Customer Reviews

Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Interventions)

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I found this to be an interesting and helpful introduction into some of the issues in Heidegger's thought. McGrath does a good job of showing the lack of distinction between the ontic and ontological that so much of Heidegger's writing (in Being and Time) is based upon. McGrath shows the natural implications of Heidegger's thought for ethics, and how they played out in Heidegger's life. Finally, he shows the theological reasoning behind much of Heidegger's thinking and subtly shows the flaws in Heidegger's thinking that led him to such outcomes.

I also cannot help but commend McGrath for his very personal (and reflective) final chapter titled, "Why I am not a Heideggerian." It gave a telling account as to why this Heidegger scholar cannot practically take on a true Heideggerian worldview. I recommend this book for anyone who has read Heidegger (at least Being and Time), and are interested in what a thorough (yet brief) critique of his thought would look like.

McGrath does not just tell you what you could, in principle, get from the original texts of Heidegger - though he does offer a well-written overview, balanced and appreciative. But he also identifies several of the crucial question-zones, the places where Heidegger seems arbitrary philosophically, the places that are worth interrogating and discussing. He knows where the pressure points are, thanks to his previous study of Heidegger's early encounter with medieval thinking. So McGrath has a real viewpoint, independent but with an estimable philosophical lineage (Christian and Platonic humanism, to give it a name, the very tradition that Heidegger is parasitic upon, as he "overcomes" it). In short, this little book is a philosophical statement in its own right, not just a scholar's dissent. It expands our freedom as we read a great thinker, rather than restrict it, as some commentaries tend to do.

Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction is, as its title suggests, a highly skeptical discussion of ideas attributed to philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Sticking to the neologisms Heidegger himself used rather than take the "analytic" tack of swapping more commonly used philosophical terms for Heidegger's precise words, Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction notes that Heidegger frequently ignored ethical, political, and theological criticisms of ontology, embodying a common flaw in logical thinking that is to accept fundamental issues (in Heidegger's case, ethical-political and theological issues) as conclusively proven when they are not. An scholarly text suitable for college library collections and intermediate to advanced philosophy students, Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction is especially recommended for its willingness to challenge complex concepts even as it familiarizes the reader with their intricacies.

"In this elegantly written text Sean McGrath provides a clear reading of Heidegger and an incisive critique of his ontology, ethics, politics, and theology. McGrath anchors his critique in two positions that Heidegger claimed to have surpassed--classical metaphysics and Christian humanism. While it may not convince mainstream Heideggerians, this work opens a discussion that merits serious attention from postmetaphysical and postmodern thinkers." - Thomas Sheehan, Stanford University

"This informed and informative book is an admirably compact and clear introduction to the essentials of Heidegger's thought. It will be very helpful for the beginner, and for the more advanced reader it offers an honorable critical interpretation. McGrath exhibits a sharp sense for the often-recessed religious preoccupations of Heidegger: out of sight is not quite out of mind, which sometimes leads to convoluted results in Heidegger's expressed thought. For the theological reader this book offers an exemplary critical engagement, attuned to Heidegger's religious equivocality and what remains hidden in the Heideggerian unsaid." - William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

"Heidegger's entire life was an adventure in philosophy, from phenomenology to thought, focused on a distinction between ontological be and ontic being that he was never able to explain, but that he was also never able to let go of in his long explorations into what he called the metaphysical tradition. In this remarkably lucid introduction to a philosopher notorious not only for radicalizing and obfuscating philosophical questioning but also for bringing it back to this most radical question of being or not-being, McGrath uses both biographical and existential information and the writing of Heidegger himself, especially in its earlier stages, to illuminate where this preeminent philosopher of the twentieth century was coming from in his questioning and where he was trying to go. The life of Heidegger sheds light on his philosophy, just as his philosophy sheds light on his life, with all its existential ambiguities, which were as conservative as they were radical against the inauthentic and the technological in modern mass society. In the end we learn how or why Heidegger was unable to resolve these ambiguities in his own philosophy, especially in axiology and in theology, which were never entirely absent from his thinking, and why also McGrath will not, as Heideggerians do, settle for such nihilistic ambiguities, due to the finitizing of being in Heidegger, that affect the broader question of being as well as the question of life for the human being or for the ever-present Dasein." - Oliva Blanchette, Boston College

Once again, I apologize for the negative review, but I cannot agree with the author in stating that,

"Heidegger's phenomenological ontology was, in my view, the most vital philosophical development of the early 20th century... Being and Time remains arguably the best primer on phenomenoogy ever written." (pgs. 1-2)

I was hoping for a critical dissection of Heidegger's method, since I had just read Faye's analysis of Heidegger's Nazism, but instead what is to be found here is another Heideggerian love story.

It may be that insights can be gained from the study of almost any complex work, if you try hard enough. But to think that there is true worth in the abstruse and Nazi work of Heidegger is an extremely misleading statement.