I now intend to dive headfirst into German philosophy, he has succeeded.

no pain no gain
this book caused my brain some pain, but after reading it twice i started to appreciate its magnificence, and understand why it was recommended to me by a friend who said it's such an important modern work in philosophy. It's essays are eloquent and easy to read, but the thinking is complex and deep. I tried my bes tto rise to the occasion!

interesting and informative
You don't have to agree with everything Kaufmann writes to find the book valuable for the range of the ideas it touches on.At times, direct and humorous.

One of Kaufmann's better books
The Princeton philospher was not noted for original thought, unlike other more well known 20th century philosophers such as Russell, Wittgenstein and Sartre.However, what he was good at was being a sort of philosophical"critic."Kaufmann was a very erudite man who wrote lots ofgreat stuff on the arts, history, literature and philosophy as well as therelationship that the three share with each other.

The present bookdetails the infamous existential motif of art replacing religion as therepresentative of what is most sacred in the human spirit.Kaufmann writesabout the joys and knowledge that are offered by great tragedies and thedark poetry of writers such as Rilke.

Kaufmann also does a crediblejob of critiquing several philosophers, historians and literary figures. Among the people he discusses are Goethe, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Rilke andHegel.Particularly interesting is his napalming of Heidegger.I havealways thought Heidegger was over-rated & Kaufmann's comical (althoughvalid) tirades were quite refreshing.

Kaufmann ends with a compellingcritique of the historian Arnold Toynbee, insisting that Toynbee's attemptto be both poet and historian calls into question the veracity of hisexegesis of the facts of history.

This isa great book for anyonewho is interested in philosophy& the arts since the time ofShakespeare. This book is especially for people interested in 20th centuryphilosophy & those who ponder its future trajectory. ... Read more

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Critical Theory constitutes one of the major intellectual traditions of the twentieth century, and is centrally important for philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theory of art, the study of modern European literatures and music, the history of ideas, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. In this volume an international team of distinguished contributors examines the major figures in Critical Theory, including Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, and Habermas, as well as lesser known but important thinkers such as Pollock and Neumann. The volume surveys the shared philosophical concerns that have given impetus to Critical Theory throughout its history, while at the same time showing the diversity among its proponents that contributes so much to its richness as a philosophical school. The result is an illuminating overview of the entire history of Critical Theory in the twentieth century, an examination of its central conceptual concerns, and an in-depth discussion of its future prospects. ... Read more

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This study examines the subject of Africana philosophy of existence. Drawing upon resources in Africana philosophy and literature, the contributors explore some of the central themes of existentialism as posed by the context of what Franz Fanon has identified as "the lived-experience of the black". Contributors are: Ernest Allen Jr, Robert Birt, Bernard Boxill, George Carew, Bobby Dixon, G.M. James Gonzales, Lewis R. Gordon, Leonard Harris, Floyd Hayes III, Paget Henry, Patricia Huntington, Joy Ann James, Clarence Shole Johnson, Bill E. Lawson, Howard McGary, Roy D. Morrison, William Preston, Jean-Paul Sartre, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Gary Schwartz, Robert Westley, and Naomi Zack. ... Read more

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With its emphasis on individuality, freedom, and personal responsibility, existentialism was one of the 20th century’s most significant philosophical movements. Through such writers as Sarte, de Beauvoir, and Camus, it influenced literature, the arts and humanities, and politics. Thomas R. Flynn examines the philosophy’s core beliefs, focusing on several key existential themes, and introduces the leading existentialist thinkers, from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre.

Customer Reviews (2)

Outstanding theoretical resolutions of body/mind problems
Warning, based on my experience with this book. After a first quick reading, I labored over the conclusion and came away very dissatisfied. While the "Conclusion" is an accurate synopsis of the book, unless you have already integrated the terms of Toadvine's conception of Merleau-Ponty's argument, you may find yourself wondering, as I did:
a)If Toadvine's intention is to persuade readers that M-P offers a more adequate ontology than that derived from either realism or constructivism, are we left only with compounded paradoxes and are those really an advance in our thinking?
b)As he is unable to locate within M-P any suggestions of practical consequences for environmental policies or more general ethical principles, is this discussion anything more than cheerleading for ontology?

Rereading carefully the preceding chapters changed my mind. Toadvine is honestly modest about any results. He affirms that M-P offers new terms for understanding the relation of nature and human nature. Those new terms appear to this reader to be distinctions without a difference, which seems to be exactly the point that M-P makes for the nature/human nature condition. M-P's phrase is, "the non-difference that is not an identity." If you can imagine explanations for such a unity-in-difference, that is what you will find here.

The undeniable value of this work is its selection of material from M-P's long struggle to explore human perception. Toadvine locates the selected material in M-P's developing thought and the philosophical ethos in which he labored.

While Toadvine expressly denies that aestheticism can adequately identify M-P's ideas, the passages that recite M-P's response to post-impressionist art sing with a significance that is unforgettable The promise is that nature does its own singing and that human nature's singing is of the same song in a different key.

Perhaps my enthusiasm derives, also, from knowing before reading this study that Heidegger is legitimately criticized for lacking any developed philosophy of nature. Added to that is the view of some phenomenologists that M-P moved in H's direction as his work matured. Consequently the promise of a philosophy of nature by M-P would seem to be a confluence of two of the 20th Century's outstanding philosophers, where their laborsmight even be complementary if not serendipitous.

Yet if their distinctions do not provoke any differences, at least none that can be claimed to be "richer in contingencies" as H promised, I can only hope I am being taught rather than teased. I know of no one who is a better teacher than those two giants.

So far I can see very promising possibilities for issues that until M-P led to cul-de-sacs. Only time will tell.

important book
This is the first comprehensive study of Merleau-Ponty's concept of nature. And the study is done with an eye toward environmental problems. It's a great book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

As described, but more writing in margins than expected
Parts of this book are literally filled with writing and notes; for the price and description, I wasn't expecting that much markage.

more life-changing than the Bible
A friend of mine let me borrow this book several years ago. When I started reading it I was an evangelical Christian, and when I finished, I was an agnostic atheist. I thought the translations were quite good, especially the excerpts from Nietzsche's "The Gay Science."

Although the transition from a person of faith to a person of reason took place over many years for me, the reading of this particular book marks perhaps the most defining moment of my life so far, and I could not have read it at a more appropriate time. I found the introductions to each section illuminating and helpful, and the actual writings were presented in a way that flowed from premise to conclusion and compressed two centuries of progressive existential humanistic thinking.

I highly recommend this book to everyone (even small children and babies, who can't read). Paraprosdokian.

I'm keeping this
I bought it for a class, and I enjoyed a good deal of the exerpts in the text.The Nietzsche selections are great, as are most of the Kierkegaard (I prefer the shorter exerpts and could have done without Fear and Trembling).

I never read much of the other sections, but the book has been invaluable to me for the introductions and any part of the Nietsche in this text alone.Kierkegaard has some great moments too.Considering how accessable and small and how much more I could get from this book, I will be looking to this book for years to come, although once you find something interesting you had best go find out where the exerpt is from in case it is not the complete picture (they chose which parts of the writings to give you, which I value highly, but it means you should not think you can speak for Nietzsche or Kierkegaard by this text alone).

We used three texts for our course and this was the only one that was important.The introductions are pleasant and interesting on their own.There's lots of good to choose from in this comfortably "small" sized collection.

Unless you already own and know well some of these philosophers or you can't stand to read the introductions in this text, I think you would find this book useful.

A beginer's trail guide
An excellent work.The wide selection of readings alone would cost quite a bit of money to assemble seperately.Major contributions by each philospher are summarized in a non-technical manner that is accesible by readers from all walks of life.One of the few books that approaches several major themes under one cover and manages to leave the reader with the seeds of interest rather than confusion and massive generalization.I first ran across the work in class and it has remained a springboard for all manner of reading and writing.All in all an excellent grounding for further study.

A great way to start thinking existentially
This is a very helpful, useful collection.Nowhere else will you find such generous selections from these four major contributors to the existentialist tradition.(Even though Sartre is the only one who adopted the label "existentialist," there is no doubt that all four thinkers are concerned with some similar problems and take some similar approaches.) Of course, a different editor might have made somewhat different selections, but anyone who reads the introductions and texts in this volume carefully will come away with a solid understanding of many major ideas of these philosophers -- and maybe a deeper understanding of his or her own life. ... Read more

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The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy is a major interpretive study of Heidegger's complex relationship to medieval philosophy. S. J. McGrath's contribution is historical and biographical as well as philosophical, examining how the enthusiastic defender of the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition became the great destroyer of metaphysical theology.

This book provides an informative and comprehensive examination of Heidegger's changing approach to medieval sources--from the seminary studies of Bonaventure to the famous phenomenological destructions of medieval ontology. McGrath argues that the mid-point of this development, and the high point of Heidegger's reading of medieval philosophy, is the widely neglected habilitation thesis on Scotus and speculative grammar. He shows that this neo-Kantian retrieval of phenomenological moments in the metaphysics of Scotus and Thomas of Erfurt marks the beginning of a turn from metaphysics to existential phenomenology. McGrath's careful hermeneutical reconstruction of this complex trajectory uncovers the roots of Heidegger's critique of ontotheology in a Luther-inspired defection from his largely Scholastic formation.

In the end McGrath argues that Heidegger fails to do justice to the spirit of medieval philosophy. The book sheds new light on a long-debated question of the early Heidegger's theological significance. Far from a neutral phenomenology, Heidegger's masterwork, Being and Time, is shown to be a philosophically questionable overturning of the medieval theological paradigm. ... Read more

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Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), written in 1936-38 and first published in 1989 as Beitrge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), is Heidegger's most ground-breaking work after the publication of Being and Time in 1927.If Being and Time is perceived as undermining modern metaphysics, Contributions undertakes to reshape the very project of thinking. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Preliminary concerns beginning to mature
I have only begun to study this book, but I bring to it 35 years of living with awareness of Heidegger's work and struggling with many of his texts. So far it seems to me that this work is a struggle to do what he confessed he could not do--overcome metaphysics or cross-over to a second beginning.

My German is so primitive that I could never read this text in its original language. I see that saves me from feeling a need to compete with this translation. I am thankful for small blessings. The unique poetic vocabulary invented by H to avoid metaphysics and promote the cross-over presents a challenge.

The unique vocabulary by Emad and Maly means I must not depend on solitary words, even while H is at such pains to set them in context. (On continued study of this book, I am increasingly admiring of the translation, with the picyune exception of the use of English words with "-ness" and "-hood" that typically shout *metaphysics.*)

As with Sein und Zeit which I first read about 30 years ago and then reread 5 years ago, I can only resort to a developing appreciation of this volume. It is hard work for me.

Yet I should not want to die without even a meager acquaintance, as mine is, with our age's version of Aristotle. Even he was libeled for political incompetence. Opportunities such as are offered in this volume do not come around everyday.

Upon beginning the reading I would have been satisfied to call what I found a Heidegger "worldview;" that is, avoidance of philosophy as erudition. Yet early on H makes clear it is philosophy he is doing, because philosophy, contrary to worldview, calls itself into question. That thread is built around H's sense of our distress and a need to accept it. Is that an answer as found in metaphysics and worldviews? Only if it is an unsettled settlement, a willingness to stay on a path with no end in view.

Addendum
Herrmann, the editor, tells us that he moved what began as the second of the eight joinings (not chapters) of the text, "Be-ing," to the very end in accord with a note by Heidegger. Overwhelmed by the volume, I have now concentrated study on that final section which H's note characterized as "an attempt to grasp the whole once again." I do find that reading and rereading it does help my understanding; maybe even enough so that one day I can return to the other sections. That is, if I am able to recover my balance from the stunning assertions now coming through.

A Reader's Digest or Cliff Notes version might go something like this: Although the ancient Greeks alerted us long ago to the differentiation between a being or beings and be-ing as such, from Anaximander to Nietzsche (the last great philosopher) be-ing as such has only been understood on the basis of a being or beings. As a consequence, it does not bother us that being as such is treated as most-being or being in general. It ought to bother us a lot, for all the confusion it has caused and for the emptiness it has left us with.

Whenever it was we came to realize that we are mortals and that we can predict our inevitable end-of-life, we also were offered the opportunity to realize ourselves as historical. That is, we come to realize that as there was something here before we got here (rendering us as thrown) there will also be something after we are gone. How does it happen that we so seldom wonder about that amazing state of affairs? Or wonder about it at least as much or more than we wonder about what things, entities, objects, beings are made of? That blind spot is what ought to bother us.

Maybe we still have a chance to recover from our neglect. We have hints of another beginning to philosophy scattered in both the triumphs and the failures of Western thinking. In addition, we have the phenomenon of language, with all its possibilities. If we think of language as a gift to us, maybe even a gift from be-ing as such, we might reassess our place. We then could think of ourselves as granted that gift of language in order to be guardians of be-ing as such. And then we could see ourselves as participants in "the sway of be-ing," which is a kind of destiny, our destiny and our truth. If nothing else, our lives then can be richer in contingencies.

The hardest part is being silent enough to hear what, if anything, be-ing has to say to us. Our history back to most ancient times is seeking for ground when abground is t/here. We account for it by naming it "nothing," but that misses it. (ed. note: Sartre's mistake?) The poets enable us to hear the message of the gods, even while they are few who can bear to listen.

My study of section "VIII. Be-ing," has steadily increased my appreciation for a feature that drew me to Heidegger originally:his insistence and capacity for coherence. His task is both to account for how we have arrived at our ontological predicament and then to offer hints of further possibilities. It is his welcoming of "possibility" that currently most intrigues, as ordinary philosophy gives little weight to the concept.

His innovative vocabulary mimics what must have been his experience studying the Attic Greeks where meaning only emerges in a context of otherwise undefined words. Heidegger's new concepts depend on the whole context of his work. Innovative vocabulary is the task he assigns to poiesis, and its measure is the horizon of our understanding. We can think only as far as our concepts will take us.

Heidegger's "Second Masterpiece"
Heidegger's "Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning" is generally regarded as a second masterpiece, following his unfinished Being and Time, in which he reworked some of the major ideas that were explored in the earlier text. If you are interested in a good scholarly understanding Heidegger via a series of landmark texts that will lead you to the core of Heidegger's thought then this is definitely a must-read.

The Contributions, written after the famous Heideggerian "Turn" and after his fateful involvement with the "inner truth and greatness of the movement" is of a level of sophistication that is unmatched. Arranged in terms of a series of distinct but interrelated parts, the text overcomes the problems encountered in Being and Time and takes off thinking to new heights.

It is unbelievable Indiana Press let this translation become a book
It is unbelievable Indiana Press let this translation become a book.

Beitrage Zur Philosophie
I recommend that first you pour yourself a glass of wine, drink it and relax and dip into...Now what was he saying about Enowing and the Ones to Come and the Last God and all...? That's right, chill out with the Magician from Messkirch. let Der Man speak his words. this is Beitrage Zur Philosophie, baby. The Big Think. Gotta ride this wave. It will take you someplace to think about.

At Least he didn't call this book:Sick Puppy.
I am not overly familiar with this book.It is the most recent translation of a major work by Heidegger that I have seen this year, and I thought I ought to look into it to see if the thinking around Heidegger is getting any better for me personally.The more I know about philosophy, the less I have to read to start getting an opinion of my own, and a page of this stuff was usually enough to put me in a different frame of mind.Plowing on after I lost my idea of whatever thread I was following had a tendency to be soporific, so I recommend this book to people who have a lot of time to sleep.

There is a little section 72, "Nihilism" on pages 96-8 which makes me think philosophy must mean a lot less now than when Nietzsche inspired Heidegger to write, "Nihilism in Nietzsche's sense means that all goals are gone" (p. 96).For the 20th century to produce a great philosopher like Heidegger and put him in the midst of some of the greatest political foolishness of the 20th century, and have most professional philosophers think that he was showing too much activism when he joined the Nazi party, but was being extremely professional when he managed to maintain his standing in the party while Hitler was in power by not saying anything bad about Hitler, makes me think the comedians of the age might have been in a better position to do some political thinking.In the movie, "The Dance of Genghis Cohn," a little dummy that looks like Hitler was the kind of funny bit which got the comedian beat up by some younger members of the Nazi party right after the show.That kind of German society seems to be what Heidegger has most on his mind in his description of nihilism."Proof for this is the gigantically organized event for shouting down this anxiety. . . . The most disastrous nihilism consists in passing oneself off as protector of Christianity . . . on the basis of social accomplishments" (p. 97).Younger people than Heidegger have found a lot of individual ways for having goals, and the main reason that they haven't been able to put it together is that a collection like the United Stoners of America is not naturally cohesive.Heidegger was a long way from wanting that to be so out in the open.He must attempt to be so philosophical that his last sentence for the section on nihilism is "Instead this awareness must recognize the abandonment of being as essential sway.(p. 98). ... Read more

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Jean Beaufret is perhaps best known for posing the questions to which Martin Heidegger responded in his famous "Letter on Humanism." These questions, hastily written in a Paris café, constitute an early and improvised moment that was to form a profound philosophical engagement and friendship between the two thinkers. Mark Sinclair presents, for the first time in English translation, the first of four volumes of correspondence between Heidegger and Beaufret. This volume covers Heidegger’s attachments to Greek thinking in six letters—"The Birth of Philosophy," "Heraclitus and Parmenides," "Reading Parmenides," "Zeno," "A Note on Plato and Aristotle," and "Energeia and Actus." This frank exchange shows Heidegger in a more personal and tentative light and brings out his deep attachments to French intellectual traditions. ... Read more

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This is a dictionary of the key terms and concepts in Husserl's philosophy, his major works and philosophical influences. "The Husserl Dictionary" is a guide to the world of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Husserl's thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key terms used in Husserl's writings and detailed synopses of his key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on Husserl's major philosophical influences, including Brentano, Hume, Dilthey, Frege, and Kant, and those he influenced, such as Gadamer, Heidegger, Levinas, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Husserl's phenomenology, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. "The Husserl Dictionary" is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Husserl, Phenomenology or Modern European Philosophy more generally.The "Continuum Philosophy Dictionaries" offer clear and accessible guides to the work of some of the more challenging thinkers in the history of philosophy. A-Z entries provide clear definitions of key terminology, synopses of key works, and details of each thinker's major themes, ideas and philosophical influences. The Dictionaries are the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying these key philosophers. ... Read more

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This work explains the implications of phenomenology and critical theory for those studying mass communication. It aims to integrate ideas of intentionality, responsibility, and intersubjectivity with current conceptions of institutions and power. ... Read more