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Title: Being and Time: A Translation of Sein and Zeit (SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy) by Martin Heidegger, Joan Stambaugh ISBN: 0-7914-2678-5 Publisher: State University of New York Press Pub. Date: 30 October, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.93 (28 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Difficult but necessary
Comment: Reading Heidegger for the first time was a laborious chore, one that I disdained every minute of. However, I think it was the fact that I was not ready for this work when I first read it. After beginning more work in Theology and discovering the work of the great 20th century theologian Karl Rahner, I found myself more interested in the work of Heidegger. Rahner was a student of Heidegger's in Germany, and you can see his influence running deeply through Rahner's work.
Reading it a second time with a more open mind, I found it to be enlightening, though still immensely difficult. The translation is not bad, as everyone seems to have trouble with Heidegger as they do with Hegel. Heidegger's ideas on death and the angst man has when facing death are integral to my own work, and the entirety of Being and Time should be read by anyone thinking of delving into post-modern philosophy and existentialism.
An earlier reviewer suggested to read this without Sartre: I completely disagree. Heidegger and Sartre should be read together, as they have so much to share with one another that to ignore one is to miss the point of the 20th century movements in thought. They are, together, the two heavy-hitters of the 20th century, though thinkers like Camus and Merleau-Ponty may make a claim for space there as well.
Being and Time is Heidegger's magnum opus, and should be read with an open mind and a notebook to keep track of all the ideas.
Rating: 5
Summary: Unprecedented Thinking from an Unprecedented Thinker
Comment: Being and Time (1927) is the magnum opus of one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century and arguably Western Philosophy. Spending 7 years writing this first of 67 books, Martin Heidegger turns Husserlian phenomenology (Husserl being Heidegger's main teacher) on its head and introduces to the Western tradition a whole new way of understanding ontology (the formal study of existentia). Being and Time is the first installment of a greater work that was to compromise two parts each with three divisions. Being and Time is only the first two divisions of Part One of that endeavor. For the continuation of Heidegger's overall project, readers must purchase "The Basic Problems of Phenomenology" and "Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics." These three books together compromise the existing (though still not complete) totality of Heidegger's undertaking. "The Basic Problems of Phenomenology" is particularly helpful because it outlines all three Divisions of Part Two of the project. If you read Being and Time, I recommend these other two as well, though they are by no means an easy read folks. To read either of those books one will require a background in the history of philosophy, especially in Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant.
As for Being and Time itself, this is not a beginner's book. If you were just attracted to the title and have no background in philosophy, I do not recommend this book--you will be lost and hate it. This is not to say you are not an intelligent person, the problem is the language and understanding of Heidegger's worldview. This is not to say he doesn't have good ideas, they just take much time to acquire, a lifetime really. The language is difficult not because Heidegger is arrogant and not because German is generally that hard to translate into English. The true reason why Heideggerian text is so hard to comprehend is because there are no words that explain the thoughts that Heidegger is dealing with. He had to invent his own language becuase language was itself to confining to what Heidegger was conceiving. If you're serious about this fellow, it would be worthwhile to learn the major word-concepts one at a time: Dasein, authenticity, inauthenticity, care (Sorge), ontic/ontical vs. ontological, existentiell vs. existential, thrownness, being-in-the-world, fallenness, being-with, idle talk, disclosure, discoveredness, hermeneutic circle, ontic-ontology, Being of beings, being-in, pre-ontological, call of conscience, et cetera. This is not to discourage but to prepare for the huge undertaking that this book demands.
Personally I love this book. It is extremely hard and Americans in particular struggle with this German philosopher. Philosophy majors and even professional philosophers can find Heidegger to be extraordinarily difficult so be patient and reserve any judgment stemming from your frustration of the language. You will find many of Heidegger's books much easier than this one. I recommend George Stenier's book "Martin Heidegger" if you're new to him. Dreyfus' book Being-in-the-World is alright for terminology, but it is too epistemological and often misrepresents Heideggerian thinking. Skip over chapter 4 and the stuff on A.I. and "expert systems" et cetera. The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger is excellent for undergrad. philosophy students. Look at chapters 4-7 in particular and the Introductory section. Re-read these chapters several times for it all to sink in, or else you'll miss stuff.
If you're still interested in Being and Time at this point and recognize the historical significance of Heidegger, here are some introductory remarks on the book itself. The book is broken down into two Divisions. Division I is often referred to as the "hermeneutics of everydayness"; meaning that humans interpret their existence through the way the world is disclosed to them via their day-to-day lives. As Heidegger says on page 42: "What is ontically nearest and familiar (i.e. our day-to-day lives) is ontologically the farthest, unrecognized and constantly overlooked in its ontological (i.e. existential) significance." Thus in order to understand the abstract existential problems of Being, we must first realize our human being essentially is. Heidegger uses the German phrase Da-sein (German for "being-there) to signify human being, or more specifically, the possibility of understanding Being through the disclosure of the "There".
Division II is often referred to as the "hermeneutics of suspicion" because this is Heidegger's attempt to break out of our everydayness and explain primoridally the existential underlying constructs of Dasein. The road to this understanding passes through death, because death is the ultimate possibility for all Dasein, for we are essentially temporal. The temporality of our being-in-the-world forces us to realize the fundamental truths of our existence. It should be noted that Later Heidegger rejected Division II of his book. Sartre and the existentialist movement misreads Division II and it eventually forced Heidegger to abandon that half of the work. But unlike what Dreyfus thinks, I still see the importance and relevance of that Division. But readers may want to note that most contemporary Continentalists emphasize Division I a heck of a lot more than Division II.
Hopefully this was useful. Best of luck friends.
Drake University
Rating: 4
Summary: Catching your hand with your hand
Comment: In "Being and Time," Heidegger tackles the biggest and seemingly unanswerable question of them all: Why is there something rather than nothing?
In the introductory chapter, he narrows the focus of this ancient query: What significance does Being have for Dasein (human being), the asker of the question? He rejects analysis of the phenomena found "within" consciousness (as Heidegger's mentor Edmund Husserl prescribed) in favor of investigating the structure of human existence--how we exist. Heidegger claims that we exist as "thrown projections," that is, "thrown" into already-existent and distinctly historical nations, cultures, families; and always "project" a concrete future against a background of possibilities.
In Chapter three, he examines of the primary modes of "being-in-the-world." We are entangled in a world which has two possibilities: the "ready-at-hand" and the "present-to-hand".
The former state involves our mode of "taking-care-of-things" when we are in the flow of normal everyday activities; the "thingness" of beings is covered up, because we are absorbed in what we are doing.
The latter state is disclosed when a disruption in the flow occurs: we notice the thingness of things in the world; in this state, the background significance of our activities (the projection) recedes.
His analysis reveals that the second, "derivative" form of "existing-as" has lead to both philosophical problems and the scientific outlook, and in the course of his "deconstruction" Heidegger undermines the many readymade answers Western philosophy/science has used to essentialize reality. Fundamentally, Dasein is "always already ahead of itself," and this existential state cannot be encompassed by discourse, or symbolized in any way. Hence Heidegger's almost mystical idea of "silence" in the face of this state, which leads to the "call of conscience" which can bring a person to a state of "authentic being-towards-death" (my professor who taught "Being and Time" spent ten years trying to tease out a substantive doctrine to Heidegger's concept of authenticity. But there is none, and Heidegger admits it; to do so would contradict his idea of authenticity, for each person, always already thrown, must LIVE resolutely as the possibilities of life whittle away).
Part two of "Being and Time" was unfinished. There are several strains of mysticism throughout this work (Heidegger was trained as a theologian) particularly with regard to anxiety (angst) revealing the possibility of nothingness as our ground, a la Meister Eckhart.
"Being and Time" is a tough book to read, no doubt about it. Heidegger coined many torturously hyphenated phrases to express his concepts, and many questions remain unanswered, especially with regard to Part 2 on Temporality for which I've docked it one star (many of these threads are picked up and refashioned in Hubert Dreyfus's book "Being-in-the-World", an excellent intro to BT).
But with effort this is one of the most challenging philosophical inquiries ever written.
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Title: A Guide to Heidegger's Being and Time by Magda King, John Llewellyn ISBN: 0791448002 Publisher: State University of New York Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger, Gregory Fried, Richard Polt ISBN: 0300083289 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Basic Writings: From Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, David Farrell Krell ISBN: 0060637633 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Phenomenology of Spirit by G. W. F. Hegel, A.V. Miller ISBN: 0198245971 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1979 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Colin Smith ISBN: 0415278414 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 03 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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