Customer Reviews

Introducing Heidegger

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INTRODUCING HEIDEGGER presents the reader with a lucid and thoughtfully rendered overview of Heidegger's overall corpus. However, this book does not represent a profound encounter with H's original texts by any stretch. Rather, it is a handy reference book, refresher, or study guide. The pictures are somewhat evocative and illuminating at times, but the book reminds me -- and this is NOT a slight-- of a well executed Cliff Notes edition. The main virtues of the book include reasonable clarification of terminology, consideration of H's predecessors and successors in philosophy and other fields, chronological presentation, very concise explication and the often helpful use of visual art. Still, the book is best for either "absolute beginners" or those who need a handy refresher/reference. It can also be used alongside original texts if existing commentaries seem too abstruse. In any case, it beats HEIDEGGER FOR BEGINNERS. But for those who want more depth and breadth from an introduction to Heidegger, I reccommend Macquarrie's HEIDEGGER AND CHRISTIANITY and, secondarilly, George Steiner's HEIDEGGER. These are both books (particularly Macquarrie's) of greater profundity than the INTRODUCTION, yet they are concise and accessible. In sum, INTRODUCING HEIDEGGER is a fairly reliable short study guide in which some of philosophy's most difficult terms and concepts are cleanly introduced, if not deeply explored.

I have spent many afternoons in my adolescence hearing my father talk about Heidegger. He has some learning in the German Language, and actually read "Being and Time." I too have a copy of "Being and Time" which sits on my shelf many times begun and never finished. Still we discuss these ideas, and so through our conversations these ideas seem somewhat familiar. Finally one day he found a copy of this book. He read it, and tells me that rings very true to Heidegger's message. I will have to take his word for it. I feel greatly relieved as I think I have just about given up trying to read "Being and Time," though it will always sit impressively on my shelf. This book, "Introducing Heidegger" by comparison proves EXTRAORDINARILY accessible. I have read it through several times already and each time I find myself focussing on a new aspect of the messages there. Perhaps Collins and Selina present Heidegger better than Heidegger himself.

Collins and Selina do not limit their scope to Being and Time, instead creating a semi-biographical philosophical context for all of his ideas, not just Being and Time. They do not dodge the bullet about Heidegger's involvement in the early Nazi movement and his failure to disavow the Nazi's later and spend several pages exploring what this might and might not mean for Heidegger's philosophical outlook. As Heidegger's thinking proves inextricable from the language through which we would express such thinking, I found the artful illustrations crucial in setting this in a profound context that words alone could not do. Sometimes the connections between the words and the pictures emerged obviously and explicitly, and sometimes they revealed themselves poetically and subversively. This book proves every bit as artistic if not more so, as it does philosophical.

One of my currently favorite pages from the book occurs on page 150. "Language speaks, not the orator -- and it comes before the orator, speaking the orator's name and identity." Of course more appears on the page both picture and writing, but its basic message deeply resonates with another interest of mine, memetics. For those familiar with memetics recall Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" and her exploration of the memetic nature of self and identity. This will speak to you. (see also mine and other's Amazon reviews of her book)

If you have ever scratched your head at the name of Heidegger and his ideas, or broken down in disappointment at an inability to devour the impenetrable pages of Being and Time, this book will provide the breakthrough. I hesitate to call this philosophy, because it does so much more than just philosophy. I see this book as art. Philosophical and spiritual art both disturbing and enlightening. Excellent job by the author, the illustrator, and the editor, Appignanesi. If, like me, you cannot get yourself to slog through Heidegger's thick prose, and you do not wish to miss a profound page in the history of western thought, do not miss this book.

While the comic-strip style of the "Introducing..." series can be entertaining and beneficial when it comes to breaking up the monotony of dense philosophy, it also tends to be rather distracting and can make the survey of Heidegger more difficult to understand. HOWEVER, I think this volume is well done!

As far as a survey of Heidegger's work goes, this is a very accessible introduction - truly living up to its name. You will be excited about his thought and itching to read "Being and Time" when you're through with this book.

Interested in the thought of Heidegger? Not ready to go to critical editions of his work just yet? Read this Introduction!!

This text basically spells out what Heidegger doesn't actually say in Being and Time - it explains the background and the context of the terminology such as to make it possible to push through the insanity of Being and Time. It does not, however, present an even remotely adequate description of the critical philosophical concepts addressed in Hiedegger's analysis of Dasein. Also, it sticks to a somewhat dated translation of some critical terms (specifically translating das Man as "the They").

When I first became interested with Heidegger, my first impulse was to tackle the big one- "Being and Time." However, after reading just a few pages of this tome, I realized the material was way over my head. I turned to guides concerning Heidegger's work, and "Introducing Heidegger" was extremely enlightening. Although it is in "comic book" format, the writing, although concise, is full of helpful observations and anecdotes. The pictorial aids also accentuate what the writing describes.
Heidegger's concepts are laid out in full here- from his "secular theology" to his concept of simultaneous disclosure. His observations on art are revealed, also.
This introduction to Heidegger was invaluable to me. I can now recognize strains of Heidegger's thought in the work of writers much easier to read such as Foucault, Sartre, and Jaspers.

While this is a decent introduction to one of the most notoriously difficult (yet influential) philosophers of the 20th century, as the title says, it is lacking in some respects. The biggest thing I noticed is that the author discusses Descartes and Husserl... but NEVER mentions Immanuel Kant, whose ideas on the Noumenon and Phenomenon were hugely influential on both Husserl and Heidegger. (It has been said, with some justification, that Kant *was* Continental philosophy, and everything else was a footnote to Kant). This is such a glaring oversight that it makes me question the scholarship in the remainder of the book.

The author also spends a good deal of time dealing with Heidegger's brief flirtation with Nazism... but neglects to mention that Heidegger soon fell out of favor with the Nazis and spent most of the Nazi years under a cloud of suspicion. (Perhaps Heidegger never disclaimed Nazism as loudly or as clearly as some would like ... but it's also worth noting that one of his major influences, Edmund Husserl, was Jewish... and of course there is his longtime friendship/love affair with Hannah Arendt, the author of *Eichmann in Jerusalem* and a major thinker in her own right).

Still, this is about as good an introduction to Heidegger as you are likely to find. The author manages to make his concepts of "Dasein" as clear as one can make such an abtruse concept. This will make explorations of Heidegger on your own a bit easier ... but it certainly won't serve as a replacement for same. Unfortunately, there's no way around studying Heidegger in his full glory... much as you may want to avoid the verbiage which was tangled in German and next-to-impossible in translation.

(On the bright side: after slogging through a few pages of Heidegger, Sartre looks like easy reading)

Before purchasing this book, I skimmed the sections on Heidegger's Nazi past. I wanted to make sure that the book confronted the subject directly.

It does. There is none of the evasiveness that characterizes, say, Hannah Arendt's essay "Heidegger at 80." Indeed, the author presents information on Heidegger's Nazism of which I was not aware. He correctly situates Heidegger's actions within the context of Heidegger's refusal to repudiate them after the war.

There are a few weird spots. Hannah Arendt shows up at the end simply as a critic of Heidegger. She was that for awhile, but for the last 25 years of her life she was his former mistress, dedicating herself to rehabilitating her (presumably by then) former sexual partner's reputation. The Heidegger/Arendt love letters have been in print since 1995, and the author really ought to have considered what we now know about the pair.

The author mentions Levinas as having been influenced by Heidegger. Levinas was indeed influenced by a man whose actions he later grew to despise. However, Levinas lambasted Heidegger and his work repeatedly for its amorality. Levinas was also unwilling, and rightly so, to forgive Heidegger's Nazi past. It was odd to see no mention of Levinas's attitude.

Finally, we now know that Heidegger's doctoral dissertation was flawed. Heidegger thought he was analyzing two works by Duns Scotus and integrating them. But in fact one of the two books was by another medieval philosopher entirely. The book is unclear as to what the specific problem was.