How to Read Heidegger [Paperback]

Thinking is not inactivity, but rather it is in itself the way of acting that stands in dialogue with the destiny of the world' Martin Heidegger

Heidegger is perhaps the most influential, yet least readily understood, philosopher of the last century. Mark A. Wrathall unpacks Heidegger's dense prose, and guides the reader through Heidegger's early concern with the nature of human existence, to his later preoccupation with the threat that technology poses to our ability to live worthwhile lives. Wrathall pays particular attention to Heidegger's revolutionary analysis of human existence as inextricably shaped by a shared world. This leads to an exploration of his views on the banality of public life, and the possibility of authentic anticipation of death as a response to that banality. Wrathall reviews Heidegger's scandalous involvement with National Socialism, situating it in the context of his views about the movement of world history. He also explains Heidegger's important accounts of truth, art, and language. Extracts are taken from Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time, as well as a variety of his best known essays and lectures.

Mark Wrathall is Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University. He has edited and co-edited a number of volumes on Heidegger's thought, including Heidegger Reexamined; Appropriating Heidegger; Heidegger, Coping and Cognitive Science, and Heidegger, Authenticity and Modernity. He has been appointed as the co-editor of the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Heidegger.