Heidegger / by John Richardson.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover Page
Half Title page
Series page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
A note on translations
Abbreviations for Heidegger’s works
Chronology
Introduction
1. Truth
2. Being
Summary
Further reading
One Life and works
Summary
Further reading
Two Early development
Summary
Further reading
Three Being and Time: phenomenology
1. Studying intentionality
2. Adapting the method
3. A method for being and truth
Summary
Further reading
Four Being and Time: pragmatism
1. Concern vs. theory
2. Studying concern
3. Understanding and its world
4. Self-finding in feeling; thrownness
5. Talk and das Man
Summary
Further reading
Five Being and Time: existentialism
1. Das Man and falling 130
2. Anxiety
3. Existential concerns
4. Authenticity
Summary
Further reading
Six Being and Time: time and being
1. Temporality
2. Historicality
3. From temporality to time and being
Summary
Further reading
Seven Heidegger’s turning
1. Character of the turn
2. The history of being
3. Being in itself
4. The oblivion of being
5. The truth of being
Summary
Further reading
Eight Language and art
1. Language as the house of being
2. Metaphysical language
3. Poetic language
4. Thinking’s language
Summary
Further reading
Nine Technology and god
1. The critique of technology
2. The withdrawal and absence of gods
3. Beyond Nietzsche
4. Gods’ return
Summary
Further reading
Ten Heidegger’s influences
Summary
Further reading
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Topic index
Name index

Martin Heidegger is one of the twentieth century’s most influential, but also most cryptic and controversial philosophers. His early fusion of phenomenology with existentialism inspired Sartre and many others, and his later critique of modern rationality inspired Derrida and still others. This introduction covers the whole of Heidegger’s thought and is ideal for anyone coming to his work for the first time. John Richardson centres his account on Heidegger’s persistent effort to change the very kind of understanding or truth we seek. Beginning with an overview of Heidegger’s life and work, he sketches the development of Heidegger’s thought up to the publication of Being and Time. He shows how that book takes up Husserl’s method of phenomenology and adapts it. He then introduces and assesses the key arguments of Being and Time under three headings—pragmatism, existentialism, and temporality—its three levels of analysis of human experience. Subsequent chapters introduce Heidegger’s later philosophy, including his turn towards a historical account of being, and new ideas about how we need to ‘think’ to get the truth about it; his influential writings on language, art, and poetry, and their role in the Western history of being; and his claim that this history has culminated in a technological relation to things that is deeply problematic, above all in the way it excludes the divine. The final chapter looks at Heidegger’s profound influence on several intellectual movements ranging from phenomenology to existentialism to postmodernism. A much-needed and refreshing introduction to this major figure, Heidegger is ideal reading for anyone coming to his work for the first time and will interest and stimulate students and scholars alike.