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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heidegger's brooding paced, 10 Jul 2005
It seems like this volume, culled from 1929-30 lecture courses, is an ideal "companion" to Sein und Zeit. Whereas in the latter - where Heidegger appears to be writing from the middle of the book towards the covers rather than from front to back - it is only half-way through that he bothers to define fundamental concepts he has been using repeatedly, things are well-laid out here. Here we have an attempt to uncover the originary prote philosophia, later dubbed "metaphysics" by scholastic theologians integrating Aristotle, in ignorance of its concerns, not knowing how to categorise it other than as being "after" or "away from" physics. As in Being and Time, Heidegger goes after the question of Being, in two Aristotlean forms, and tries to found a unitary question in the unthought region that preceded their split. But these ponderous ponderings go beyond Being and Time, and serve as a bridge for some later writings and also to various poststructural philosophers who have leaned on, expanded and critiqued Heidegger (chief amongst them for me, Giorgio Agamben) in their own work. Heidegger interrogates animal behaviour, environment, technology, the political aspect of human existence, language use, etc. in ways that prefigure his later writings. I found this work useful for getting a clearer understanding of where continental thought begins, i.e. after metaphysics (as normally understood) is subjected to "destruction" (prefiguring, in critique, something like deconstruction), and it also made Heidegger's more complex works such as Being and Time and Introduction to Metaphysics more accessible. Full marks also, for a good accessible translation that is not dumbed-down beyond recognition.
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