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"What is the meaning of being?" This is the central question of Martin Heidegger's profoundly important work, in which the great philosopher seeks to explain the basic problems of existence. A central influence on later philosophy, literature, art, and criticism—as well as existentialism and much of postmodern thought—Being and Time forever changed the intellectual map of the modern world. As Richard Rorty wrote in the New York Times Book Review, "You cannot read most of the important thinkers of recent times without taking Heidegger's thought into account."

Customer Reviews (61)

Enmeshed in the world
Athletes experience a fundamental way of being in the world that they often call "being in the zone." Larry Bird said that sometimes he didn't realize that he had passed the basketball until a moment after he had actually passed it.

Martin Heidegger, father of the study of being, explains that we humans are enmeshed or absorbed in the world in ways that are more fundamental and deeper than our cognitive, intentional, or analytical ways of being; that we move about in the world without consciously guiding each and every step so to speak.

Most of our living and our activity is completely absorbed in the world and is not deliberate or consciously intentional. We find ourselves opening the refrigerator door or arriving at work after a long drive without consciously or thoughtfully guiding our activity at each point along the way. This enmeshed activity is a fundamental way of being that is primary and deeper than our cognitive and intentional states of being.

Further, this way of being in the world is not entirely separate from the world in the way that one engages in detached analysis, studying or analyzing objects and things as through a microscope. Our enmeshed activity shows us, discloses us, as inseparably part of the world and further shows that the world is part of us in very deep and non-cognitive ways.

Why does this insight matter? It matters because thousands of years of philosophical thought have posited humans as rational beings, separate and distinct from the world around us; thinking subjects studying the world of objects as though we lived our everyday lives as detached philosophers and scientists. Heidegger shows us that the world is very much with us; that we are in the world in ways that cannot be extricated from the essence of our being. It is as though the world is a wooden latticework and our lives grow as vines that weave themselves through the lattice and rise to the sun. We have become part of the world and it has become part of us. One cannot rip out the lattice without disrupting the vines. More importantly, the interwoven nature of the vines through the lattice constitutes the most fundamental and primary way of being. All else is but buds on the vine.

And yet, in my opinion, Heidegger misses so much on point and consequently, his analysis is incomplete, and in some cases, this incompleteness evidences an analysis that half reveals and half conceals our actual being in the world.

READING HEIDEGGER IN ENGLISH--TWO TRANSLATIONS OF BEING AND TIME
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

Being and Time

(first German edition 1927)
Two translations into English:

John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson
(New York: Harper & Row, 1962)589 pages
(ISBN:
(Library of Congress call number: B3279.H48S43 1962a)

Joan Stambaugh
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996) 487 pages
(ISBN: 0-7914-2677-7; hardcover)
(ISBN: 0-7914-2678-5; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: B3279.H48S43 1996)

For many years, this book was said to be "untranslatable"
because of the extreme difficulty of Heidegger's language,
including the number of new expressions
and new uses of old words that he introduces.
The careful reader will benefit from reading both of these translations.
But if you must choose only one,
use the Macquarrie and Robinson version.

John Macquarrie might be the foremost Heidegger scholar in the world.
The Macquarrie and Robinson translation conveys the meaning of Heidegger
into English better than the Stambaugh translation.
But the Stambaugh translation is easier to read in English
because she has avoided creating new technical expressions in English
for the more difficult of Heidegger's concepts.
However, some of Stambaugh's choices are simply puzzling.
For example, why is the expression
usually translated as "beings-in-the-world"
sometimes rendered by Stambaugh as "innerworldly beings"?

No matter what translation one uses,
Heidegger remains a very difficult philosopher to read.
I recommend giving a careful reading only to those parts
that the reader finds meaningful.
The other parts can be left to the professional philosophers.
For example, some parts of this book
deal with the question of being as such,
which Heidegger says is central to his philosophy.
But here Being and Time
is being reviewed as a book of existentialism.

Now that I have read both translations carefully and aloud,
I have decided to adopt a new practice for my own references to B&T:
I have created my own paraphrases, drawing on both translations.
This practice makes Heidegger
more accessible to the English-speaking reader.
Scholars can read the German original
and all translations they find helpful.

One example such a combined paraphrase
will be found in presenting Heidegger's concept of Authenticity.
Search the Internet for the following precise expression:
"AUTHENTICITY (Philosophy)---Heidegger's vision of becoming more Authentic".

The most important ideas for existentialism
explored in Being & Time are:
existential anxiety as distinct from ordinary fears,
existential guilt as distinct from moral conscience,
being-towards-death or ontological anxiety
as distinct from the fact of biological death
and our fear of ceasing-to-be,
discovering ourselves as creatures conditioned by time:
the past, the present,
and--most important--the future we project.

The beginning reader of Heidegger
should probably not try to read this book
by beginning at page one and attempting to read thru to the end.
Such an approach will probably cause you to give up too soon.
Read first the parts that seem most interesting to you.
These best parts are worth many readings in any case.
Then go back to pick up the parts your skipped
if you are still interested.

If you can't understand Heidegger by reading him directly,
read some other books about Heidegger first.
Once you have the proper orientation and conceptual framework,
you may find Heidegger a rich mine
of new insights into human existence.

Heidegger will be studied and studied
as long as there are humans who can think.

James Leonard Park, existential philosopher.

Not the right translation of this important work
This translation is highly problematic and, after comparing this to the new Stambaugh version, I must say that this translation does not compare favorably with the revised Stambaugh translation.

great philosophy work and clear translation
Heidegger's Being and Time is one of the most important philosophy works of the last century, and is written in a very didactical and clear way.
The english translation is clear and the index of english expressions is very helpful.

Existential classic

I am not a philosopher, but I read Being and Time to broaden my appreciation and understanding of philosophical issues. Heidegger attempted in this work to rethink metaphysics, not on the basis of static substances and categories as has been traditionally the case, but on the basis of 'Dasein', the human being for whom Being is an issue. This involves a top-to-bottom reconstruction of how we conceive of the significance of living in the world as the kind of beings that we are. His key move is to differentiate between the 'ontical' and the 'ontological' in order to consider beings in themselves apart from their manifestation. This turns aside the temptation to 'explain' human beings on the basis of psychology, sociology and history, since there is a 'primordial' sense in which our Being precedes our immersion in all these areas. By drawing ourselves back to a pristine ontological state we can learn to live joyfully and creatively within the finite lives that we have.

This book is full of fascinating turns of thought that challenge the way we ordinarily conceive of the world. I found it to open up very fruitful perspectives on 'life-in-the-world' and a few good tools for further study and intellectual development.

Being and Time has a notoriously difficult style, and as a non-expert it was at the edge of my ability to understand. But it is not that it is unclear, merely that Heidegger is attempting to use language in fresh ways to illuminate his ideas. If you pay careful attention to the specific ways that he defines his key terms it becomes easier to follow the argument as the book progresses.

Other reviewers have dealt with Heidegger's politics, and I just can say that there is great value in Being and Time apart from any consideration of where the author might have gone subsequently. ... Read more

Product Description

Basic Writings is the finest single-volume anthology of the work of Martin Heidegger, widely considered one of the most important modern philosophers. Its selections offer a full range of the influential author's writings—including "The Origin of the Work of Art," the introduction to Being and Time, "What Is Metaphysics?," "Letter on Humanism," "The Question Concerning Technology," "The Way to Language," and "The End of Philosophy." Featuring a foreword by Heidegger scholar Taylor Carman, this essential collection provides readers with a concise introduction to the groundbreaking philosophy of this brilliant and essential thinker.

Customer Reviews (14)

Basic Writing is useful and good
This is an excellent selection of essays by Heidegger, especially for those who want to know the thrust of Heidegger's thinking while minimizing the amount of slogging through technical philosophy. Collecting the late essays together all in one book is very useful and the breadth of all the selections beginning with the introduction to Being and Time helps let us see the arc of development. David Krell's prefaces are very good. I wanted to introduce a friend who knows mathematics but not so much philosophy to Heidegger and the essay "Modern Science, Metaphysics and Mathematics" is a good entry.

Essential Heidegger reading
Phenomenology is, to my mind, a crucial branch of philosophy that impinges on many of the so-called sciences, including psychology and sociology. Unfortunately, Martin Heidegger, one of phenomenology's principle promoters, is one of those people whose writing demands a mentor for the reader. Failing that, which has been my experience, the demand translates into reading the man as widely as possible, including the output of his students and colleagues. 'Basic Writings' is a vital work in the journey into Heidegger's mind in that it provides a historical record of how he developed after 'Being and Time'; more so how he was able to take phenomenology to even higher heights of relevance in our contemporary world. This book deserves a place next to 'Being and Time' on the shelf of the serious Heidegger student.

"Being" is a revealing way of seeing; it is world disclosive
I read this book for a graduate seminar on philosophy.In one of the most influential philosophical books of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time," he deconstructs phenomenology.Heidegger's kind of phenomenology has to do with the idea of phenomenon, which means something that appears and shows itself.His criticism of traditional philosophy is that it gets started with categories, concepts, and notions, departing from the way human comprehension of this world first shows itself.This is Aristotelian and Aristotle is an enormous influence on Heidegger.

Yet, there is something very radical going on here, and that is the idea of "being" is connected to meaning and negativity.In the history of philosophy, being has a positive concept, something that "is" thus, the opposite of being is none being.Heidegger wants to show how the meaning of being is distorted by this understanding of being as a purely positive concept, as a "thing" a full present entity.For Example, he also very much critiques in modern art, the modern conception of objectivity, the world is transformed into an object independent of art, of its significance, its meaning, or interest in it.This was due in large part because of modern science, and its strong sense of objectification converting nature into a set of mere objects, time, and space that are measurable and analyzable through scientific means.Meaning, importance, and significance for Heidegger equals value; science and nature have none of this as pure objects.Therefore, anything of meaning, and of significance would be transferred into the subject it would be simply the human estimation, nature itself has no meaning or significance in that respect.

Heidegger critiques this scientific model.As he says in his phenomenology, "Well how is it that human existence first understands itself?Here he is talking about things that are very ordinary and complex.We are in a world that has significance, it is meaningful to us, it matters to us, it fits into our interests in such a way that we are absorbed into its significance.So, when we come across the world, first and foremost it is not a mere object that is standing apart from us or our mind, but rather it has significant elements of our environment that fit into our lives.Some things are significant, or they are useful, or dangerous, or satisfying, etc.What Heidegger wants to say in his phenomenology is we have to pay attention to this way of being.Therefore, first and foremost he says "being" matters, it matters to us."Being" is a significance, it is not just a bare object or a bare fact.Heidegger doesn't accept this idea of subject on one side and object on the other side, that means that when humans have their understanding of the world, it is not just a human projection, it is not just a human construction.It is a revealing way of seeing; it is world disclosive.The meaning of the world wouldn't happen without us, because we are the ones that find it meaningful.Therefore, it is most important to understand that for Heidegger there is no object subject distinction.The term he uses to illustrate his idea is "Dasien" which means "human existence," Heidegger chooses it because he doesn't want to deal with the subject, or mind or consciousness, he wants to use a word that does not subjectivefy things.He uses "Dasien" as "humans being there" in this world and not just staying apart from it.

Humans are a being in the world, a term he uses is, "we dwell" in the world, we don't come across it as some bare thing in the world we "dwell" in it.Therefore, "meaningfulness" is a primary notion of being.Secondly, the meaning of "being" is connected with the notion of negativity.This is the notion of "being" moving toward death, and anxiety.Thus, the way that humans understand being is in part because of opposite of non-being and death is a perfect example of that.Humans are distinct because we understand that we are mortal, that we die.We are aware of death even when we are not in danger, which means we understand being and our world.Heidegger made a lot out of the fact that the Greeks understood this, that they were mortals, and that was no accident he thought.That death is a primary aspect of what it means to be human.If you are aware of death as he says, then you can be aware of the meaning of life.The meaning of life comes to us because we understand that we are finite, that we are mortal and not in control.

Another way to understand Heidegger is a wonderful analysis of the idea that the word "being" has become a noun in philosophy, like first things of beings, or things that are.Yet Heidegger says in the Greek language and other western languages this idea of "being" grammatically in language is derived from a verb, the primary verb "to be."Moreover, as a verb it is tensed which means it has to do with time.All verbs are tensed, even Aristotle said, "That is the difference between a verb and a noun."The difference between a verb and a noun, a verb is something that has to do with time, not just action, but time.That is why all verbs are tensed as future, and past.The very fact that time is another perfect indication of negativity, because time is ever changing, ever moving, and when we are in the present, the past is time of negativity it is no longer.When we are in the present, the future is kind of negative it is not yet.Yet we understand these negatives as meaningful, that is why we can get upset about the past that it is not happening anymore, and why we can become excited about the future even though it hasn't happened yet, they have meaning to us.

Another important feature of Heidegger's book is where he takes on the notion of skepticism.Skepticism is a classic problem in philosophy, it is really fostered by Descartes and Hume, and it has to do with the subject/object division.Skeptics argue that the mind is on one side of the fence, the outside world is on the other side, and the mind is something that comes across the world and just processes it, according to its categories of thinking, this is a very common modern construction of skepticism.If this skeptical construct were true, then it is very possible for someone to ask the question; "well how do we know that our minds that are on this side of the fence can ever really know that it is accurately talking about what is on the other side of the fence?If it is separated like this, how can we be sure that what we think about is actually the case?Heidegger is not talking here about ordinary skepticism, like wonder or "I am not sure" kind of skepticism; but what Heidegger argues against is the kind of radical skepticism, which asks, can we be sure of any of our knowledge.This idea plays on two objects, the subject object divide if we are on this side of the subject how can we ever know we are accurately talking about something.Secondly, is the certainty because the skeptic is someone who says well, "I really want to find with 100% certainty, and if I can find any reason for doubt then I am not going to commit.Heidegger says this is a classic philosophical problem that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.Because, no existing human self could ever radically call into question its environment and this world.It doesn't make any sense.You can call into question this or that aspect of it, but never the whole thing and never to say; "well it's possible that what humans say about the world may not have anything to do with the world."Even Descartes and Hume knew this was perverse, but they said this is what philosophy has to do.Radical skepticism is perverse to Heidegger.Skeptics like Descartes and Hume if right why are they writing to an audience.The very practice of skepticism undermines the idea of skepticism.Heidegger says, "Well if our practices betray the project of skepticism, which even Hume admits, he says I would go mad."You can't live as a radical skeptic.This skepticism can apply to things like morals and beauty values and artistic things, because they don't satisfy strict standards of knowledge and certainty.

To reiterate, it is important to know that Heidegger primarily wants to say that the meaning of being, is something that humans are involved with in a significant meaningful way, and it can't be either subjective or objective, those two ideas he says are polarizations that both account for how the world matters to us.The fact that it matters to us means it can't be a pure objective thing.Secondly, the fact that what matters to us is our world not just our opinions and our inner dispositions mean it can't be just a subjective thing.We are absorbed in the world; we are caught up in it.Heidegger's phenomenology wants to give voice to these notions rather than start with the modern categories of subjectivity and objectivity.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, epistemology, and ontology.

Remarkable Edition
This volume, published by HarperCollins in the sixties and edited by translator David Farrell Krell serves as the perfect compendium to the thought of Martin Heidegger, one of the most significant thinkers of philosophy in the 20th century. Heidegger's methodology is necessarily difficult, as he is trying to remove himself from the `average-everyday' language we employ; and he is trying to approach the meaning of being concretely and originally. Therefore, stop complaining about the obscurity of his style and work your way through this text, for it will remain one of the major works of European thought.

The first essay is the introductory chapter to Heidegger's opus Being and Time. It is actually rather senseless to read it without going on to read the complete text. However, for those readers who simply want a taste of Heidegger's basic philosophic project and methodology, it is summarized here. He says at the outset: "This question has today been forgotten-although our time considers itself progressive in again affirming `metaphysics.' All the same we believe that we are spared the exertion of rekindling a gigantomachia peri tes ousias [a Battle of Giants concerning Being,' [Plato, Sophist]. But the question touched upon here is hardly an arbitrary one." (41). For Heidegger, philosophy has lost touched with the question `what is the meaning of being, as such?' However, in order to resolve the question of the meaning of Being, you must examine the Being of the questioner, (Dasein), leading us to do fundamental ontology.

The second essay in the collection is titled What is Metaphysics? It is an inaugural address the delimited many of the major ideas he would later expand in Being in Time. In it, Heidegger again examines the meaning of Being, but he also discusses the unheimlichkeit (the uncanny), and Dasein's confrontation with "the nothing" (100), and with attunement and Nihilism generally. This is a particularly famous, though cryptic essay, the major ideas in it are expanded at great lengths by Heidegger in his book `Introduction to Metaphysics,' published later in 1953.

The next essay is titled On the Essence of Truth, and it is particularly difficult. Heidegger begins with: "Our Topic is the essence of truth. The question regarding the essence of truth is not concerned with whether truth is a truth of practical experience or of economic calculation, the truth of a technical consideration or of political sagacity, or, in particular, a truth of scientific research or of artistic composition, or even the truth of thoughtful reflection or cultic belief. The question of essence disregards all this and attends to the one thing that in general distinguishes every `truth' as truth (115). Heidegger will later suggest in the essay that the essence of truth is freedom, or unconcealment. Heidegger does not adhere to radical skepticism, nor does he believe in eternal truths. He is interested in the essence of this question with regard to Da-Sein's `liberation' for `ek-sistence.'

The Origin of the Work of Art is unlike any essay in the history of aesthetic philosophy or criticism, because Heidegger is not at all concerned with the beauty of art, nor with the thinking of the artist. He is interested in the capacity for art to reveal worlds. He writes: "The temple-work, standing there, opens up a world and at the same time sets this world back again on earth, which itself only thus emerges as native ground. But men and animals, plants and things, are never present and familiar as unchangeable objects, only to represent incidentally also a fitting environment for the temple, which one fine day is added to what is already there" (168). Heidegger values the art of poetry more than any other. He says, "Art happens as poetry. Poetry is founding in the triple sense of bestowing, grounding, and beginning" (202), and he valued Holderlin, Trakyl, and Rilke above all other poets. Art is an origin, and it serves to preserve the historical existence of man.

One could go on and on. This volume also contains the Letter on Humanism, Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, the Question Concerning Technology, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, What Calls for Thinking?, the Way to Language, and the End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking. They will keep you busy for quite a while.

HEIDEGGER REVIEW BY TONY SEE
This is a good place to start if you are interested in getting an overview of Heidegger's writings. There are some obvious disadvantages such as the fact that some parts are included while others are not, but what is inside is generally good enough as a starting point for Heidegger's other writings.

I would recommend reading the other translations though such as the Pathways, Parmenides and Language and Thought if one is already serious about Heidegger studies as these have the important writings as well and in complete form.

There are some Heideggerian writings that are especially relevant to life in Singapore and perhaps to other urban and technological cities as well and the student of philosophy may want to see how everything fits together in the works on art and technology.

Tony See
Philosopher in Residence
(Singapore) ... Read more

Product Description
ñIn this text, which is crucial to understanding the transition from HeideggerÍs earlier to his later thinking, readers will find a helpful overview of HeideggerÍs conception of metaphysics . . . a brilliant phenomenological analysis of boredom . . . an investigation of the essence of life and animality . . . and an analysis of the structure of the propositional statement . . . î „Review of Metaphysics

ñThis authoritative translation is essential to any Heidegger collection.î „Choice

ñWhoever thought that Heidegger . . . has no surprises left in him had better read this new volume. If its rhetoric is ïhard and heavyÍ its thought is even harder and essentially more daring than Heideggerians ever imagined Heidegger could be.î „David Farrell Krell

ñThis is an important addition to the translations of HeideggerÍs lecture-courses . . .î „International Philosophical Quarterly

This work, the text of Martin HeideggerÍs lecture course of 1929/30, is crucial for an understanding of HeideggerÍs transition from the major work of his early years, ¸Being and Time, to his later preoccupations with language, truth, and history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

How I know Heidegger was an egomaniac
The beginning is like an introduction to beat all introductions.This book has no index, but there is very little in these lectures that an index could pick out as an adequate description of any of the topics covered in the book.Pages 375-376 have a glossary, with some complicated words and phrases like "time as it drags," but with no attempt to locate where to find such topics in the text of these lectures from 1929/30.The Glossary is a guide to the translation, and people who have a favorite German word can check for the English word that is a most likely translation.You are more likely to think there are some totally unlikely translations, if you only speak English, like "resolute disclosedness:Entschlossenheit."

Martin Heidegger is great, and you can't understand how he is great unless you comprehend the major problem in this book:boredom.Page 112 is devoted to smoking a cigar, and it is not just any cigar.Smoking is studied as a social activity in which he watches himself taking part in a ritual that eventually leaves him empty because his entire life depends on what he thinks, and certainly "not of viewing it in terms of isolated incidents, but of understanding it in the context of the whole situation of the evening, of sitting together, of making conversation."(p. 111).The social casualness is in sharp contrast with his desire for some enthusiasm for himself.

"It--one's own self that has been left standing, the self that everyone himself or herself is, and each with this particular history, of this particular standing and age, with this name and vocation and fate; the self, one's own beloved ego of which we say that I myself, you yourself, we ourselves are bored."(p. 134).

People who find Heidegger thrilling might find it interesting that there is very little information about other philosophers in THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF METAPHYSICS:WORLD, FINITUDE, SOLITUDE, Translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker.At the beginning, "In Memory of Eugen Fink" by Martin Heidegger, 26 July 1975, pictures Fink at this course listening "with thoughtful reticence" and later "repeatedly expressed the wish that this lecture should be published before all others."(p. v).Philosophers mentioned in the text only get a few lines.Novalis has his name in the title of section 2 on page 4, but he only gets quoted for eleven words:"Philosophy is really homesickness, an urge to be at home everywhere."(p. 5)Then Aristotle gets quoted with three Greek words that seem to mean "Poets tell many a lie?"(p. 5).

When Heidegger gets to God on page 19, it just seems to be trouble."Then philosophy too would have become utterly superfluous, and especially our discussion about it.For God does not philosophize, if indeed (as the name already says) philosophy, this love of . . . as homesickness for . . ., must maintain itself in nothingness, in finitude.Philosophy is the opposite of all comfort and assurance."Heidegger opposes Descartes and theology since "It, and with it all philosophizing of the modern era since Descartes, puts nothing at all at stake."(p. 20).Heraclitus is praised as a sign that "The philosophers of antiquity already knew this and had to know it in their first decisive commencements."(p. 22).Plato gets credit for the distinction "between being awake and sleeping.The non-philosophizing human being, including the scientific human being, does indeed exist, but he or she is asleep."(p. 23)."Hegel (to name a philosopher of the modern era)" is mentioned without a quotation or even a footnote, "but merely as an indication that I am not inventing a concept of philosophy here, nor arbitrarily presenting you with some private opinion."(p. 23).

Chapter Three of the Preliminary Appraisal, justifying the inclusion "of Comprehensive Questioning Concerning World, Finitude, Individuation as Metaphysics" (p. 24) is back to the basic views about philosophy of the Greeks.Heraclitus and Aristotle are considered "by way of an elementary interpretation of the concept of truth in antiquity."(p. 30).Books were not published by big printing firms, like they are now, especially after "Aristotle died around 322-21 B.C."(p. 35).The Aristotelian treatises were not collected for study until the first century B.C., long after Plato and Xenocrates established the main topics as disciplines:logic, physics, ethics.(p. 36).Many of Aristotle's treatises did not belong within those topics, and Heidegger calls them "Aristotle's philosophy proper."(p. 37).But there have been many approaches since then.

"Through Christian dogma, ancient philosophy was forced into a quite specific conception which maintained itself throughout the Renaissance, Humanism and German Idealism, and whose untruth we are slowly beginning to comprehend today.The first to do so was perhaps Nietzsche."(p. 42).

With so few philosophers being mentioned, I was surprised to find in section 14 "The concept of metaphysics in Franz Suarez and the fundamental character of modern metaphysics."(pp. 51-55).Considering Kant and Aquinas not as important as the questions raised by this Spanish Jesuit in the 16th century, "who must be placed even above Aquinas in terms of his acumen and independence of questioning."(p. 51).While "Suarez sides very positively with Thomas Aquinas" (p. 53), "it was precisely Kant who placed the possibility of metaphysics in doubt."(p. 54).Bouncing back to reality, "We see most clearly at the place where modern philosophy explicitly begins, in Descartes, but especially in Fichte."(p. 55).The Preliminary Appraisal ends with section 15, in which the possibility of "being gripped by a metaphysical question" (pp. 56-57) sustains the book.The shift to Part One is called "Awakening a Fundamental Attunement in Our Philosophizing."(p. 59).The contemporary situation with the opposition of life (soul) and spirit in four philosophers leads to "All four interpretations are only possible given a particular reception of Nietzsche's philosophy."(p. 71).

World-Forming and Not Having a World--From Dasein to Animal
These 1929/30 lectures represent a stunning use of phenomenology as it probes into the nature of the philosophical bindingness to nature (as self-arising into presence "ousia"). Philosophy is understood to be the ongoing response to homesickness (as denominated by the poet Novalis). As such a response it is unique in its form of questioning and in the way it receives "answers" from the giving/receding orders of nature and their elusive ground. Philosophy is also infused with an attunement that compels it to return again and again to the questions concerning worldhood, finitude, and solitude; questions that goad it forward and backward simultaneously. The act of philosophy drives us out of our everydayness, "For in it there becomes manifest something essential about all philosophical comprehension, namely that in the philosophical concept, man, and indeed man as a whole is in the grip of an attack--driven out of everydayness and driven back into the ground of things" [Wesentliches alles philosophischen Begreifens, dass der philosophische Begriff ein Angriff ist auf den Menschen und gar auf den Menschen im Ganzen--aufgejagt aus der Alltaglichkeit und zuruckgejagt in den Grund der Dinge]. Boredom, rather than anxiety, is now seen to be the fundamental mood that governs our Dasein (human being in the world). Heidegger unfolds the complex interplay of the modes of boredom and their special ways of illuminating worldhood. Boredom is seen as one of the ways of time's withdrawal into a kind of tarrying that is nowhere and everywhere, but bereft of full worldhood. Animals, while open to their environment [umwelt] do not have a world [welt]. Yet animals live in their own way within a disinhibiting ring that opens them to their release into their species-specific environment. Here Heidegger's descriptions of the animal forms of not-worldness represent a major achievement in helping beings-with-selves become aware of the unique forms of openness of other living beings. As humans we are called to project ourselves into the difference between the various things in being, on the one hand, and the Being of all beings on the other (his reiteration of the ontological difference). This is certainly one of the most important series of lectures in Heidegger's career and the translation is a fair and compelling one. For those who only know "Being and Time" or some of the late essays, this text will come as a surprise because of its masterful and careful phenomenological descriptions of nature and the forms of openness that it contains.

My candidate for the follow-up to Being and Time
I always see talk of the successor book to Being and Time.Some say the Kantbook, some say Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), etc.Let me propose The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.Because it was originally a lecture course, it is much more accesible than Being and Time, but it really continues the preoccupations of that book.In B&T, anxiety was the mood through which Heidegger discovers revelations of the Being of beings.Here Heidegger pushes on to a new "attunement": boredom.We think of boredom as something about which there is almost nothing to say, and it would be easy to joke about someone going for hundreds of pages on boredom fulfilling his own prophecy, but Heidegger's reflections on boredome as revealing aspects of Being and Time is about as profound as you can get.This is a great book.Maybe because it didn't even appear in German until 1983, it hasn't had as much attention as other works, but anyone interested in Heidegger (which ought to be equivalent to saying anyone interested in philosophy at all) should get to know this work. ... Read more

Product Description
Two titans of twentieth-century thought: their lives, loves, ideas, and politics.Shaking up the content and method by which generations of students had studied Western philosophy, Martin Heidegger sought to ennoble man’s existence in relation to death. Yet in a time of crisis, he sought personal advancement, becoming the most prominent German intellectual to join the Nazis.

Hannah Arendt, his brilliant, beautiful student and young lover, sought to enable a decent society of human beings in relation to one other. She was courageous in the time of crisis. Years later, she was even able to meet Heidegger once again on common ground and to find in his past behavior an insight into Nazism that would influence her reflections on “the banality of evil”—a concept that remains bitterly controversial and profoundly influential to this day.

But how could Arendt have renewed her friendship with Heidegger? And how has this relationship affected her reputation as a cultural critic? In Stranger from Abroad, Daniel Maier-Katkin offers a compassionate portrait that provides much-needed insight into this relationship.

Maier-Katkin creates a detailed and riveting portrait of Arendt’s rich intellectual and emotional life, shedding light on the unique bond she shared with her second husband, Heinrich Blücher, and on her friendships with Mary McCarthy, W. H. Auden, Karl Jaspers, and Randall Jarrell—all fascinating figures in their own right. An elegant, accessible introduction to Arendt’s life and work, Stranger from Abroad makes a powerful and hopeful case for the lasting relevance of Arendt’s thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

mentions the epicenter of evil
It is unusual for any book to be clear on matters that created tremendous disagreements among intellectuals. I have been openly unprofessional long enough to realize how rarely scholars dare to write what only a fool would admit. That the major political struggles of the twentieth century produced a mixture of justifications for sides that thinkers ended up on rarely reached a point that
makes clear how the interest of governments in punishing those who frighten their victims by getting away with crimes by the millions and organizations of victims that speak of their love for a group of people in conducting trials so that certain people can be considered monsters, as Eichmann's trial did in Jerusalem, produces such perverse brilliance when a book by Hannah Arendt revealed the awful truth about most people letting things slide until the millions of people in prisons can be confined with money launderers who thought breaking the law was the wave of the future. The complexity of modern society makes it unlikely that law will be able to criminalize the meaning of money completely, but creepy activities that can easily be blamed on the monetary mulch of America will probably slide right by most juries in the present state of confusion.

It is possible to thoroughly understand the contents of this book. Most books are published with that in mind. When Hannah Arendt was writing, she ultimately trusted her personal feelings to communicate what she meant to people who were not subject to the common cultivations of stupidity formally recognized as the sociology of knowledge, and this book is clear in explaining how an individual with ethics could have the friendships that never come close to being peas in a pod. I am quite familiar with major characters in this book, and it is a joy to see them understood so well. It only mentions Walter Kaufmann once, on going to visit Martin Heidegger when translating something so Americans could learn about philosophy. I tried to read The Way Back Into the Ground of Metaphysics by Heidegger in the 1956 translation that had Heidegger's full approval without going over the entire text.

The absurd results of social systems in a superpower with global ambitions ought to be understood by people who are concerned about what nature society will have when none of the schemes employed by people in this book match the activities of a nation of shoppers trying to grab money that has already been spent. As much as I like the book, my fear is how odd I am in all aspects of my understanding of its themes.

Zeitgeist and Atmosphere
I picked up this book without having any real depth of knowledge or undestanding of either Heidegger or Arendt.I do, however, have an interest in modern European history--particularly the years encompassing the World Wars.

If you are similarly inclined, there is a very good sense of zeitgeist and atmosphere projected here, along with some relatively obscure historical facts and insights which are well worth perusing.Some intriguing parallels to current events and moral quandries in the Middle East are also evident.

However, be forewarned that you will have to wade through (or skim over) extended treatments of abstract philosophical concepts (ie. the nature of "Being" and "Existence") for which I had little patience.The absence of photographs is also disappointing in a biographichal treatise of this type.

Amazing book
I ordered this book without knowing it was a new book in the market. I read a biography of Hanna Arendt in portuguese, my language, and was a bit suspicious if this book would bring me something new and what a surprise! Not only two biographies for the price of one - Arendt and Heidegger are very well described as persons and thinkers in their time, together and apart, with their respectives works and thoughts - but a great lesson of philosophy! I could finally understand the origins of phenomenology within a historical context. Congratulations to the author that made a beautiful, poetic and intelligent book. I deeply recommend.

Stranger among her people.
Stranger From Abroad by Daniel Maier-Katkin is a biography of Hannah Arendt - one of the twentieth century's sharpest minds. A political philosopher and renowned lecturer, she gained prominence for her erudite, but today obsolete, works The Origins of Totalitarianism, Human Condition, and by the report Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Assessing Arendt thirty five years after her death, it appears that while her legacy in political sciences fades away, two stories in her life continue to draw attention. Her lifelong relationship with German philosopher Martin Heidegger, her teacher and lover (and member of Nazi party), is a story of friendship and forgiveness, particularly fascinating in the face of his duplicity and his lifelong arrogance toward her. The other story is of Arendt's insensitive to the victims of Holocaust reporting on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, summarized by a catchy, but bizarre phrase - the Banality of Evil.
Daniel Maier-Katkin, who's own political views appear to resonate with that of Arendt', has selected the story of friendship and forgiveness, dosing her biography with excessive amount of liberal political saccharine and grafting his own post-Zionist views onto her legacy. But what is glossed over in his book is not less important then what is praised. Politically and culturally a product of the Weimar republic, Hannah Arendt associated herself, after the Nazi victory, with German Zionism. It was a cultural movement of little practical consequence, whose main weapon was a pen, a speech, a political campaign, in contrast to East European Zionism - a liberation movement which did not shy away from a pickaxe, a shovel and, later, a rifle. Hannah Arendt identified herself with Martin Buber and Yehuda Magnes, German-Jewish luminaries she had sympathy for. The legendary David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weitzman, Vladimir Zhabotinsky were the Russian-Jewish Zionist leaders Hanna Arendt never spoke kindly of. Conciliatory in nature and not able to handle the heat of the military solution to the Arab-Jewish clash in Palestine, she broke off with Zionism after the establishment of Israel and grumbled about Zionist politics ever since.
That brings us to the reason why she gained notoriety for her reporting on the trial of Adolph Eichmann. The trial, which took place in Jerusalem in 1961, drew the attention of the world to the Holocaust - something the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 failed to do. Published in 1963 as the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, her reporting contained, among other things, a highly contested thesis summarized by famous catch phrase - "The Banality of Evil". Eichmann, according to her thesis, was not acting out of radical malevolence toward the Jews, but was merely carrying orders without consideration of their effects on the victims. The reports also pronounced the Jewish councils (Judenrat) culpable in cooperation with Nazi authorities. Adding insult to injury, Arendt criticized the Israeli PM Ben-Gurion for conveying a show trial in Jerusalem, instead of transferring Eichmann to the UN in order to be tried in International court. Her report caused deep consternation in Jewish circles, hurting the feelings of her old friends. Gershom Sholem, the world renown student of Kabbala, famously reproached her for the flippant tone of the report and lack of Ahavat Israel - love for her people.
Justly or not, Hannah Arendt is remembered more today by her catchy phrase than by her legacy in political science. Stanger from Abroad is an attempt to revive the other Hannah Arendt, the philosopher, the political scientist, the woman capable of love, friendship and forgiveness. Whether that attempt is successful is for the reader to judge.

The Personal and the Philosophical
Dan Maier-Katkin's new book on the relationship between Hannah Arendt, whose life experience was altered fundamentally by what took place in Nazi Germany, and philosopher Martin Heidegger, who banally participated in the regime, very effectively combines biography, philosophy and cultural history into a hybrid form that makes for quite fascinating reading. As a graduate student at the New School for Social Research in the mid-1970s, one frequently talked to students who were in Hannah Arendt's classes. Though she passed away before I arrived there, I have found several of her works quite useful in teaching aspects of criminology ( particularly The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem). Maier-Katkin's book helps fill in many of the gaps in my understanding of Arendt's attitude toward life and learning. By combining the personal and the philosophical, without allowing either to become the dominant story, the author has created an highly readable account of how the two are fundamentally related. At the core of the book is the story of how the relationship between these two great thinkers survived one of the major cataclysms of the 20th century. ... Read more

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This work explores the troubled relationship and unfinished intellectual dialogue between Paul Celan, regarded by many as the most important European poet after 1945, and Martin Heidegger, perhaps the most influential figure in twentieth-century philosophy. It centers on the persistent ambivalence Celan, a Holocaust survivor, felt toward a thinker who respected him and at times promoted his poetry. Celan, although strongly affected by Heidegger's writings, struggled to reconcile his admiration of Heidegger's ideas on literature with his revulsion at the thinker's Nazi past. That Celan and Heidegger communicated with each other over a number of years, and in a controversial encounter, met in 1967, is well known. The full duration, extent, and nature of their exchanges and their impact on Celan's poetics has been less understood, however.

In the first systematic analysis of their relationship between 1951 and 1970, James K. Lyon describes how the poet and the philosopher read and responded to each other's work throughout the period. He offers new information about their interactions before, during, and after their famous 1967 meeting at Todtnauberg. He suggests that Celan, who changed his account of that meeting, may have contributed to misreadings of his poem "Todtnauberg." Finally, Lyon discusses their two last meetings after 1967 before the poet's death three years later.

Drawing heavily on documentary material -- including Celan's reading notes on more than two dozen works by Heidegger, the philosopher's written response to the poet's "Meridian" speech, and references to Heidegger in Celan's letters -- Lyon presents a focused perspective on this critical aspect of the poet's intellectual development and provides important insights into his relationship with Heidegger, transforming previous conceptions of it.

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"For admirers of Heidegger, the book is essential; for the curious, it provides a good look at how Heidegger philosophizes." -- Library Journal

"This excellent translation will enable readers to appreciate the undeniable importance of Heidegger's later examination of the principle of sufficient reason." -- International Studies in Philosophy

"... excellent translation... " -- The Philosopher

"Starting from Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason..., Heidegger reflects on the relation of modern and ancient philosophy and of poetry and thinking.... an accurate and readable English translation." -- Choice

In this text of a lecture course that he gave in 1955-56, Martin Heidegger presents his most extensive reflection on the notion of history and its essence, the Geschick of being, which is considered one of the most important developments in Heidegger's later thought.

Customer Reviews (3)

POR
I have purchased and read this book. In my opinion the very title was relished!: Why must there always be a reason for something? and on/in what grounds does the principle of reason lie?Indeed for anything whatsoever? "Why the why?" Cool subject for me! My 4 year old copy is dog-eared and scribbled on. Those who have purchased this book surely will agree when I say that there are a great many gleanings to be had from this digestible and erudite work. A very satisifying book.

Great Exploration of the Scientific Ground of Modern Metaphysics
This is an essential series of lectures to understand the importance of science and specifically of Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason in Heidegger's later thought. It provides the basis for any inquiry into technology which, in Heidegger's thought, is the latest development of scientific metaphysics. It is also the basis for recent studies of law like Roger Berkowitz's The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition.

Not so bad...
a pretty good exploration of heidegger's later thought, and it doesn't quite come from out of left field like "contributions"... a lot of the groundwork for this piece was laid previously but is a fairly concise statement on the grounding nature of reason, and his exegesis along the path on which the thinking of reason as a question of being brings together some elements not explicitly brought into play in the same space prior to this lecture series. ... Read more

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"To read Heidegger is to set out on an adventure. The essays in this volume--intriguing, challenging, and often baffling to the reader--call him always to abandon all superficial scanning and to enter wholeheartedly into the serious pursuit of thinking....

"Heidegger is not a 'primitive' or a 'romanitic.' He is not one who seeks escape from the burdens and responsibilities of contemporary life into serenity, either through the re-creating of some idyllic past or through the exalting of some simple experience. Finally, Heidegger is not a foe of technology and science. He neither disdains nor rejects them as though they were only destructive of human life.

"The roots of Heidegger's hinking lie deep in the Western philosophical tradition. Yet that thinking is unique in many of its aspects, in its language, and in its leterary expression. In the development of this thought Heidegger has been taught chiefly by the Greeks, by German idealism, by phenomenology, and by the scholastic theological tradition. In him these and other elements have been fused by his genius of sensitivity and intellect into a very individual philosophical expression."--William Lovitt, from the Introduction ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great service
Very prompt and efficient service. Thank you for dedication to getting the material needed to me as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Riley

What's philosophy?
Seriously, I'm not into philosophy and I only read this book for one of my generals. I'm a senior in Computer Science and I thought this would maybe give me a different view on technology. Not exactly, really there is nothing technical at all and it's a really hard to read. After you start to understand his language (yeah feels like a whole new language), you start to understand his meaning. I find his dense sentences to be necessary though, after you start to understand what he's saying it gets pretty entertaining.

Thing is you can get everything in this book online somewhere, and some guides that will help you through it. I read better with a hard copy, which is the only reason I bought the book. Turns out this guy is pretty big in the philosophy world, so it's a good read if that stuff intrigues you. Personally, I'm going to stick to programming and stay "enframed".

A Tough Nut to Crack
This book is what it is.Be prepared to be confronted with terse, abstract language.If you are feeling up to the challenge of figuring out it's nuances and insights, give it a go.I was particularly interested in the essay about the pros and cons about technology.However, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the diction of the book and never got around to reading much.I have set aside the book for a time later in life when I am more mature and patient and ready to wrestle with contemplating the full meaning.I was also disappointed to learn from others that Heidegger may have been rather Anti-Semitic against Jews despite his literary contributions.There's really nothing to complain about nor anything to celebrate.Another old dead philospher leaves his mark upon the world and we are left pondering the meaning.

understand
After reading Heidegger I feel as if I sort of understand nature and the nature channel.

Heidegger at his best and most relevant
The Question Concerning Technology frequently has been criticized as lacking content beneath Heidegger's stormy language.Not true!It may take more than one reading (it took me about 5), but once the meaning ofthe concept of Enframing really takes a hold of you, it becomes the mostpowerful and relevant philosophical concept since Nietzsche's will topower.Responding to the challenge of Enframing, man has reduced the worldof Being to his own self-referential bubble.Heidegger's words are attimes the bleakest that the 20th century has to offer, yet in the secondessay "The Turning," he suggests that Enframing's pervasivecontrol of the world also provides a context for true, authentic behaviorthrough the resistance of this powerful force.Authenticity is not apossibility for Heidegger without danger.For the detailed and patientreader, Heidegger provides a compelling description of global technologyand its implications, distinguishing between the essence of technology andtechnological activity as well as the vibrations the essence of technologystirs in the realms of truth and ethics. ... Read more

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A landmark discussion between two great thinkers, vital to an understanding of twentieth-century philosophy and intellectual history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

an idiot of a translator

This is a review of D.F. Krell translation of Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche, not of the lectures themselves.

D.F. Krell is an IDIOT, in the full sense of the word as understood by Nietzsche, and the only competitor that I know to D.F. Krell in matters of being an idiot is Walter Kaufmann. It is sad, very sad for Heidegger as well as for Nietzsche to be constantly appropriated by idiots.

DO NOT BUY THE BOOK!! The translation makes no sense whatsoever, and matters are rendered even worse by the translator's commentary, which as I said has almost no comparison in stupidity, willful misinformation and distortion, obtusiveness and superficiality.

Brilliant
Martin Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche represent the most penetrating and thoughtful inquiries in all of Nietzsche scholarship. This volume contains Volume I: The Will to Power as Art, and Volume II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Heidegger was the first thinker to repudiate the common view that Nietzsche's doctrine of 'Eternal Return' was a mere curiosity-a mythological playing that detracted from his 'serious' political ideas regarding will to power. Heidegger reorients our understanding of Nietzsche back to the eternal recurrence of the same, and argues that it is both the central idea of Nietzsche's philosophy as well as the grounding principle of will to power. Heidegger's work on the doctrine of eternal return are practically incomparable in terms of their rigor and creativity. He has successfully placed Nietzsche's work as the total overcoming of Platonism and as the consummation of Western Metaphysics. A true tour de force of philosophical inquiry.

The Foundations of Fascism
I have given the Nietzsche series by Heidegger 5-stars because of its absolutely central historical position in the philosophical development of fascism.

All attempts by professors with vested & sensationalist research interests to declare Nietzsche and/or Heidegger to have been "misappropriated" by fascism are futil. The works of Prof. Richard Wolin (available here at Amazon), have clearly demonstrated this once and for all time.

You say that the last statement is merely the expression of an opinion? Do you follow Nietzsche's dictum that "there are no facts, only opinions"? Here is a simple, Aristotalian (logos apophantikos) litmus test: Should we really take seriously anyone who asserts that Nietzsche's dictum is a valid description of the nhilistic condition of the world? Because that would violate the dictum itself, which asserts that it is impossible to have an Aristotalian corrspondance theory of truth. In that case, why even bother to read Nietzsche, or Heidegger, who want to be taken very seriously, after all, in their *assertions* that "assertion", as a mode of description, is itself impossible.

More grievous than the loss of Western metaphysics in this line of anti-reason, is their proposed replacement of it by a vague "Master of Truth" paradigm, for which they cabel together a falsepre-Socratic geneology. See the works of Beatrice Han (also at Amazon), who takes the great neo-Heideggerian Foucault to task for not being Nietzschean enough in this regard. For the "Master of Truth", the Uberman, is nothing more than a Napolean (for Nietzsche), or a Hitler (for Heidegger).

Yes, the roots of fascism are still strong in the Postmodern movement which thrives on the works of the "iron triangle" of Nietzsche-Hiedegger-Foucalt.

What? How can the *Left* be the new harbinger of fascism, you ask? Again, see the works of Prof. Richard Wolin here on Amazon. Or, see Pink Floyd's "The Wall", in which a *Left-wing* rock poet descends into nhilism and is transformed into a Nazi before your eyes. The main character is named "Pink" after all, as in "socialist", as in Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

And for more serious proof of the precariousness of our age, look no further than the UN Conference Against Racism at Durbin, South Africa. Under the rubric "Against Racism", every Postmodern-inspired NGO with a political agenda (the politics of identity) rose to a frothing crescendo of anti-Semitism not heard since the collapse of the Weimer Republic. There was Mary Robinson, so shaken by her inability to staunch the hemmoraging of philosophical error before her eyes, that she stood at the final dinner and shouted, "Tonight I am a Jew". But that is syllogistically a false statement (demonstrating again the simply bedrock-valid nature of logos apophantikos). She is Irish. And she is the paragon of what Gertrude Stein would surely call "A Lost Generation".

Nietzsche Becomes a Heideggerian, too!
I hate to appear cynical, but in this book, isn't Heidegger doing what he has done with every other facet of Western philosophy - namely, making it a prelude to himself?

It is by no means certain that Nietzsche 'believed in' the heavy philosophizing Heidegger specialised in. Some of Nietzsche's writings even disavow 'philosophy' - period. Nietzsche's own writings make it clear that he changed his mind a lot, and therefore, anyone endeavouring to make a consistent reading - of an inconsistent philosophy, has either to ignore
large parts of someone else's thinking - or make stuff up - to fill in the gaps. Perhaps this explains why some readers find Heidegger's study of Nietzsche clarifying.Heidegger has filled in the blanks and patched planks over tricky precipices.

For a man who had trouble relating to reality - for most of
his active life, elated one week, deep in depression the next,
Heidegger erects a remarkably impressive image of solidity
and consistency over Nietzsche's thought. Of course, we all enjoy reading 'Zarathustra.' But it's art - not reality. Nietzsche visualised those lovely ideas - but couldn't live them out.It wasn't 'lebensphilosophie' or 'erlebniss' -
but fantasy substitute. Heidegger would have you believe otherwise. Read any of Nietzsche's biographers (except the slavish idolatrers) - and that becomes evident enough. Alas, Heidegger has said nothing about the psychology of the real Nietzsche. Nietzsche condemned 'pity' as the trait of weak men. But the very thing which triggered his final collapse, was the
sight of a horse being beaten mercilessly. Perhaps that was the real Nietzsche - not the one who ran from his sense of pity. This series of volumes is profoundly meaningful if you happen to share Nietzsche's and Heidegger's pessimistic verdict about 2,500 years of (mistaken) Western philosophy. If you don't,
it might be considered one big yawn. I recommend Kaufmann's
studies as a counter-balance.

Mesmerizing and Meditative; The Mind of Heidegger
.
If you like Nietzsche, don't ignore Heidegger's monumental achievement.

Walter Kaufmann's Nietzche, psychologist and philosopher and on Heidegger in Kaufmann's, Discovering The Mind, Vol II, criticizes Heidegger to a great degree. In much of Kaufmann's objections to Heidegger's analogy of Nietzsche include his attempt to explain man's "essential ontology" into what really amounts to anthropomorphism. Also the fact that Heidegger uses texts of Nietzsche from obscure manuscripts over his published works. This, along with Kaufmann's personal encounters with Heidegger, in which Heidegger claimed to have unpublished writings incapable of adequate translation and explanation in his possession, esoteric information, an obvious manifestation of a prideful and arrogant personality.

Now I will agree with the majority of Kaufmann's arguments against Heidegger, including the fact that the man was an active Nazi, a party member and an active advocate of a totalitarian atmosphere imposed at the University he taught at. And it must be noted; there is no anti-semtic writing here, there is only deep and profound analytic treatment of Nietzsche.

Despite all of Kaufmann's valid criticisms and objectifications, I find Heidegger's Nietzsche, both mesmerizing, thought provoking and soul stirring. One needs to recognize this book is Heidegger, not Nietzche and Heidegger is a deep analytical thinker, whereas, Nietzche was both philosophical and poetic and top it all off, psychological. It takes a man like Heidegger to give it the philosophical, analytical style. Perhaps it is bias and to a degree "scandalous," as Kaufmann so brazenly claims, but to ignore these volumes would be foolish. For me, Heidegger's work is monumental and inspirational. If one reads Heidegger with discernment and awareness, then the four volumes of Nietzche are most beneficial and most certainly worth the read, not to pass in one's study of Nietzsche.

In particular the study of the "Will to Power as Art," where the truth is an error since art is the becoming and truth is always the become that is becoming in self positing, in artistic creativity of thought, the affixation on an apparition. And Heidegger's analytical explanation of Nietzsche's "Eternal Return" are far worth this read.

Also in line with this, is the explanation of Kaufmann in Nietzsche's Will To Power; not being self-preservation of Spinoza, nor pleasure principle of Freud, but of power, the power of the self-positing and creative center, not the power that dictates over others, which has been administered by totalitarian and authoritarian governments.

In addition to Kaufmann and Heidegger, Also excellent books:
Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rudiger Safranski
Nietzsche : The Man and his Philosophy - R. J. Hollingdale
Nietzsche: by Karl Jaspers ... Read more

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Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit is one of the seminal works in philosophy of the 20th century. It is also a very cryptic work. Martin Heidegger on Being Human relates oracular claims in plain English and supplies arguments missing in Sein und Zeit to show that its claims are plausible. ... Read more

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First published in German in 1995, volume 77 of Heidegger's Complete Works consists of three imaginary conversations written as World War II was coming to an end. Composed at a crucial moment in history and in Heidegger's own thinking, these conversations present meditations on science and technology; the devastation of nature, the war, and evil; and the possibility of release from representational thinking into a more authentic relation with being and the world. The first conversation involves a scientist, a scholar, and a guide walking together on a country path; the second takes place between a teacher and a tower-warden, and the third features a younger man and an older man in a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia, where Heidegger's two sons were missing in action. Unique because of their conversational style, the lucid and precise translation of these texts offers insight into the issues that engaged Heidegger's wartime and postwar thinking.

Customer Reviews (1)

In the way of the Way
To avoid confusion, this is a translation of three essays, a part of the first of which was previously translated in "Discourse on Thinking" a long time ago.It is essential reading for Heideggereans, especially those interested in the concept of Gelassenheit (releasement) -- the earlier partial translation unleashed a whole torrent of commentary and theorizing (note that Davis has another fine book about H getting to this topic).

Like all this phase of Heidegger's writings,one is baffled by the fact that Heidegger's understanding of the modernist project and the dynamics of the modern understanding of the human being (the controlling, willing, technologically driven all pervasive ethos of this epoch) is second to none,and yet he was such a bastard.It poisons, vitiates the whole plausibility of his critique, a critique which is so necessary -- if he believes all this, then there must be something wrong with it,he was so misguided, and yet.... he's like a slightly bent key in a lock: fits smoothly, but jams when you try and open it.If ever there was somebody who was in the way of the Way, he's it.He's sort of like the last temptation, the one closest to the truth who is the most dangerous and the furthest away.These essays are all like that.Maddening. ... Read more

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Available in English for the first time, this first draft of Heidegger's opus, "Being and Time", provides a unique insight into Heidegger's Phenomenology. "The Concept of Time" presents Heidegger's so-called Dilthey review, widely considered the first draft of his celebrated masterpiece, "Being and Time". Here Heidegger reveals his deep commitment to Wilhelm Dilthey and Count Yorck von Wartenburg. He agrees with them that historicity must be at the centre of the new philosophy to come. However, he also argues for an ontological approach to history. From this ontological turn he develops the so-called categories of Dasein. This work demonstrates Heidegger's indebtedness to Yorck and Dilthey and gives further evidence to the view that thought about history is the germ cell of "Being and Time". However, it also shows that Heidegger's commitment to Dilthey was not without reservations and that his analysis of Dasein actually employs Husserl's phenomenology. The work reopens the question of history in a broader sense, as Heidegger struggles to thematize history without aligning it with world-historical events.The text also provides a concise and readable summary of the main themes of "Being and Time" and as such is an ideal companion to that text. ... Read more

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"... one of Heidegger's most important and extraordinary works.... indispensable for anyone interested in Heidegger's thought as well as in current trends in hermeneutics, ethics, and political philosophy." -- Interpretation

"Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics is among the most important readings in this century of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This authoritative English translation will play an important role in determining Heidegger's reputation in the coming years." -- Choice

"Heidegger's interpretation of Kant remains a challenging way to address the issues that both Kant and Heidegger saw as crucial.... In reading [Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics] we can struggle with some basic issues of human existence in the company of two great minds." -- International Philosophical Quarterly

Since its original publication in 1929, Martin Heidegger's provocative book on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has attracted much attention both as an important contribution to twentieth-century Kant scholarship and as a pivotal work in Heidegger's own development after Being and Time. The work is significant not only for its illuminating assessment of Kant's thought but also for its elaboration of themes first broached in Being and Time, especially the problem of how Heidegger proposed to enact his destruction of the metaphysical tradition and the role that his reading of Kant would play therein.

Customer Reviews (5)

FALSE DEPTH
This is absolutely the worst book I've ever read about Kant, it has nothing to do with his doctrine, and it falls in deliberated distortions about the essence of critical thought. The main task of Heidegger is embodied in a struggle against german idealism (specifically advanced enlightenment), so the main purpose for this book will be to dissolve heterogeneity (superiority) of understanding (over) and sense, appealing on a famous Kantian passage that more or less says "there exist two logs of knowledge, the ones are coming probably from a common root, but unknown for us" (KrV B 29). In his pretension, Heidegger claims to discover this "common root" (considered in german idealism as the last unity of a dialectical process, then, a rational one) in time, specifically, in the doctrine of the self-affection as it is exposed in the transcendental aesthetics (KrV B 67), so, his main thesis can be found in paragraph n° 34, there, Heidegger says: "Time, and the 'I think', doesn't confront themselves now as incompatibles and heterogeneous, nevertheless, they are the same", and further he adds "pure sensibility (time) and pure reason not only are homogeneous, moreover they own to the unity of the same essence". All the book is ever enclosing to this thesis (as it was offered in Being and Time, not in the KrV), of course on different ways, as for example, in his treating on the concepts of ontology, intuitus originaria, metaphysica generalis, finiteness of human knowledge, schematism, etc... And this thesis was far before offered to us by Erich Adickes and the realistic interpretations.

But the fact is that this has nothing to do with Kantian philosophy, and Heidegger never notice to the reader where Kant stops and Heidegger start. Thus, in front of this thesis Kant already expressed in his time that "understanding and sensibility become brothers, in spite of their heterogeneity, to engender our knowledge, AS IF one faculty had its origin in the other, or AS IF both of 'em had a common origin, THOUGH IT CAN NOT BE, or at least it is not-understandable that the heterogeneous get engendered from a common root" (Kant, Anthropology, par. 31), and he also warned us from this misleading in his transcendental deduction (1787), concerning the same topic treated in relation to this in the aesthetics (inner sense), but now, obviously accurated, in KrV B 152 - B 159. But Heidegger intentionally doesn't consider the second edition deduction.

Why then, an acknowledged philosopher ignores this basic start point? It is there a hidden purpose? Probably in its more surfaced task, yes. But the historical context may clarify us the fact that such a kind of interpretations are engaged to struggle against modernity and its methods, trying to replace `em both by a new dark age through an ad auctoritas interpretandi method. Against this, Kant also said "in philosophy, there is no classic author" (Answer to Eberhard, 1st, secc. Part 3) The book, in relation to Heidegger's rhetoric, can be useful and "clarifying", but in relation to Kant and modern philosophy, it can be reduced to "nothing". The not-understandable that Kant names in the passage above means a type of nothingness (nihil negativum, KrV B 348, like saying "squared circle"), and it was remembered to us how is present in this kind of interpretations by T. W. Adorno, in his Negative Dialectics: "the doctrine of the being hide and exploit dialectics that makes mix up pure particularization and pure universality, both equally undetermined; emptiness becomes a mythic cuirass".

Don't buy this piece of trash, unless you want to impress a fooled girl in the faculty with this "technical nothingness".

Nicolás Guzmán Grez.

systematic and technical Heidegger
It is primarily and for the most part a readable translation of some very difficult to translate, much less understand and appropriate, esoteric thought.An absolute must read for any would-be Heideggerians, and not a bad place to get some insight into Kant at the same time.

Easily among Heidegger's best works
A masterpiece in its own right.

The origin of Deconstruction. Read before `Being and Time'.
Intended to be part of `Being and Time', but published separately and after BT. Heidegger's intention for `Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics' is straight forward; that is, Rational-Cognitive subjectivity (as presentedin Kant's `Critique of Pure Reason') is not a tenable basis formetaphysics. Why? Because `time' alone can provide a foundation formetaphysics; thereby, dispensing with Reason, subjectivity and the rest ofKant's transcendental machinery. Heidegger claims to have `found Kant out';that is, earlier editions of Kant's Critique has time as a much moreimportant notion. Heidegger accuses Kant of recoiling from the primacy oftime, and goes on to demonstrate that time is the basis of any possiblemetaphysics; to be carried out as a fundamental ontology via `Being andTime'.

Watch out for Heidegger's own recoil regarding spatiality and itsrelation to time.

Being and Time, Part II
This is perhaps the second most important text from Heidegger behind the monumental Being and Time.Where Being and Time ends abruptly without venturing into the destruction of the history of western ontology, the"Kant book" appears to be a sketch of the possible direction ofHeidegger's fundamental ontology.

Surprisingly enough, Heidegger offersa rather faithful exegesis of Kant's discussion of the schematism from theCritique of Pure Reason.This is a close and careful reading of Kant whichdemonstrates Heidegger's skill at reconstruction of an existing text.Theshort Part One of this book is a work of art as Heidegger clearly definesKant's project as a groundwork for metaphysics, that is, as ontology, bytracing the initial remarks by Kant to their Greek and scholastic origins. Therefore, Heidegger argues that the Kant of the First Critique does notbring forth a theory of knowledge (and against the Prolegomena that Kant ismaking a foundation for science), but rather, that the real project is acritique of metaphysics by returning to ontology as the groundwork formetaphysics.Thus, this project runs straight into Heidegger's ownconcerns of the possibility of anthropology.

Included in this edition isa transcript of the historical (and highly entertaining) debate betweenHeidegger and Ernst Cassier from the Davos lectures.Along with this, theeditors have included other illuminating notes, drafts, andforwards.

Whether for or against Heidegger, this book clearlydemonstrates the enormous philosophical skills of Martin Heidegger. ... Read more

Product Description
This book, one of the most frequently quoted works on Martin Heidegger in any language, belongs on any short list of classic studies of Continental philosophy. Richardson explores the famous turn in Heidegger's thought after Being in Time and demonstrates how this transformation was radical without amounting to a simple contradiction of his earlier views. In a full account of the evolution of Heidegger's work as a whole, he provides an illuminating account of divergences and continuities in Heidegger's philosophy in light of recently published works. Includes as a preface the letter that Heidegger wrote to Richardson and a new writer's preface and epilogue. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Let's start from the beginning
1. Read Jose Pablo Feinmann ¨La Filosofia y el barro de la historia"
2. Have a try to Being and Time
3. A book by author: Steiner: Heidegger
4. Heidegger by Gianni Vattimo
5. "El joven Heidegger" by Adrián Escudero, Jesús

And finally THIS GREAT BOOK. This one will clarify everything.

A full exposition on Heidegger
This book contains a detailed study on Heidegger's works, the different stages of his thought. The philosopher himself wrote the introduction to this very complete treatise. ... Read more

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Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle is the text of a lecture course presented at the University of Freiburg in the winter of 1921--1922, and first published in 1985 as volume 61 of Heidegger's collected works. Preceding Being and Time, the work shows the young Heidegger introducing novel vocabulary as he searches for his genuine philosophical voice. In this course, Heidegger first takes up the role of the definition of philosophy and then elaborates a unique analysis of "factical life," or human life as it is lived concretely in relation to the world, a relation he calls "caring." Heidegger's descriptions of the movement of life are original and striking. As he works out a phenomenology of factical life, Heidegger lays the groundwork for a phenomenological interpretation of Aristotle, whose influence on Heidegger's philosophy was pivotal.

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Customer Reviews (9)

Good Introduction
George Steiner's brief intro is surly competent and his investigation of Heidegger's use of the German language is particularly well informed. Steiner is commenting on Heidegger's corpus more as a cultural commentator rather than a philosopher, but he still gets most of the fundamentals correct. While often labeled as a work of populism, I found this monograph to be a fruitful study-Steiner shines in situating Heidegger in the greater context of German cultural life. It's also interesting to see the ways in which this text is hopelessly dated. Steiner mentions that the Gesamtausgabe will be over 60 volumes, today it's over 100. Nevertheless, this is not a bad introduction to the work of Heidegger, and it also provides some useful commentary on his infamous political behavior.

Steiner introduces you in the best possible way to Heidegger
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be introduced to the work of Martin Heidegger.
It is eloquently written, has clarity in its expression, and is approachable by the reader who has not read philosophy systematically.
In addition, Steiner addresses in a remarkable way Heidegger's relationship with Nazism, and his "silence" after the Second World War.
Overall, it is not an easy read, but the best way to get introduced to Heidegger's work.

Who's Afraid of Heidegger?
To read George Steiner is to bask in the presence of a great intellectual mind at work.The popular French frauds so à la mode today seem determined to instill nothing more than doubt, but I have always believed that clarity of thought (which does not preclude doubt) is what makes a critical text like Steiner's monograph on Heidegger valuable.Derrida merely muddies the water (as Nietzsche would say), but Steiner puts you in touch with one of the most obscure, difficult, and significant philosophers of the 20th century.

This is a short book, but it is slow reading.Not because of jargon-riddled wordplay, but because Steiner takes the time to untangle Heidegger's neologisms and strange, poetic language.Indeed, the first half of the book is titled "Basic Terms," an understanding of which will enable the reader to follow what Heidegger is trying to say about existence, authentic being, etc..Steiner puts Heidegger's works into historical context and explains his methodology. To wit, Heidegger truly believes that we are spoken through language, so his philosophizing takes the form of etymologizing, going back to the origins of words, and recovering what can help us to think Being.According to Steiner, we never do get to defining Being, but the journey is rich and the effort is worthwhile.

Heidegger wants to overcome Western Metaphysics, which has been determined by Plato (who privileges the noumenal realm of ideas over the phenomenal world we live in) and Aristotle (who objectifies the natural, phenomenal world by subjecting it to study).Both strategies have left us without the ability to listen to or open ourselves up to Being, to standing in awe before its mystery.

Steiner also elucidates Heidegger's notion of authenticity (accepting that we are beings-toward-death), and his belief that anxiety, guilt, and care are inherent to authentic being.Why is this?Because we are both beings-in-the-world and beings-in-time.Death, for Heidegger, "is not an event; it is a phenomenon to be understood existentially," a process, part of our becoming.There is something extremely liberating in this notion, and both Heidegger and Steiner are aware of it.Angst, or existential anxiety, is not something to be eliminated with facile religious beliefs, counseling, or psycho-pharmaceuticals; it is to be understood as the mark, the indication of a being striving to live authentically, embracing fate (that which has been sent to a being-in-the-world).

Because we are beings-in-the-world we must also be beings that care: care about what others think of us; care about our world; and care for others.Steiner develops this idea as it is revealed in Heideggers' works, and he also addresses the issue of his involvement with Nazism.How does one reconcile caring, commitment, and concentration camps?

Recognizing that we are still too close to the Holocaust to be dispassionate, Steiner nonetheless attempts to understand this facet of Heidegger's life.Steiner is neither persecutorial nor apologetic.And he is much more disturbed by what was not said than by what was.Why, he asks repeatedly, was Heidegger silent about Europe's "season in Hell" after the war?Steiner has a difficult time getting past this, but does not belabor the issue.Heidegger's works are indeed part of the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist, and have certain affinities with Nazi ideology.But Steiner is unable to conclude that Heidegger was an anti-Semite; there does not seem to be enough convincing evidence for that.But still, why the silence?

All in all, Steiner's book is the best introduction to this influential thinker.My field is Comparative Literature, not Philosophy, and I feel as though I learned a tremendous amount by reading this book.If you only read one introduction to Heidegger, this monograph should be it.

Understanding the notion of Being in Heidegger.
There are many very intelligent and careful studies on Heidegger's work that approach his lifetime question on Being from different angles and perspectives. Steiner seems to have understood Heidegger by sort of getting under his skin, lucid, inmersed in his thought he articulates the notion of Being clearly, even artistically, this is the turning point to understanding Heidegger, suddenly his difficult expressions come to life on a higher perspective, if you have been troubled by the lack of understanding on the Notion of Being in Heidegger, in this book somewhere within those pages you may get the insight, ah, eureka.

Excellent introduction
This shorter book is very understandable.My suggestion is to read the introduction, "Heidegger in 1991," last; the author's "introductory" essay really acts as a good summation for the entire project. ... Read more

Product Description
In this major contribution to the understanding of Heidegger (and rare attempt to bridge the schism between traditions of analytic and Continental philosophy), Cristina Lafont applies the core methodology of analytic philosophy--language analysis--to Heidegger's work, providing both a clearer exegesis and a powerful critique of his approach to the subject of language. The book first appeared in German but has been substantially revised for the English edition.It will appeal to serious students of arguably the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century. ... Read more

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In these lectures, delivered in 1933-1934 while he was Rector of the University of Freiburg and an active supporter of the National Socialist regime, Martin Heidegger addresses the history of metaphysics and the notion of truth from Heraclitus to Hegel. First published in German in 2001, these two lecture courses offer a sustained encounter with Heidegger's thinking during a period when he attempted to give expression to his highest ambitions for a philosophy engaged with politics and the world. While the lectures are strongly nationalistic and celebrate the revolutionary spirit of the time, they also attack theories of racial supremacy in an attempt to stake out a distinctively Heideggerian understanding of what it means to be a people. This careful translation offers valuable insight into Heidegger's views on language, truth, animality, and life, as well as his political thought and activity.

Customer Reviews (1)

Being and TRUTH
I have no idea why the Product Description mentions anything about Heidegger's involvement with the National Socialists or beckons anything relating to 'racial supremacy'.It's the truth being which, anyone who still considers these ideas within the realm of Heidegger is completely overlooking what is right in front of their own face - their Being and the Being-with-Others.It can be considered disappointing that Polt would consider such a description of his own book knowing that Heidegger's ideas and words transcend such ontic notions and focus on the phenomenon of the ontological. Other than Amazon's unrelated description of this book, it is one to be considered and read Care-full-y. ... Read more

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Heidegger is one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings are notoriously difficult; they both require and reward careful reading. Being and Time, his first major publication, remains to this day his most influential work.

Heidegger and Being and Time introduces and assesses:

* Heidegger’s life and the background to Being and Time

* the ideas and text of Being and Time

* Heidegger’s continuing importance to philosophy and his contribution to the intellectual life of our century.

In this second edition, Stephen Mulhall expands his treatment of scepticism, revises his discussion on death, and reassesses the contentious relationship between the two parts of Being and Time with a focus on the notion of authenticity.

This guide will be vital to all students of Heidegger in philosophy and cultural theory.

Customer Reviews (4)

"Being" is a revealing way of seeing; it is world disclosive
I read this book for a graduate seminar on philosophy.Stephen Mulhall's book helps to illuminate one of the most influential philosophical books of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time," which deconstructs phenomenology.Heidegger's kind of phenomenology has to do with the idea of phenomenon, which means something that appears and shows itself.His criticism of traditional philosophy is that it gets started with categories, concepts, and notions, departing from the way human comprehension of this world first shows itself.This is Aristotelian and Aristotle is an enormous influence on Heidegger.

Yet, there is something very radical going on here, and that is the idea of "being" is connected to meaning and negativity.In the history of philosophy, being has a positive concept, something that "is" thus, the opposite of being is none being.Heidegger wants to show how the meaning of being is distorted by this understanding of being as a purely positive concept, as a "thing" a full present entity.For Example, he also very much critiques in modern art, the modern conception of objectivity, the world is transformed into an object independent of art, of its significance, its meaning, or interest in it.This was due in large part because of modern science, and its strong sense of objectification converting nature into a set of mere objects, time, and space that are measurable and analyzable through scientific means.Meaning, importance, and significance for Heidegger equals value; science and nature have none of this as pure objects.Therefore, anything of meaning, and of significance would be transferred into the subject it would be simply the human estimation, nature itself has no meaning or significance in that respect.

Heidegger critiques this scientific model.As he says in his phenomenology, "Well how is it that human existence first understands itself?Here he is talking about things that are very ordinary and complex.We are in a world that has significance, it is meaningful to us, it matters to us, it fits into our interests in such a way that we are absorbed into its significance.So, when we come across the world, first and foremost it is not a mere object that is standing apart from us or our mind, but rather it has significant elements of our environment that fit into our lives.Some things are significant, or they are useful, or dangerous, or satisfying, etc.What Heidegger wants to say in his phenomenology is we have to pay attention to this way of being.Therefore, first and foremost he says "being" matters, it matters to us."Being" is a significance, it is not just a bare object or a bare fact.Heidegger doesn't accept this idea of subject on one side and object on the other side, that means that when humans have their understanding of the world, it is not just a human projection, it is not just a human construction.It is a revealing way of seeing; it is world disclosive.The meaning of the world wouldn't happen without us, because we are the ones that find it meaningful.Therefore, it is most important to understand that for Heidegger there is no object subject distinction.The term he uses to illustrate his idea is "Dasien" which means "human existence," Heidegger chooses it because he doesn't want to deal with the subject, or mind or consciousness, he wants to use a word that does not subjectivefy things.He uses "Dasien" as "humans being there" in this world and not just staying apart from it.

Humans are a being in the world, a term he uses is, "we dwell" in the world, we don't come across it as some bare thing in the world we "dwell" in it.Therefore, "meaningfulness" is a primary notion of being.Secondly, the meaning of "being" is connected with the notion of negativity.This is the notion of "being" moving toward death, and anxiety.Thus, the way that humans understand being is in part because of opposite of non-being and death is a perfect example of that.Humans are distinct because we understand that we are mortal, that we die.We are aware of death even when we are not in danger, which means we understand being and our world.Heidegger made a lot out of the fact that the Greeks understood this, that they were mortals, and that was no accident he thought.That death is a primary aspect of what it means to be human.If you are aware of death as he says, then you can be aware of the meaning of life.The meaning of life comes to us because we understand that we are finite, that we are mortal and not in control.

Another way to understand Heidegger is a wonderful analysis of the idea that the word "being" has become a noun in philosophy, like first things of beings, or things that are.Yet Heidegger says in the Greek language and other western languages this idea of "being" grammatically in language is derived from a verb, the primary verb "to be."Moreover, as a verb it is tensed which means it has to do with time.All verbs are tensed, even Aristotle said, "That is the difference between a verb and a noun."The difference between a verb and a noun, a verb is something that has to do with time, not just action, but time.That is why all verbs are tensed as future, and past.The very fact that time is another perfect indication of negativity, because time is ever changing, ever moving, and when we are in the present, the past is time of negativity it is no longer.When we are in the present, the future is kind of negative it is not yet.Yet we understand these negatives as meaningful, that is why we can get upset about the past that it is not happening anymore, and why we can become excited about the future even though it hasn't happened yet, they have meaning to us.

Another important feature of Heidegger's book is where he takes on the notion of skepticism.Skepticism is a classic problem in philosophy, it is really fostered by Descartes and Hume, and it has to do with the subject/object division.Skeptics argue that the mind is on one side of the fence, the outside world is on the other side, and the mind is something that comes across the world and just processes it, according to its categories of thinking, this is a very common modern construction of skepticism.If this skeptical construct were true, then it is very possible for someone to ask the question; "well how do we know that our minds that are on this side of the fence can ever really know that it is accurately talking about what is on the other side of the fence?If it is separated like this, how can we be sure that what we think about is actually the case?Heidegger is not talking here about ordinary skepticism, like wonder or "I am not sure" kind of skepticism; but what Heidegger argues against is the kind of radical skepticism, which asks, can we be sure of any of our knowledge.This idea plays on two objects, the subject object divide if we are on this side of the subject how can we ever know we are accurately talking about something.Secondly, is the certainty because the skeptic is someone who says well, "I really want to find with 100% certainty, and if I can find any reason for doubt then I am not going to commit.Heidegger says this is a classic philosophical problem that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.Because, no existing human self could ever radically call into question its environment and this world.It doesn't make any sense.You can call into question this or that aspect of it, but never the whole thing and never to say; "well it's possible that what humans say about the world may not have anything to do with the world."Even Descartes and Hume knew this was perverse, but they said this is what philosophy has to do.Radical skepticism is perverse to Heidegger.Skeptics like Descartes and Hume if right why are they writing to an audience.The very practice of skepticism undermines the idea of skepticism.Heidegger says, "Well if our practices betray the project of skepticism, which even Hume admits, he says I would go mad."You can't live as a radical skeptic.This skepticism can apply to things like morals and beauty values and artistic things, because they don't satisfy strict standards of knowledge and certainty.

To reiterate, it is important to know that Heidegger primarily wants to say that the meaning of being, is something that humans are involved with in a significant meaningful way, and it can't be either subjective or objective, those two ideas he says are polarizations that both account for how the world matters to us.The fact that it matters to us means it can't be a pure objective thing.Secondly, the fact that what matters to us is our world not just our opinions and our inner dispositions mean it can't be just a subjective thing.We are absorbed in the world; we are caught up in it.Heidegger's phenomenology wants to give voice to these notions rather than start with the modern categories of subjectivity and objectivity.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, epistemology, and ontology.

A helpful overview of "Being and Time"
I found Mulhall's work to be a helpful illustration of the main efforts of Heidegger's "Being and Time". I wouldn't, however, suggest this work to someone who is completely unfamiliar with Heidegger. Although Ibelieve Mulhall has done a fine job of slowly articulating the path ofHeidegger's great book, it is not an easy read. If you are looking forcliffnotes....look elsewhere. This book is for those looking to betterunderstand Heidegger's thought; it is not for those looking to write aquick paper. If you are genuinely interested in getting a firm handle onthe main points of Being and Time, I would suggest this book. Routledge hasproduced some great guidebooks...and this is one of them.

No Real Help
I bought the book in order to make sense of Heidegger's excrutiatingly difficult, BEING AND TIME. After having read the first 40 pages twice, the book wasn't making matters any clearer. I don't know why UCLA's SimonEvnine said "It will prove most helpful to students struggling tounderstand Heidegger's difficult work". The problem I think is that heusing H's terms without comprehensively defining H's unique vocabulary (ina way that those who aren't professional philosophers can understand). Andfurthermore, he doesn't inform the student of the relevent backgroundphilosophical ideas that, I think, are necessary to understand H's text. Ichecked out Gelvan's A COMMENTARY ON H'S BEING AND TIME (quitecoincidentally, without having read the previous review!), and found itmuch, much more illuminating. I have a paper due in a week on H's B &T, and I'm sticking with Gelvan!

Don't even dare!
Terrible.Mulhall manages to spend 200 pages on Being and Time without saying much of anything.Does he dare to strike out on his own interpretations?No.Does he adhere to a close word by word analysis? No.

Why then should we read this book?(We shouldn't.)

Once again,this book is a perfect example that the British have no business readingthe Germans, and vice versa.

One would be best advised to check outMichael Gelven's "A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time." ... Read more

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"The essays in this collection are all of very high quality and excellent scholarship. They represent the work of some of the most important feminist scholars of Heidegger and other Heidegger scholars more generally. The essays reflect diverse approaches to Heidegger, some critical, some sympathetic. This volume will give students and scholars a good introduction not only to the variety of approaches of feminist theorists but also to different approaches to Heidegger." —Kelly Oliver, SUNY, Stony Brook

Martin HeideggerÂ’s commitment to the idea that Dasein (human existence) is ultimately gender neutral, as well as several other major aspects of his thought, raise significant questions for feminist philosophers. The fourteen essays included in this volume clearly illustrate the ways in which feminist readings can deepen our understanding of his philosophy. They illuminate both the richness and the limitations of the resources his work can provide for feminist thought.

This volume engages the full scope of HeideggerÂ’s writings from Being and Time through his latest work, from his readings of the ancient Greek poets to his critique of modern technology. At the same time, it reflects a wide range of contemporary feminist concerns: the significance of gender difference; the role of the body in philosophical thought; the relationship between philosophy and the natural world, and between philosophy and the domestic realm; and the aspiration to move forward into a new, more just, political world.

Included in this volume are important new (or newly translated) essays by Ellen Armour, Carol Bigwood, Jack Caputo, Tina Chanter, Trish Glazebrook, Jennifer Gosetti, Luce Irigaray, Dorothy Leland, Mechthild Nagel, Gail Stenstad, and the editors—as well as a valuable historical and theoretical Introduction by Patricia Huntington, the first of Jacques Derrida’s "Geschlecht" articles, and an important 1997 essay by Iris Marion Young. ... Read more