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How to Read Heidegger
 
 

How to Read Heidegger (Paperback)

by Mark Wrathall (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Granta Books (3 Oct 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1862077665
  • ISBN-13: 978-1862077669
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 182,103 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

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


Product Description

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.

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars an introduction that allows you to think, 13 Feb 2006
By emma who reads a lot (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
I think these general introduction-type books are often... more confusing than tackling the real thing... in this case though Heidegger was just too much for me all on my own. And in fact this book is absolutely superb. The way this series is structured means you get a little segment of Heidegger, to read for yourself, and then an explanation afterwards, which takes you through a general introduction to his ideas, too.

I thought it was brilliantly done, and have spent time in the day pondering some of the philosophical questions involved... which seems to me a proper testament to the book actually WORKING. It's doing what it's meant to do - helping you think - and not just confusing you by trying to pass judgement on a whole life and work at once.

I knew nothing about Heidegger when i started, now i feel motivated to learn more. I think that's probably the best account I can give of the book!

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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Why read Heidegger?, 14 Feb 2009
No one can doubt that Heidegger is difficult to read. So Wrathall's first task is to convince readers that he is worth reading at all. He starts by bringing out the stock villain of the Heideggerians: the naive analytic philosopher.

Wrathall makes the silly error of suggesting that all analytic philosophers are naive. But this is far from the case. Bryan Magee, as one example among many, takes on 'lived experience' just as much as Heidegger does; but in a readable manner. His Confessions Of A Philosopher doesn't need a book to tell you how to read it.

In Wrathall's favour, he does give the opposition some space. He quotes John Searle: 'Most philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition seem to think that Heidegger was an obscurantist muddle-head at best or an unregenerate Nazi at worst'. But Wrathall runs away from arguing against Searle, leaving one thinking that Searle is probably right.

Wrathall takes chunks of Heidegger's Being and Time and tries to tell you how to read them. For instance, the first sentence he quotes is "Dasein is an entity which, in its very being, comports itself understandingly towards that being." He points out the unfamiliar term "Dasein", and the ordinary terms used in unfamiliar ways: "entity", "being", "comports". So far so good. But instead of then suggesting the obvious (that Heidegger shouldn't have been so obscurantist!) he says that Heidegger did this "to help us understand experiences and things that cannot readily be captured in words and concepts."

Wittgenstein had the solution to things that could not be captured in words and concepts. Be silent about them!

My approach to reading Heidegger was to try to translate him into understandable English. So the sentence quoted takes "Dasein" as "human being" and becomes, roughly, "You understand your own existence". I did this for 250 pages of Being and Time, only able to keep going by thinking "Heidegger must be really important, look at all those clever professors and books out there saying he is." But after trying to decipher one unreadable paragraph too many, I gave up. If I had been sensible I would have given up at the first weasel word. "Dasein" is not a philosophical term, it is pretentious, obscurantist rubbish.

Remember all the medieval theologians who argued about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Heidegger is their heir, and Wrathall his apologist. Don't be deceived. This emperor has no clothes.
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