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Basic Writings

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In 1928, Heidegger wrote in a letter: "Perhaps philosophy shows most forcibly and persistently how much Man is a beginner. Philosophizing ultimately means nothing other than being a beginner." This book is the definitive beginning for any English speaking philosopher who wishes to understand Heidegger's project. David Krell provides a fairly diligent introduction to such project, the question of Being (Seinsfrage) under the critical light of fundamental ontology. These eleven selections make Heideggerian thought accessible, not only to the scholar but the educated literati as well.

The first three essays (Joan Stambaugh's translation of the Introduction to Being and Time; "What is Metaphysics?"; and "On the Essence of Truth") collectively elucidate the early Heideggerian project of the deconstruction of the metaphysical tradition. The fourth essay ("The Origin of the Work of Art") represents his reflections on aesthetics. The fifth ("Letter on Humanism") was considered by Hannah Arendt as Heidegger's most splendid work (Prachtstueck) where he insists that authentic human existence goes beyond Cartesian solipsism; hence, his idea of humanism as factical. The next two essays ("Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics" and "The Question Concerning Technology") delve into Heidegger's probing critique of the essence of technology. The next three essays ("Building Dwelling Thinking," "What Calls for Thinking?," "The Way to Language") represent the later Heidegger, the reflections of which center around poetic thinking and authentic philosophizing. His influences in hermeneutics arise from these reflections as well. The last essay ("The end of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking") heralds the eschatological element in Heidegger's thought through the overcoming of metaphysics.

Clearly, this collection is essential to anyone interested in the phenomenon of thinking as well as contemporary philosophy.

This volume, published by HarperCollins in the sixties and edited by translator David Farrell Krell serves as the perfect compendium to the thought of Martin Heidegger, one of the most significant thinkers of philosophy in the 20th century. Heidegger's methodology is necessarily difficult, as he is trying to remove himself from the `average-everyday' language we employ; and he is trying to approach the meaning of being concretely and originally. Therefore, stop complaining about the obscurity of his style and work your way through this text, for it will remain one of the major works of European thought.

The first essay is the introductory chapter to Heidegger's opus Being and Time. It is actually rather senseless to read it without going on to read the complete text. However, for those readers who simply want a taste of Heidegger's basic philosophic project and methodology, it is summarized here. He says at the outset: "This question has today been forgotten-although our time considers itself progressive in again affirming `metaphysics.' All the same we believe that we are spared the exertion of rekindling a gigantomachia peri tes ousias [a Battle of Giants concerning Being,' [Plato, Sophist]. But the question touched upon here is hardly an arbitrary one." (41). For Heidegger, philosophy has lost touched with the question `what is the meaning of being, as such?' However, in order to resolve the question of the meaning of Being, you must examine the Being of the questioner, (Dasein), leading us to do fundamental ontology.

The second essay in the collection is titled What is Metaphysics? It is an inaugural address the delimited many of the major ideas he would later expand in Being in Time. In it, Heidegger again examines the meaning of Being, but he also discusses the unheimlichkeit (the uncanny), and Dasein's confrontation with "the nothing" (100), and with attunement and Nihilism generally. This is a particularly famous, though cryptic essay, the major ideas in it are expanded at great lengths by Heidegger in his book `Introduction to Metaphysics,' published later in 1953.

The next essay is titled On the Essence of Truth, and it is particularly difficult. Heidegger begins with: "Our Topic is the essence of truth. The question regarding the essence of truth is not concerned with whether truth is a truth of practical experience or of economic calculation, the truth of a technical consideration or of political sagacity, or, in particular, a truth of scientific research or of artistic composition, or even the truth of thoughtful reflection or cultic belief. The question of essence disregards all this and attends to the one thing that in general distinguishes every `truth' as truth (115). Heidegger will later suggest in the essay that the essence of truth is freedom, or unconcealment. Heidegger does not adhere to radical skepticism, nor does he believe in eternal truths. He is interested in the essence of this question with regard to Da-Sein's `liberation' for `ek-sistence.'

The Origin of the Work of Art is unlike any essay in the history of aesthetic philosophy or criticism, because Heidegger is not at all concerned with the beauty of art, nor with the thinking of the artist. He is interested in the capacity for art to reveal worlds. He writes: "The temple-work, standing there, opens up a world and at the same time sets this world back again on earth, which itself only thus emerges as native ground. But men and animals, plants and things, are never present and familiar as unchangeable objects, only to represent incidentally also a fitting environment for the temple, which one fine day is added to what is already there" (168). Heidegger values the art of poetry more than any other. He says, "Art happens as poetry. Poetry is founding in the triple sense of bestowing, grounding, and beginning" (202), and he valued Holderlin, Trakyl, and Rilke above all other poets. Art is an origin, and it serves to preserve the historical existence of man.

One could go on and on. This volume also contains the Letter on Humanism, Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, the Question Concerning Technology, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, What Calls for Thinking?, the Way to Language, and the End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking. They will keep you busy for quite a while.

This book is a collection of 10 + 1 essays (the + 1 being the Introduction to Heidegger's master-piece "Being and Time") by Martin Heidegger, who may very well be among the most controversial of 20th centurty philosophers. His controversy is, no doubt, due in part to his brief (10 month) affiliation with the Nazi party between 1933 and 1934; however, the majority of the controversy surrounding him probably has to do with the sheer density of his writing. Heidegger is not easy to comprehend (grasping the whole); reading him is the pursuit of apprehending (touching the surface).

Heidegger does exactly what it is that philosophers are supposed to do by clearing a place in which to ask the question asked long ago by Aristotle (but forgotten - that is, covered over - by "philosophers"): the question of what it means "to be". Part of the problem with reading Heidegger is that his language is almost mystical: constant talk of revealing and concealing within the place of clearing and the ekstasis - the being outside of one's self - of humans which allows for the asking of what it means "to be". While a background in philosophy might be helpful to understand Heidegger, it may be more helpful to have a background in religion and Christian mysticism. Without knowing something of the mystical, Heidegger is bound to appear far more difficult than he actually is.

It is worth noting that while Heidegger is dense, he is also a poet. His aesthetically written grace is much of what gives his contemplations about the question of being such weight and gentle force. The important thing about reading Heidegger is to do exactly what he counsels one do in observing a work of art: stand outside of yourself and into the clearing of the work of art. This is what Heidegger refers to as "ek-sistence": a combination of the words "ekstasis" and "existence". It is like a type of mystical silence that Heidegger invites the reader to: a listening *beyond* what one simply, immediately hears. This, then, is the key to reading Heidegger: not to read him (an action done first and foremost by the knowing-reading subject), but to simply let him be read - a letting him be in his being.

A note on Being: it is all too easy (and all too incorrect) to interpret Heidegger's writings about Being as if he were talking about some sort of subject. Being, however, is not God or some sort of primal force or the tao or any*thing* else: no, "Being" as such does not translate from the ancient Greek and Heidegger's constant referral to Being brings the reader to the edge of her/his conceptual limits and, in so doing, creates the clearing that allows for the asking of the question. Without this clearing, there can be no philosophizing - only the history of [bad] metaphysics (the asking of what reality is), which obscures this fundamental and original question.

Heidegger is well worth the time and the effort. Those that are interested in the simple questions and simple answers will be lost amidst Heidegger's densely poetic thoughts; those that are unwilling to be outside of themselves will find him endlessly frustrating. Of course, this refusing of ek-sistence into the realm of Being is the fundamental problem with so much of philosophy today: it is lost in [bad] metaphysics, having forgotten the primal question. If you let him, Heidegger will lead you to the edge of thought where that question can not only be heard, but can be asked again.

The best introduction to Heidegger's thought is a close reading of Being and Time itself. As many of the reviewers point out, the essays in this volume are a good collection of several of Heidegger's key essays, representing his intellectual development throughout his long life. They mark the many transitions and shifts in emphasis and thought. After writing Being and Time, Heidegger spent the rest of his life explicating and developing the many treasures one finds in the pages of that magnificent work - he went both into it, expanding ideas that were only hinted at in it, and far beyond it. For those who will not be reading Being and Time in its entirety, by having the introduction to Being and Time, this volume provides the next, though distant, best thing; for it is in these few pages that Heidegger first announces how radical and revolutionary a rupture his thought is from the history of philosophy.

Just a word about the review titled 'Are you *sure* you want to do this to yourself?'. Firstly, I am not sure whether this person has actually read Heidegger in the German, but he is absolutely wrong that Heidegger is not different or no less difficult in German than he is in English - what Heidegger is doing is far more apparent in the original German. This reviewer's comments are typical Anglo-American or 'analytic' propaganda. Such comments arise out of an inability to deal with Heidegger's complex thought and an unwillingness to undergo the profound discomfort that such a thinking entails. I have indeed read the philosophers he names and, with the exception of Wittgenstein, the others, though quite important in 20th century thought, don't hold a candle to Heidegger, as Wittgenstein himself, who had thought Heidegger an incomparable philosopher, would have readily admitted. His comments are based on a long tradition, arising in the 20th century, that claimed that 'clarity' is something that is not only possible in philosophy, and language for that matter, but also desirable. Philosophy makes uncomfortable. It is meant to do so. It is the opening of new worlds and whoever has traveled can attest to the discomfort that arises from such displacement, such being out of ones home or place of dwelling. New worlds are created through language and to be forced outside `our' everyday language is to be violated. Deleuze and Lacan, both of whom he also mentions, were also incomparable philosophers who are quite difficult and who built the most profound of worlds through discomforting languages. Such journeys require a willingness to be uprooted, something which this reviewer, for whom the failure lies within these thinkers and not within himself, cannot even begin to understand.

Basic Writings is that and more. It contains lectures and the intro from Being and Time that provide a solid foundation of Heidgger's philosophy. I had the honor of being Dr Krell's student at DPU in a class in which we went through this book. Dr Krell is and avid scholar of Heidgger's work and his introductions to each of the lectures in Basic Writings are very helpful. Whether you are an experienced reader of heidegger or a novice, this collection is a great source of some of Heidegger's most important writings.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on philosophy. In one of the most influential philosophical books of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time," he deconstructs phenomenology. Heidegger's kind of phenomenology has to do with the idea of phenomenon, which means something that appears and shows itself. His criticism of traditional philosophy is that it gets started with categories, concepts, and notions, departing from the way human comprehension of this world first shows itself. This is Aristotelian and Aristotle is an enormous influence on Heidegger.

Yet, there is something very radical going on here, and that is the idea of "being" is connected to meaning and negativity. In the history of philosophy, being has a positive concept, something that "is" thus, the opposite of being is none being. Heidegger wants to show how the meaning of being is distorted by this understanding of being as a purely positive concept, as a "thing" a full present entity. For Example, he also very much critiques in modern art, the modern conception of objectivity, the world is transformed into an object independent of art, of its significance, its meaning, or interest in it. This was due in large part because of modern science, and its strong sense of objectification converting nature into a set of mere objects, time, and space that are measurable and analyzable through scientific means. Meaning, importance, and significance for Heidegger equals value; science and nature have none of this as pure objects. Therefore, anything of meaning, and of significance would be transferred into the subject it would be simply the human estimation, nature itself has no meaning or significance in that respect.

Heidegger critiques this scientific model. As he says in his phenomenology, "Well how is it that human existence first understands itself? Here he is talking about things that are very ordinary and complex. We are in a world that has significance, it is meaningful to us, it matters to us, it fits into our interests in such a way that we are absorbed into its significance. So, when we come across the world, first and foremost it is not a mere object that is standing apart from us or our mind, but rather it has significant elements of our environment that fit into our lives. Some things are significant, or they are useful, or dangerous, or satisfying, etc. What Heidegger wants to say in his phenomenology is we have to pay attention to this way of being. Therefore, first and foremost he says "being" matters, it matters to us. "Being" is a significance, it is not just a bare object or a bare fact. Heidegger doesn't accept this idea of subject on one side and object on the other side, that means that when humans have their understanding of the world, it is not just a human projection, it is not just a human construction. It is a revealing way of seeing; it is world disclosive. The meaning of the world wouldn't happen without us, because we are the ones that find it meaningful. Therefore, it is most important to understand that for Heidegger there is no object subject distinction. The term he uses to illustrate his idea is "Dasien" which means "human existence," Heidegger chooses it because he doesn't want to deal with the subject, or mind or consciousness, he wants to use a word that does not subjectivefy things. He uses "Dasien" as "humans being there" in this world and not just staying apart from it.

Humans are a being in the world, a term he uses is, "we dwell" in the world, we don't come across it as some bare thing in the world we "dwell" in it. Therefore, "meaningfulness" is a primary notion of being. Secondly, the meaning of "being" is connected with the notion of negativity. This is the notion of "being" moving toward death, and anxiety. Thus, the way that humans understand being is in part because of opposite of non-being and death is a perfect example of that. Humans are distinct because we understand that we are mortal, that we die. We are aware of death even when we are not in danger, which means we understand being and our world. Heidegger made a lot out of the fact that the Greeks understood this, that they were mortals, and that was no accident he thought. That death is a primary aspect of what it means to be human. If you are aware of death as he says, then you can be aware of the meaning of life. The meaning of life comes to us because we understand that we are finite, that we are mortal and not in control.

Another way to understand Heidegger is a wonderful analysis of the idea that the word "being" has become a noun in philosophy, like first things of beings, or things that are. Yet Heidegger says in the Greek language and other western languages this idea of "being" grammatically in language is derived from a verb, the primary verb "to be." Moreover, as a verb it is tensed which means it has to do with time. All verbs are tensed, even Aristotle said, "That is the difference between a verb and a noun." The difference between a verb and a noun, a verb is something that has to do with time, not just action, but time. That is why all verbs are tensed as future, and past. The very fact that time is another perfect indication of negativity, because time is ever changing, ever moving, and when we are in the present, the past is time of negativity it is no longer. When we are in the present, the future is kind of negative it is not yet. Yet we understand these negatives as meaningful, that is why we can get upset about the past that it is not happening anymore, and why we can become excited about the future even though it hasn't happened yet, they have meaning to us.

Another important feature of Heidegger's book is where he takes on the notion of skepticism. Skepticism is a classic problem in philosophy, it is really fostered by Descartes and Hume, and it has to do with the subject/object division. Skeptics argue that the mind is on one side of the fence, the outside world is on the other side, and the mind is something that comes across the world and just processes it, according to its categories of thinking, this is a very common modern construction of skepticism. If this skeptical construct were true, then it is very possible for someone to ask the question; "well how do we know that our minds that are on this side of the fence can ever really know that it is accurately talking about what is on the other side of the fence? If it is separated like this, how can we be sure that what we think about is actually the case? Heidegger is not talking here about ordinary skepticism, like wonder or "I am not sure" kind of skepticism; but what Heidegger argues against is the kind of radical skepticism, which asks, can we be sure of any of our knowledge. This idea plays on two objects, the subject object divide if we are on this side of the subject how can we ever know we are accurately talking about something. Secondly, is the certainty because the skeptic is someone who says well, "I really want to find with 100% certainty, and if I can find any reason for doubt then I am not going to commit. Heidegger says this is a classic philosophical problem that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Because, no existing human self could ever radically call into question its environment and this world. It doesn't make any sense. You can call into question this or that aspect of it, but never the whole thing and never to say; "well it's possible that what humans say about the world may not have anything to do with the world." Even Descartes and Hume knew this was perverse, but they said this is what philosophy has to do. Radical skepticism is perverse to Heidegger. Skeptics like Descartes and Hume if right why are they writing to an audience. The very practice of skepticism undermines the idea of skepticism. Heidegger says, "Well if our practices betray the project of skepticism, which even Hume admits, he says I would go mad." You can't live as a radical skeptic. This skepticism can apply to things like morals and beauty values and artistic things, because they don't satisfy strict standards of knowledge and certainty.

To reiterate, it is important to know that Heidegger primarily wants to say that the meaning of being, is something that humans are involved with in a significant meaningful way, and it can't be either subjective or objective, those two ideas he says are polarizations that both account for how the world matters to us. The fact that it matters to us means it can't be a pure objective thing. Secondly, the fact that what matters to us is our world not just our opinions and our inner dispositions mean it can't be just a subjective thing. We are absorbed in the world; we are caught up in it. Heidegger's phenomenology wants to give voice to these notions rather than start with the modern categories of subjectivity and objectivity.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, epistemology, and ontology.

While having one of the most abstract writing styles, Heidegger's intellectual bravura is worth reading. As a student of philosophy it was one of the most eye-opening - if not life changing - statements on how to live in a technological world that is increasingly separating man from nature.

This is a good introduction to Heidegger as it contains much of his important writings. In particular, I recommend Being and Time, the Letter on Humanism, and the Question Concerning Technology (the last of which is worth the book itself in my opinion).

Heidegger is very much a philologist, a lover of words. He uses this strength to construct a philosophy revolved around the 'original' (i.e. Greek) meaning of words (which the Romans mistranslated into Latin) in order to show how we, or the individual, can come to terms with their "Being." This is why it takes time to get through what he is saying. Much of his philosophy is his own re-reading of the history of philosophy, which he contends since Plato to Nietzche has taken us away from the meaning of "Being." Admittedly, it was helpful to be taking a course on Existentialism at the time of reading this book for my instructor made it easier to discern what the argument was and what the meaning of the words like "ex-sist" (standing out), "a-letheia" (truth as uncoveredness), "Gestell" (enframing), "putting forth" and "setting upon".

While at first I didn't want to read Heidegger because of his personal, moral failings, I found that this 'philosopher of being' was worth studying. But one should keep this caveat in mind.

In all, I recommend this collection as a good introduction to Heidegger's thought. Just be patient, re-read portions again and again, and you'll be fine.

This is an excellent selection of essays by Heidegger, especially for those who want to know the thrust of Heidegger's thinking while minimizing the amount of slogging through technical philosophy. Collecting the late essays together all in one book is very useful and the breadth of all the selections beginning with the introduction to Being and Time helps let us see the arc of development. David Krell's prefaces are very good. I wanted to introduce a friend who knows mathematics but not so much philosophy to Heidegger and the essay "Modern Science, Metaphysics and Mathematics" is a good entry.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on philosophy. In one of the most influential philosophical books of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time," he deconstructs phenomenology. Heidegger's kind of phenomenology has to do with the idea of phenomenon, which means something that appears and shows itself. His criticism of traditional philosophy is that it gets started with categories, concepts, and notions, departing from the way human comprehension of this world first shows itself. This is Aristotelian and Aristotle is an enormous influence on Heidegger.

Yet, there is something very radical going on here, and that is the idea of "being" is connected to meaning and negativity. In the history of philosophy, being has a positive concept, something that "is" thus, the opposite of being is none being. Heidegger wants to show how the meaning of being is distorted by this understanding of being as a purely positive concept, as a "thing" a full present entity. For Example, he also very much critiques in modern art, the modern conception of objectivity, the world is transformed into an object independent of art, of its significance, its meaning, or interest in it. This was due in large part because of modern science, and its strong sense of objectification converting nature into a set of mere objects, time, and space that are measurable and analyzable through scientific means. Meaning, importance, and significance for Heidegger equals value; science and nature have none of this as pure objects. Therefore, anything of meaning, and of significance would be transferred into the subject it would be simply the human estimation, nature itself has no meaning or significance in that respect.

Heidegger critiques this scientific model. As he says in his phenomenology, "Well how is it that human existence first understands itself? Here he is talking about things that are very ordinary and complex. We are in a world that has significance, it is meaningful to us, it matters to us, it fits into our interests in such a way that we are absorbed into its significance. So, when we come across the world, first and foremost it is not a mere object that is standing apart from us or our mind, but rather it has significant elements of our environment that fit into our lives. Some things are significant, or they are useful, or dangerous, or satisfying, etc. What Heidegger wants to say in his phenomenology is we have to pay attention to this way of being. Therefore, first and foremost he says "being" matters, it matters to us. "Being" is a significance, it is not just a bare object or a bare fact. Heidegger doesn't accept this idea of subject on one side and object on the other side, that means that when humans have their understanding of the world, it is not just a human projection, it is not just a human construction. It is a revealing way of seeing; it is world disclosive. The meaning of the world wouldn't happen without us, because we are the ones that find it meaningful. Therefore, it is most important to understand that for Heidegger there is no object subject distinction. The term he uses to illustrate his idea is "Dasien" which means "human existence," Heidegger chooses it because he doesn't want to deal with the subject, or mind or consciousness, he wants to use a word that does not subjectivefy things. He uses "Dasien" as "humans being there" in this world and not just staying apart from it.

Humans are a being in the world, a term he uses is, "we dwell" in the world, we don't come across it as some bare thing in the world we "dwell" in it. Therefore, "meaningfulness" is a primary notion of being. Secondly, the meaning of "being" is connected with the notion of negativity. This is the notion of "being" moving toward death, and anxiety. Thus, the way that humans understand being is in part because of opposite of non-being and death is a perfect example of that. Humans are distinct because we understand that we are mortal, that we die. We are aware of death even when we are not in danger, which means we understand being and our world. Heidegger made a lot out of the fact that the Greeks understood this, that they were mortals, and that was no accident he thought. That death is a primary aspect of what it means to be human. If you are aware of death as he says, then you can be aware of the meaning of life. The meaning of life comes to us because we understand that we are finite, that we are mortal and not in control.

Another way to understand Heidegger is a wonderful analysis of the idea that the word "being" has become a noun in philosophy, like first things of beings, or things that are. Yet Heidegger says in the Greek language and other western languages this idea of "being" grammatically in language is derived from a verb, the primary verb "to be." Moreover, as a verb it is tensed which means it has to do with time. All verbs are tensed, even Aristotle said, "That is the difference between a verb and a noun." The difference between a verb and a noun, a verb is something that has to do with time, not just action, but time. That is why all verbs are tensed as future, and past. The very fact that time is another perfect indication of negativity, because time is ever changing, ever moving, and when we are in the present, the past is time of negativity it is no longer. When we are in the present, the future is kind of negative it is not yet. Yet we understand these negatives as meaningful, that is why we can get upset about the past that it is not happening anymore, and why we can become excited about the future even though it hasn't happened yet, they have meaning to us.

Another important feature of Heidegger's book is where he takes on the notion of skepticism. Skepticism is a classic problem in philosophy, it is really fostered by Descartes and Hume, and it has to do with the subject/object division. Skeptics argue that the mind is on one side of the fence, the outside world is on the other side, and the mind is something that comes across the world and just processes it, according to its categories of thinking, this is a very common modern construction of skepticism. If this skeptical construct were true, then it is very possible for someone to ask the question; "well how do we know that our minds that are on this side of the fence can ever really know that it is accurately talking about what is on the other side of the fence? If it is separated like this, how can we be sure that what we think about is actually the case? Heidegger is not talking here about ordinary skepticism, like wonder or "I am not sure" kind of skepticism; but what Heidegger argues against is the kind of radical skepticism, which asks, can we be sure of any of our knowledge. This idea plays on two objects, the subject object divide if we are on this side of the subject how can we ever know we are accurately talking about something. Secondly, is the certainty because the skeptic is someone who says well, "I really want to find with 100% certainty, and if I can find any reason for doubt then I am not going to commit. Heidegger says this is a classic philosophical problem that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Because, no existing human self could ever radically call into question its environment and this world. It doesn't make any sense. You can call into question this or that aspect of it, but never the whole thing and never to say; "well it's possible that what humans say about the world may not have anything to do with the world." Even Descartes and Hume knew this was perverse, but they said this is what philosophy has to do. Radical skepticism is perverse to Heidegger. Skeptics like Descartes and Hume if right why are they writing to an audience. The very practice of skepticism undermines the idea of skepticism. Heidegger says, "Well if our practices betray the project of skepticism, which even Hume admits, he says I would go mad." You can't live as a radical skeptic. This skepticism can apply to things like morals and beauty values and artistic things, because they don't satisfy strict standards of knowledge and certainty.

To reiterate, it is important to know that Heidegger primarily wants to say that the meaning of being, is something that humans are involved with in a significant meaningful way, and it can't be either subjective or objective, those two ideas he says are polarizations that both account for how the world matters to us. The fact that it matters to us means it can't be a pure objective thing. Secondly, the fact that what matters to us is our world not just our opinions and our inner dispositions mean it can't be just a subjective thing. We are absorbed in the world; we are caught up in it. Heidegger's phenomenology wants to give voice to these notions rather than start with the modern categories of subjectivity and objectivity.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, epistemology, and ontology.

This is a good place to start if you are interested in getting an overview of Heidegger's writings. There are some obvious disadvantages such as the fact that some parts are included while others are not, but what is inside is generally good enough as a starting point for Heidegger's other writings.

I would recommend reading the other translations though such as the Pathways, Parmenides and Language and Thought if one is already serious about Heidegger studies as these have the important writings as well and in complete form.

There are some Heideggerian writings that are especially relevant to life in Singapore and perhaps to other urban and technological cities as well and the student of philosophy may want to see how everything fits together in the works on art and technology.

Tony See
Philosopher in Residence
(Singapore)