57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new ground for philosophical inquiry?, July 4, 2000
Okay, reading these reviews, I am frustrated... but, of course that is to be expected. Heidegger, more than most philosophers, lends himself to a multiplicity of interpretations.
Rather than add my own semi-detailed interpretation of this work and its historical importance to this list [which would just further frustrate others, I am sure], I would just like to recommend to anyone approaching this book for the first time that they keep in mind the central inquiry that Heidegger is engaging in: the meaning of Being... and, as he explicitly states, this book is a preparation for further exploration, and not to be read as a completed "system" in itself. While the influence of Kierkegaard is obvious, relating this work to Dostoevsky (as another reviewer has) I think misses the point entirely. For all of the talk of "authenticity" and the "psychologizing" of this work that later commentators have engaged in, Heidegger is intersted in re-grounding all philosophical inquiry... not in explicating some mere existential-humanistic outlook. Whether he suceeds or not is, to say the least, debatable.
I would also recommend giving a _very_ close and thorough reading to his essay "What is Metaphysics" before approaching _Being and Time_.
A final note on this translation-- I had already wrestled with the previous translation from beginning to end before purchasing this one. This translation was more than worth the price of purchasing the book again. Stambaugh's translation is simply masterful.
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45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unprecedented Thinking from an Unprecedented Thinker, December 19, 2003
By A Customer
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
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Back to Macquerrie, April 12, 2003
In case you've not already ordered the new translation of Being and Time -- I'm more and more dissatisfied with the terminology the translator has adopted. She's refused most of the hypenation of terms that kept Macquerrie closer to the German and adopted some weird coinages that don't lend themselves to tracking the network of concepts that Heidegger presented. The sentences seem to be a bit cleaner and less perambulating, but it seems at the expense of accuracy ...
I'm on page 71, and have decided to go back to Macquerrie for my second pass-through.
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