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German Thought

 

Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

BEING AND TIME: A translation of Sein und Zeit by Martin Heidegger, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson ($28.00, hardcover, 598 pages, glossary, indexes, HarperSanFrancisco, ISBN: 0-06-063850-8)

BEING AND TIME: A Translation of Sein und Zeit [SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy and Culture] by Martin Heidegger, translated by Joan Stambaugh ($21.95, paper, 487 pages, index, State University of new York Press, SUNY, ISBN: 0-7914-2678-5)

hardcover:

BEING AND TIME is without doubt Heidegger's major work. The John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson translation has been the workhorse of an English language approach to the philosopher. In many ways they have set the base line for all Heidegger translations for the last generation and their work still is unmatched for verbal felicity to the German classic. However, Joan Stambaugh's exceptionally nuanced grasp of the Heidegger enterprise, makes her translation more idiomatic and still closer to the spirit of the philosopher's purpose. Anyone approaching a serious study of Heidegger should read both as well as struggling with the original German.

Other works that are exceptionally germane to approaching the BEING AND TIME period of Heidegger's thinking are also well advised to study:

The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time by Theodore Kisiel (University of California Press). This work masterfully puts into cultural context the personal and philosophical concerns that gave rise to BEING AND TIME.

Contents:
Figures
Key to Abbreviations and Notations
Introduction
Pt. I. The Breakthrough to the Topic
1. Phenomenological Beginnings: The Hermeneutic Breakthrough
(1915-19)
2. Theo-Logical Beginnings: Toward a Phenomenology of Christianity
3. The Deconstruction of Life (1919-20)
4. The Religion Courses (1920-21)
Pt. II. Confronting the Ontological Tradition
5. What Did Heidegger Find in Aristotle? (1921-23)
6. Aristotle Again: From Unconcealment to Presence (1923-24)
Pt. III. Three Drafts of Being and Time
7. The Dilthey Draft: "The Concept of Time" (1924)
8. The Ontoeroteric Draft: History of the Concept of Time (1925)
9. The Final Draft: Toward a Kairology of Being
Erotetic Epilogue
App. Heideggers Lehrveranstaltungen/Heidegger's Teaching Activities, 1915-30
App. A Documentary Chronology of the Path to the Publication of Being and
Time, 1924-27
App. Genealogical Glossary of Heidegger's Basic Terms, 1915-27
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Subject Matter
Index of Greek Terms
Index of Latin Terms

 

Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger edited and translated by Richard F. H. Polt and Gregory Fried (Yale University Press) is one of the most important works written by this towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy. It includes a powerful reinterpretation of Greek thought, a sweeping vision of Western history, and a glimpse of the reasons behind Heidegger's support of the Nazi Party in the 1930s. Heidegger tries to reawaken the "question of Being" by challenging some of the most enduring prejudices embedded in Western philosophy and in our everyday practices and language. Furthermore, he relates this question to the insights of Greek tragedy into the human condition and to the political and cultural crises of modernity.This new translation makes this work more accessible to students than ever before. It combines smoothness with accuracy and provides conventional translations of Greek passages that Heidegger translated unconventionally. There are also extensive notes, a German-English glossary, and an introduction that discusses the history of the text, its basic themes, and its place in Heidegger's oeuvre.

A Companion to Heidegger`s "Introduction to Metaphysics" edited and commentary by Richard F. H. Polt and Gregory Fried (Yale University Press) first published in 1953, is a highly significant work by a towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy. The volume is known for its incisive analysis of the Western understanding of Being, its original interpretations of Greek philosophy and poetry, and its vehement political statements. This new companion to the Introduction to Metaphysics presents an overview of Heidegger's text and a variety of perspectives on its interpretation from more than a dozen highly respected contributors.

In the editors' introduction to the book, Richard Polt and Gregory Fried alert readers to the important themes and problems of Introduction to Metaphysics. The contributors then offer original essays on three broad topics: the question of Being, Heidegger and the Greeks, and politics and ethics. Both for readers who are approaching Heidegger for the first time and for those who are studying Heidegger on an advanced level, this Companion offers a clear guide to one of the philosopher's most difficult yet most influential writings.

Martin and Hannah: A Novel by Catherine Clement, translated by Julia Shirek Smith (Prometheus) Clement provides an interesting view of the philosopher and Nazi and the great social theorist life long affair of the heart by bringing the perspective of Heideggers wife. Though obviously fictional the triangulation does provide a synopsis of emotions, biography and history in the life of the mind.

The Idea of Philosophy: Towards a Definition of Philosophy by Martin Heidegger, translated by Ted Sadler (The Collected Woks of Martin Heidegger, Vol. 56/57; Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers). There is an academic obsession that if one traces back the development of original ideas they will show their common and banal parentage. This work includes two Freiburg lecture courses from 1919 when the young Heidegger was first developing the idea that would become his masterwork Being and Time.   “The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview show traces of the inception of his more finished work but only in brief flashes. Because the philosopher himself never reworked these lectures for publication they stand as obscure testimony to the authors Heidegger sought to engage in these fledglings flights of philosophical exposition. “Phenomenology and Transcendental Philosophy of Value” provides a survey of neo-Kantian positions that was the dominant style of Philosophy in German universities and the close of WW I. The works require a close reading to see relations to the more carefully written works of the author.

Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Steven Mulhall, provides a useful introduction to the structure of the work.

Contents:
Preface
Introduction: Heidegger's project
1. The human world: skepticism, cognition and agency
2. The human world: society, selfhood and self-interpretation
3. Language, truth and reality
4. Conclusion to Division One: the uncanniness of everyday life
5. Theology secularized: mortality, guilt and conscience
6. Heidegger's (re)visionary moment: time as the human horizon
7. Fate and destiny: human natality and a brief history of time
8. Conclusion to Division Two: Philosophical endings - the horizon of Being and
Time
Bibliography
Index

Important works relating to the content and themes explored in BEING AND TIME by Heidegger himself include:

PLATO’S SOPHIST by Martin Heidegger, translated by Andre Schuwer, Richard Rojcewicz ($39.95, cloth, 496 pages, glossary of Greek terms, Studies in Continental Thought, Indiana University Press, ISBN: 0-253-33222-2

This book is a translation of Platen: Sophistes, which was published in 1992 as volume 19 of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works). The text is a reconstruction of the author's lecture course delivered under the same title at the University of Marburg in the winter semester 1924- 25.

The course was devoted to an interpretation of both Plato, especially his late dialogue, the Sophist, and Aristotle, especially Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is one of Heidegger's major works, because of its intrinsic importance as an interpretation of ancient philosophy and also on account of its relation to Being and Time.

The first page of Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time, immediately following the table of contents, quotes a passage from Plato which Heidegger uses as a motto for the entire work. Heidegger himself later stressed that this quotation was not intended to serve as a mere decoration. Thus it is, on the contrary, intrinsically connected to the matter at issue in Being and Time; it names the central, unifying matter at issue in Being and Time, which can then be seen as a single protracted meditation revolving around this one sentence from Plato. The sentence occurs at the heart of the Sophist. Furthermore, Heidegger chose it as the motto precisely at the time he was both delivering these lectures on that dialogue, in 1925, and composing Being and Time, which was published in 1927 but was substantially complete when presented to Husserl in manuscript form the year before, at a gathering in the Black Forest to celebrate Husserl's sixty-seventh birthday. Thus Being and Time is closely connected to this lecture course, both temporally and thematically. They are both meditations on the matters at issue in the Sophist and shed light on each other. In one of the senses in which Being and Time is a repetition, it is a repetition of this lecture course. It is not a mere repetition, naturally, and the difference is that in these lectures Heidegger stays closer to the text of Plato and approaches the problematic in Platonic terms, while in the repetition he engages in the ontological problem by taking a more thematically determined route, namely, the path of a hermeneutical analysis of Dasein (human being insofar as it is the place where being reveals itself). These lectures then show what Heidegger always claimed, namely, that the hermeneutic of Dasein has its roots in the philosophical tradition and is not a viewpoint foisted dogmatically on the problem of Being.

Heidegger devoted the first part of his lecture course on the Sophist to a preparation for reading Plato. This part, amounting to a full-length treatise in itself, is an interpretation of Aristotle. It is one of Heidegger's major interpretations of Aristotle and his only extended commentary on Book VI (the discussion of the so-called intellectual virtues) of the Nicomachean Ethics. Heidegger uses Aristotle to approach Plato, rather than the other way around, which would be chronologically correct, because of his view that as a principle of hermeneutics we must go from the clear to the obscure. For Heidegger, Aristotle is the only path to Plato, because Aristotle prepares the ground for our understanding of Plato's ontological research, specifically by making explicit what is only implicit in Plato, namely, the link between truth (understood as disclosedness) and Being.

The actual interpretation of the Sophist is unique among Heidegger s works in being so extensively devoted to a single dialogue. Heidegger slowly and painstakingly interprets the text, practically line by line. The interpretation is quintessential Heidegger, displaying his trademark original approach to Greek philosophy, one which created such a sensation among his students. The contemporary reader is invited to participate in Heidegger's venture, as were the original auditors of his courses, and can now see what caused the sensation and make his or her own judgment on it.

The theme of Plato's Sophist, mirrored in a remarkable number of ways— for instance in the seemingly extraneous search for the definition of the sophist—is the relation of Being and non-being, and the central concern is to challenge Parmenides' view that non-beings in no way are. Heidegger's interpretation of this dialogue lies, accordingly, at the center of his own thinking, for these are fundamental themes of his philosophy as well: Being in distinction to beings, to non-beings, to falsity, to appearance. For Heidegger, and, as he shows, for Plato too, these are not simple oppositions; instead, they have something in common. This commonality or "potential for sharing" is a thread of Ariadne to the entire ontological problematic, and Heidegger nowhere focuses on it as intensely as he does here.

In form, the book is practically a running commentary; Greek citation and Heidegger's interpretation leapfrog one another down every page. In almost all cases, Heidegger himself translates the citations or at least translates those portions he wishes to draw out, although these translations are often paraphrases and are not always put in quotation marks. Readers with little or no knowledge of Greek can then be confident that they are following the main train of thought. In addition to these citations, almost every sentence in the book incorporates isolated Greek terms and phrases Heidegger often does not render into German. For these, the translator prepared an extensive glossary, which can be found at the end of the book. This glossary can hardly substitute for Heidegger's nuanced understanding of the concepts of Greek philosophy as this understanding emerges in the course of the lectures. It is offered merely to provide a general orientation. Its use, of course, does presuppose some familiarity with ancient Greek, since not every form of the words on the list could be included. This work will be a prized account of Heiddeger’s relation to the philosophic tradition of Aristotle and Plato.

PARMENIDES by Martin Heidegger, translated by Andre Schuwer, Richard Rojcewicz ($31.95, Hardcover, 170 pages, Studies in Continental Thought, Indiana University Press, ISBN: 0-253-32726-1)

This book is a translation of the text of Martin Heidegger's lecture course from the winter semester 1942-43 at the University of Freiburg. It was published posthumously as vol. 54 of his "Collected works" (Gesamtausgabe) in 1982. As the editor of the volume indicates, the course was actually entitled "Parmenides and Heraclitus," but in view of the preponderant treatment of Parmenides over Heraclitus in the lectures as delivered, the title was altered in publication.

In accord with Heidegger's firm directive, his collected works are not appearing in a critical edition but as writings "aus letzter Hand." That is to say, the volumes in the series come "straight from his hand" and contain a minimum of scholarly apparatus such as variant readings, commentaries, emendations, etc. "Ways, not works" (Wege, nicht Werke) —that is the motto Heidegger placed at the head of his Gesamtausgabe. The difference is surely not that ways are meandering and tentative, works polished and final. The motto is thus not a kind of apology for a lack of rigor. Heidegger had in mind something else entirely; perhaps we could say that for him a work is the work of an author but a way is a way of thought. The motto thus expresses Heidegger's desire that attention be diverted away from himself as holding such and such an opinion, originating such and such a standpoint, having such and such a place within the history of philosophy, etc. All that sort of historical philological consideration was of minor importance to Heidegger. He wished to have certain ideas examined on their own merit, and he wished that others would engage themselves in the issues facing thought, but he had no desire to be the subject of learned debate as to what he "really" did or did not say. Naturally, Heidegger wanted his writings to be issued with due editorial care. But it was his belief that the scholarly trappings of a critical edition, though well meant, could obscure a focus on the matter of thought and lead to "Heidegger scholarship" of a most sterile kind. Hence the Gesamtausgabe lemer Hand.

The translations of the volumes in the collected works come under the same strictures. The reader will find here everything available to aid his or her understanding of the text that the reader of Heidegger's original German possesses, which amounts to little more than the bare text itself. In particular, neither the editor nor the translators feel compelled, or even justified, to prejudge for the reader what she or he will find within these pages.

Heidegger treats language with the utmost respect, and he exploits all the possibilities his native German offers, especially for plays on words. Yet this linguistic dexterity can be exasperating for the work of translation. Very seldom can a play on words in German be carried over into English without convoluted turns of phrase. In one or two places the translators felt justified in taking a certain liberty with English in order to capture something of Heidegger's use of language. For instance, Heidegger's word for "beginning" is Anfang. Etymologically, Aniang derives from an (in, at, to) end fangen (to seize, take, catch). This derivation supports Heidegger's claim that the beginning of thinking is not something the primordial thinkers carry out from their own resources but something the beginning does to them; they do not themselves take up the beginning, but, quite to the contrary, they are seized and taken up by the beginning. Happily (though perhaps there are those who will be disconcerted by our recourse to it) the English language has another word for "beginning"—with an etymology corresponding to that of Anfang. That word is "inception," deriving from the Latin in (in, at, to) and capere (to seize, take, catch). The translators believe that their employment of "in-caption" (with a hyphen to emphasize the derivation) in the appropriate context is at least a semi-successful example of preserving both the letter and spirit of Heidegger's language. The reader should be advised, however, that they are well aware of Heidegger's warning, in the very book at hand, against just such a procedure: that is., in his proscription of translation as a mere copying of "word-forms." And in fact very rarely did we find it possible to translate by matching word-forms. Two examples might be illustrative in this regard: the words Ubersetzung and Entbergung.

Entbergung is a coinage on Heidegger's part. It means, essentially, "disclosure" and becomes Heidegger's preferred translation of the Greek aletheia, "truth". For Heidegger, as is well known, aletheia has a rich essence, and he attempts to capture something of that richness by emphasizing in turn the two components of the word Entbergung. Thus he maintains that truth is both an Entbergung and an Entbergung. A translation that slavishly followed the word-form would say that truth is a disclosure and a disclosure. But this would fail to capture the change in sense that occurs when the accent is placed on the Bergung, for the word by itself means "salvage," "recovery," "shelter." Yet to declare simply that aletheia signifies both disclosure and shelter would surely seem to be combining two unrelated items. The translation of Entbergung then has to retain the ideas both of closure (to show the connection with "disclosure") and shelter (to indicate the sense of Bergung). Depending on the context, our translation of Ent-bergung has varied somewhat, but for the most part we have had recourse to the circumlocution "sheltering en-closure.

Ubersetzung would ordinarily be rendered "translation." Again Heidegger plays on the components of the word and distinguishes between Ubersetzung and Ubersetzung. And, once again, a translation that merely copied the form, translation versus translation, would miss the point, even though the derivation of these English and German words is practically the same: they both mean "to carry over." By emphasizing the prefix, in German the sense changes in a way that cannot be captured in English by following the same strategy. For Ubersetzung no longer refers to the linguistic act of translation but has a more basic concrete sense of literally "carrying over." We have thus rendered Ubersetzung as "transporting." Heidegger's claim that every act of translating is founded upon a transporting (of ourselves into a new realm of meaning) should then be understandable.

Finally, the text, as one might expect in a book on ancient philosophy, is heavily flavored with Greek and Latin. It is giving away no secret that Heidegger decried the Latinizing of things Greek, and one of the central themes of the present volume is the impoverishment in the understanding of Being concomitant with such "transporting." It seemed to us, therefore, that it would be altogether inappropriate, although perhaps making for easier reading, to Romanize the Greek script in a book so adamantly opposed to Latinization. To the reader unfamiliar with Greek, certain passages might appear rather formidable, then. Nevertheless, almost every word Heidegger employs in a classical language is also translated by him, and in those few instances where that is not the case the translators have included a translation in a footnote, hoping their version does not violate Heidegger's own style of translation, determined as it is by his highly individual and original interpretation of the ancients. This work offers some important readings of fragments attributed to Parmenides.

THE PRINCIPLE OF REASON by Martin Heidegger, translated by Reginald Lilly ($35.00, cloth; 148 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Studies in Continental Thought, Indiana University Press, ISBN: 0-253-32724-5)

paper:

In his later works Heidegger stresses the decadence of the modern world, arguing that humanity has "fallen out of being." He traces this fall back to Greek philosophy. In the thought of the pre-Socratics, particularly Parmenides, he finds the only real understanding of being. By the time of Aristotle, that understanding was lost in the emphasis on human beings as rational creatures. Heidegger placed particular emphasis on language as the vehicle through which human beings can reencounter being, and on the special role poetry plays in the development and function of language. The importance he attaches to poetry can be seen in his respect for the work of the German poet Friedrich Holderlin and in his invention of words with multiple meanings derived from their etymological roots. Heidegger's idiosyncratic use of language and sometimes quasi-mystical tone is often regarded as barriers to understanding his philosophy. Nevertheless, many of the ideas introduced by Heidegger are now common, for example, the necessity of achieving an authentic existence in the face of the downward drag of the anonymous crowd; the importance of intense, significance-disclosing experiences; and the elusiveness of the basic features of human existence. Heidegger himself sometimes seems to imply that being--the quest of the philosopher--and the holy--the quest of the poet--may ultimately be the same. This translation of an important lecture course given in 1955-56 gives an extended treatment of the latter Heidegger's thoughts about the essentiality of reason , historically related to the works of Aristotle, Kant and Leibniz. The text is dense and requires close reading. It will be foundational to Heidegger fans

BASIC QUESTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY: Selected 'Problems' of 'Logic' by Martin Heidegger, translated by Richard Rojcewicz, Andre Schuwer ($35.00, hardcover, 192 pages, glossary, notes, bibliography, index, Studies in Continental Thought, Indiana University Press, ISBN: 0-253-32685-0)

In the continuing industry of translating Heiddeger's works, this book is a well made translation which shows the work as a little demonstration of the radical, deep questioning that Heidegger proposed as the task of thinking. Composed during the turbulent years of 1937-38, this title acts as an introduction to his great and still not yet translated work Beitrage zur Philosophie (Contributions to Philosophy). The rich resources of these published lectures is that they demonstrate over and over again a first rate think in process, as such there is no better guide than Heidegger. This title will sell well as does any titles by him, though they can move slowly.

HEGEL’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT by Martin Heidegger, translated by Parvis Emad, Kenneth Maly ($12.95, paper; 176 pages, glossary notes, index, Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Indiana University Press, ISBN: 0-253-20910-2)

Heidegger is reputedly the most important world class German philosopher since Hegel. Of the writings of Heidegger upon Hegel this is the most sustained and straight forward account of Hegel's project as reinterpreted by Heidegger. Highly recommended for its exceptional translation and extensive treatment of such themes as finitude, temporality, ontological difference, and dialectic.

Interpretations of Heidegger's Work.

ENCOUNTERS & DIALOGUES WITH MARTIN HEIDEGGER, 1929-1976 by Heinrich Wiegand Petzet ($34.95, cloth; 251 pages. notes, index, University of Chicago Press, ISBN: 0-226-66441-4)

A last an account of Heidegger the man has emerged to give some measure of flesh and fallibility to the otherwise austere thinker. Often considered simplistically an apolitical Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite, this private man has been drug through the court of world opinion for decades now. His long recognized world stature as one of this century's gift to the future ages of philosophy, is just coming to the fore in American letters as third and fourth generation scholarship translates, critiques and standardizes his chameleon style of philosophizing. Petzet may be accused of producing hagiography rather than simple memoir, but it is a humane discourse, a celebration of friendship. This work will sell quite well as Heidegger has many admirers.

GOD AND BEING: Heidegger’s Relation to Theology by Jeff Owen Prudhomme ($55.00, hardcover, 207 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and the Human Sciences, Humanities Press, ISBN: 0-391-03965-2)

Prudhomme interprets the relation of Heidegger's ontology to theology in terms of a correlation. He develops his inquiry from several different perspectives: a brief overview of Heidegger's thought; an overview of the traditional connections of God and being. between ontology and theology, and of the necessity of the connection; an overview of the theological reception of Heidegger's work; and finally, a discussion of the current situation in theology.

Marked by its deliberate and intelligible approach to a profoundly intricate subject matter. This work engages the philosophical and theological thought of Heidegger, those engaged more broadly in these disciplines, in cultural interpretation, and anyone, whether professional, undergraduate or layperson, who is stirred by the meaning of being and the question of God.

The goal of this work is to explore the relation of Heidegger's ontological reflection to theological reflection in terms of a correlation of the two. The task indicated by the title is to examine the relation of ontological and theological reflection within the framework or context of Heidegger's thinking and not simply to report on Heidegger's opinions about theology. Prudhomme’s approach to this correlation takes its way first through a presentation and analysis of Heidegger's own most significant characterizations of the relation of ontology and theology. These are two in number. The first is based on Heidegger's notion of theology as essentially a form of religious thinking (the science of the Christian or "faithful" mode of existence). The relation of his own thinking to this religious thinking is that of an "ontological corrective.") The second is based on his notion of theology as an essential component of metaphysical thinking (conceived as onto-theo-logy). The relation of his own thinking to this metaphysical form of theology can be termed deconstructive. Heidegger's own notion of ontological reflection did not remain static between his early notion of the ontological correction of religious thinking and his later preoccupation with the deconstruction of metaphysics. In light of that, Prudhomme begins with an examination of Heidegger's notion of ontological reflection as this is first worked out in his Sein und Zeit. After dealing with Heidegger's critique of metaphysical thinking, which includes metaphysical theology, the nature of Heidegger's later project of ontological thinking should be clarified. It is from this characterization of Heidegger's later approach to ontological reflection that Prudhomme proceeds to draw a correlation to a nonmetaphysical project of theology. In unfolding such a correlation, he does not intend to reproduce and further Heidegger's own reflection on theology but rather to break off from his own depiction of ontology and work from there constructively to the desired correlation. Nonetheless this correlation is drawn out in terms of possibilities that Heidegger himself discloses yet does not pursue. Heidegger's own response to the impasse of metaphysics offers a positive indication both for the conduct of a non-metaphysical form of theological reflection and for a non-metaphysical construction of the relation of ontology and theology.

In more concrete terms, then, this study unfolds as follows. First he investigates Heidegger's own portrayal of the relation of ontology and theology, by analyzing Heidegger's notion of ontology within the framework of Sein und Zeit, as developed against the backdrop of his early theological education and his preoccupation with early Christianity. Heidegger's approach here is characterized as reflexive thinking: the self-reflection on the being of human being in order to discover the meaning of being-itself. This serves as background for discussion of Heidegger's "Phanomenologie und Theologie," wherein he represents the relation of theology to ontology as that of the positive science of Christian existence (theology) to the overarching transcendental science of ontology. Prudhomme elaborates Heidegger's notion of "onto-theology" as the essential unity of ontology and theology within the metaphysical tradition, a tradition that he seeks to deconstruct. Metaphysics, according to Heidegger, represents the being of beings in their unity as what is indifferently common to all (=ontology) and in their totality in contrast to the highest being (=theology), but it never thinks the ontological difference as such between being and beings. Heidegger's proposal initially is simply to dwell on this ontological difference. Prudhomme’s constructive attempt to elaborate the relation of ontology and theology through a correlation of the two. Taking up Heidegger's notion of the ontological difference, Prudhomme attempts to expose the structure of Heidegger's later thinking, where he reflects on human words (in poetic or philosophical texts) as the self-annunciation of being in language. Such reflection attempts to keep in mind the difference of being from all that is and at the same time to attend to the place where being makes itself known in language. A similar structure can be elaborated for theological thinking, insofar as theology reflects the self-disclosure of the wholly other God within the otherness that is the nondivine. These two models then can play into each other to make clear the correlation of Heidegger's notion of ontological reflection and a nonmetaphysical projection of theological reflection.

The task of correlation of ontology and theology is never at an end, for it is an interpretive act that lies at the heart of both disciplines, an act that forms the task of philosophical theology. The intention of this work elaborates these feature’s of Heidegger’s thought in ways both anticipated and unexpected by the philosopher himself.

HEIDEGGER, DILTHEY, AND THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM: History and Metaphysics in Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Neo-Kantians by Charles R. Bambach ($18.95, paperback, bibliography, index, Cornell University Press, ISBN: 0-8014-8260-7)

$45.00, Hardcover

0-8014-3079-8

Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Modernity and Crisis
Ch. 1. German Philosophy between Scientism and Historicism
Ch. 2. Wilhelm Windelband's Taxonomy of the Sciences
Ch. 3. Heinrich Rickert's Epistemology of Historical Science
Ch. 4. Wilhelm Dilthey's Critique of Historical Reason
Ch. 5. "The Time Is Out of Joint": The Young Heidegger's Destruktion of Historicism
Postscript
Bibliography
Index

DAIMON LIFE: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy by David Farrell Krell ($18.95, paper; 320 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Indiana University Press, ISBN: 0-253-20739-8)

HEIDEGGER’S HIDDEN SOURCES: East Asian influences on his work by Reinhard May, translated by Graham Parker ($49.95, hardcover, 121 pages, notes, Routledge, ISBN: 0-415-14037-4)

$23.75 paper, 121 pages, notes, Routledge, ISBN: 0-415-14038-2

In HEIDEGGER’S HIDDEN SOURCES , Reinhard May demonstrates that Martin Heidegger drew upon German translations of Chinese Taoist and Zen Buddhist classics for some of the major ideas of his philosophy. May also shows how Heidegger's appropriation of East Asian modes of thinking continued through conversations with Chinese and Japanese scholars over many years.

The author concentrates on a series of close textual comparisons of passages from Heidegger's major writings with excerpts from translations of Taoist classics and a collection of Zen texts - translations with which Heidegger was known to be familiar. The striking similarities in vocabulary and syntax that come to light are, May argues, too numerous to be coincidental. In addition, there is a detailed discussion of Heidegger's "From a Conversation on Language; Between a Japanese and an Inquirer" and published here for the first time, an English translation of the account given by the scholar with whom Heidegger had the dialogue that under lies his "Conversation".

Graham Parkes's complementary essay sketches a hitherto overlooked aspect of Heidegger's intellectual development by providing further details on Heidegger's contacts with several eminent philosophers from Japan, notably Kuki Shuzo, who subsequently introduced Jean-Paul Sartre to Heidegger's thought. May's groundbreaking study will not only go a long way towards explaining Heidegger's enormous influence in Japan and China; it will also have a profound impact on future.

THE PATHS OF HEIDEGGER’S LIFE AND THOUGHT by Otto Proggeler, translated by John Bailiff ($70.00, hardcover, 207 pages, notes, translation glossary, sources, index, Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and the Human Sciences, Humanities Press, ISBN: 0-391-03964-4)

This work by renowned scholar and commentator Otto Poggeler brings together papers and essays written between 1978 and 1989. Never before published in English, all have been newly edited. In the introductory essay, Poggeler reviews Heidegger's impact on contemporary thought, ranging over many fields, and assesses Heidegger's significance for twentieth-century philosophy.

The essays chronicle an account of the central themes in Heidegger's philosophy, of the role of the National Socialist revolution and the Third Reich in Heidegger's life, Heidegger's involvement in and attachment to the revolution, the implications of this fact for our reflection on the importance of his thought, and especially the significance of Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy.

The book also includes a thorough study of Heidegger's conception of language and its influence upon philosophers like Derrida, a discussion of Heidegger's little-known excursion into Chinese in the 1920s, which resulted in a partial translation of Tao De Ching, and an extended analysis of the structure of the Contributions to Philosophy and its meditations on the relationships between phenomenology and theology, especially in terms of Heidegger's use of the image of "The Departure of the Ultimate Gods."

Otto Poggeler is well known for his many publications on Hegel, Heidegger, and aesthetic theory. He is Director of the Hegel Archive and Professor of Philosophy, Ruhr-Universitat, Bochum, Germany.

Translator John Bailiff retired from the University of Wisconsin as Emeritus Professor of Philosophy in 1994. He has published a number of papers in Heidegger studies, as well as works on ethics, aesthetics, Buddhism, and Chinese philosophy.

Contents:
Translator's Introduction
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Pathways of "Time"
I. Temporal Interpretation and Hermeneutic Philosophy
II. What Anxiety Is Anxious About
III. Along New Paths with Heidegger?
2. The Political Experience
I. Heidegger's Ambivalence over Leadership
II. Heidegger's Political Entanglement
III. Heidegger and Politics
3. Art-Myth-Language
I. Rationality-Mythology-Art
II. The Poem as Trace
III. Is Language the House of Being?
4. The Great Traditions
I. A Conversation between West and East: Heidegger and Laozi
II. Mythic Elements in Heidegger's Thought and Celan's Poetry
III. The Departure of the Final God
Notes
Translation Glossary
Sources
Index

THE HEIDEGGER CONTROVERSY: A Critical Reader edited by Richard Wolin ($17.95, paper; 305 pages, bibliography, index, MIT Press, ISBN: 0-262-73101-0)

Contains:

"The Self-Assertion of the German University" (1933)
"Political Texts, 1933-1934"
"Letter to the Rector of Freiburg University, November 4, 1945"
"Overcoming Metaphysics (1936-1946)"
"Only a God Can Save Us": Der Spiegel's Interview with Martin Heidegger
"My Last Meeting with Heidegger in Rome, 1936", Karl Lwith.

Krell is a first rate translator and interpreter of Heidegger who is considered one of the foremost philosophers of this century. In this volume we have an intermediate discussion of the state of Heideggerian scholarship and the divergent directions the tradition has been elaborating. Also the first inkling of a consensus is unfolding about the substance and smoke of Heidegger's contribution to philosophy. Krell's own viewpoint is exciting and well worth notice. Wollin collects some of the most relevant essays by Heidegger that touch upon his political views and the best contributions by other that debate the evaluation of his philosophical work given his collaborations with the Nazis. As originally published by Columbia University Press in 1990 this anthology then included an interview with Jacques Derrida entitled "Philosopher's Hell". Not knowing that his interview was published was not pleased when he came across it, He claimed that Wolin's whole book was nothing than a continuation of the war machine, and has insisted that Wollin remove the interview. To this new edition Wollin has added a special introduction and a "Note on a Missing Text", where examines questions about the nature of authorship and person responsibility that are at the heart of both the Heidegger collaborationist controversy and the Derrida's anger .This volume is likely to become the standard resource on this question for many years to come.

THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO HEIDEGGER Edited and introduction by Charles Guignon ($20.95, paper, 389 pages, bibliographies, index, Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 0-521-38597-0)

Contains:

"The question of being: Heidegger's project", Dorothea Frede
"Reading a life: Heidegger and hard times", Thomas Sheehan
"The unity of Heidegger's thought" Fredrick A. Olafson
"Intentionality and world: Division I of Being and Time" Harrison Hall
"Time and phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger" Robert J. Dostal
"Heidegger and the hermeneutic turn", David Couzens Hoy
"Death, time, history: Division II of Being and Time" Piotr Hoffman
"Authenticity, moral values, and psychotherapy" Charles B. Guignon
"Heidegger, Buddhism, and deep ecology", Michael E. Zimmerman
"Heidegger and theology", John D. Caputo
"Heidegger on the connection between nihilism, art, technology, and politics", Hubert L. Dreyfus
"Engaged agency and background in Heidegger", Charles Taylor
"Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the reification of language", Richard Rorty

OF DERRIDA, HEIDEGGER, AND SPIRIT edited by David Wood ($16.95, paper; 149 pages, notes, Northwestern University Press, ISBN: 0-8101-1093-8)

hardcover:

Wood has edited a collection of essays that explore the interpretation of Heidegger by Derrida. They cover a wide range of topics, from the apolitical fascism of both to their appropriation of the phenomenological tradition. It is a respectable collection by topnotch philosophers.

Contents:
Acknowledgments
Responses and Responsibilities: An Introduction
By David Wood
1. Spiriting Heidegger By David Farrell Krell
2. Spirit and Teeth By Nick Land
3. Of Derrida's Spirit By Gillian Rose
4. The Actualization of Philosophy and the Logic of Geist: From Avoidance to Deployment By David Wood
5. Spirit's Spirit Spirits Spirit By Geoffrey Bennington
6. The Question of the Question: An Ethico-Political Response to a Note in Derrida's De l'esprit By Simon Critchley
7. Spirit's Living Hand By Will McNeill
8. Flight of Spirit By John Sallis
Notes on Contributors
Notes

HEIDEGGER’S WAYS by Hans-George Gadamer, translated by John W. Stanley ($16.95, paper; 212 pages, notes, bibliography, index, State University of New York Press, SUNY, ISBN: 0-7914-1738-7)

HEIDEGGER:A Critical Reader edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus & Harrison Hall ($22.95, Paperback, 303 pages, notes, Blackwell, ISBN: 0-631-16342-5

Contains:

"Dasein's Disclosedness", John Haugeland
"History and Commitment in the Early Heidegger", Charles Guignon
"Attunement and Thinking", Michel Haar
"Heidegger's History of the Being of Equipment", Hubert Dreyfus
"Work and Weltanschauung: The Heidegger Controversy from a German Perspective", Jurgen Habermas
"Heidegger, Contingency, and Pragmatism", Richard Rorty
"Heidegger, Language, and Ecology", Charles Taylor

HEIDGGER AND WHITEHEAD: A Phenomenological Examination into the Intelligibility of Experience by Ron L. Cooper ($35.00, cloth; 150 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Series in Continental Thought, No 19, Ohio University Press, ISBN: 0-8214-1060-1)

This series of philosophical monographs is known for its representative sampling of the best in phenomenological thought in American commentaries and in original editions by European intellectuals working in the idealist mode. Cooper discusses the juncture between Whitehead's and Heidegger's approach to the basic qualities of experience. Cooper subordinates his reading of Whitehead's process and reality to the themes as developed in Heidegger's being and time. This hermeneutical move may raise some eyebrows but it does suggest a style of approach.

OBJECT-CHOICE (All You Need is Love...) by Klaus Theweleit ($16.95, paper; 112 pages, index, Verso, ISBN: 0-86091-642-1)

This collage work of speculative biography and pop culture explores the theme of Eros and love, masculine and feminine approaches to history through biographical encounter. Invoked is Freud's obsessive love for Martha Bernays, the triangle between Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger and Elfriede Heidegger, Jung and Sabina Spielrein, as well as Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville. Blending these affairs with a hoity-toity mix of popular rock and roll, Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks and the Velvet Underground, climaxing with the Beatles return to Hamburg and the Holocaust at Wansbek. Theweleit's romp offers a meditation upon incongruity as history and passion. Recommended.

HEIDEGGER AND CHRISTIANITY: The Hensley Henson Lectures, 1993-94 by John MacQuarrie ($19.95, Hardcover; 135 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Continuum, ISBN: 0-8264-0694-7)

MacQuarrie's little monograph should be called "Heidegger Demystified". It is perhaps the best thorough and concise study of the main features and the significance of Heidegger's thought by one of the translators of Being and Time into English. Considering what an industry Heidegger studies have become in American and European universities, this little volume is a wonder how it cuts to the essential features of his thought. I know of no better introduction to the significance of Heidegger. Even George Steiner's little study, a fine fluff piece for the non-philosopher, will have to take a back seat to this treasure.

Contents
Preface
1. Career and Early Writings
2. Being and Time (1)
3. Being and Time (2)
4. Metaphysics and Theology
5. Thinghood, Technology, Art
6. Thinking, Language, Poetry
7. 'Only a God Can Save Us'
8. Some Loose Ends
Notes
Bibliography
Index

HANNAH ARENDT: Twenty Years Later edited by Larry May and Jerome Kohn ($40.00, cloth; 384 pages. notes, bibliography, index, MIT Press, ISBN: 0-262-13319-9)

ARENDT AND HEIDEGGER: The Fate of the Political by Dana R. Villa ($19.95, paper; 344 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Princeton University Press, ISBN: 0-691-04400-7)

HANNAH ARENDT, MARTIN HEIDEGGER by Elzbieta Ettinger ($16.00, hardcover; 139 pages, notes, bibliography, index, Yale University Press, ISBN: 0-300-06407-1

In the last five of years Arendt and Heidegger have received much attention, mixing their personal relationship with their historic matrix, comparative thought and contrasting approaches. Arendt has the better press being a Jew who never backed down from attempting to account for the Holocaust and yet who also never lost her sympathy for her teacher, Heidegger never would publicly discuss his Nazi sympathies. Some of this discussion has muddled Arendt's actual positions, philosophical and political. Hannah Arendt provides a prismatic perspective on this difficult to classify thinker, whose work has been widely assimilated to a number of social, political legal and philosophical purposes. In many ways we are offered a variety of myths of Arendt as her views are incorporated into postmodern discussions of significance. The authors who appropriate her for their purposes in these essays offers us a kaleidoscope of Arendt's, rather than a disciplined study of her. They also invite us to return to a closer reading of this dynamic woman. That invitation is a grand task. In Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political, Villa provides a fuller context for approaching Arendt's political philosophy. Writing against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa offers a view of her vision as postmodern, as forcefully breaking with the false objectivity of metaphysics, as invited by Nietzsche and Heidegger, but without succumbing to their politics of brutality and totalitarianism. This work is a wide ranging discussion of a postmodern reading of Arendt. This renewed appreciation of her work as significant for postmodernity should eventually create some serious myths of its own. But I applaud this refreshing study of her political philosophy. It serves as a good introduction to her works for those new to her study. HANNAH ARENDT, MARTIN HEIDEGGER by Elzbieta Ettinger is an important contribution in that it puts a human face on the austere Teutonic and Nazified Heidegger, while exposing the complex attitudes of Arendt. It is a great story of a love which survived a world war and two marriages.

MARTIN HEIDEGGER: A Political Life by Hugo Ott, translated by Allan Blunden (Hardcover, Basic Books, ISBN: 0-465-02898-5

HEIDEGGER’S CRISIS Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany by Hans Sluga ($15.50, paperback, Harvard University Press, ISBN: 0-674-38712-0)

review: Heidegger Deconstructed by Peter J. Leithart "These three books together make for some eery reading. The criticisms of Weimar by the Nazis echo slogans of contemporary American politics: an assault on "humanism"; frustration with legislative gridlock; a sense of looming crisis; a subterranean desire for messianic leadership. These books forcefully pose the question, Is Fascism the only alternative to the messiness liberal humanism?

"The Christian must answer No to each horn of this false dilemma. The Christian, moreover, must not limit himself to defending the status quo. Hirsch seems intent on shoring up what I see as a dying (dead?) worldview, namely, modern liberal humanism. From a Christian perspective, the collapse of this worldview is not cause for alarm, but instead provides an opportunity to articulate a thoroughly Christian alternative. It seems to me that Christians can even usefully, but with great care, employ some of the weapons of the deconstructionists. For example, the Enlightenment, as John Courtney Murray pointed out with reference to Locke, taught that the individual is a "sociological monad", a "little god almighty" whose freedom is limited only when he bumps up against the freedom of another "little god almighty"; for Locke, society is a product of artifice, not inherent to human nature. Here the deconstructionists are right: Understood in this way, the individual is a fiction. It does not follow, however, as the deconstructionists claim, that the individual is nothing but an intersection point of external social forces; instead, the deconstruction of the Enlightenment notion of the individual must be followed by Christian reconstruction."

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