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. |
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