The Philosophy of Heidegger

by Michael Watts

Overview

In The Philosophy of Heidegger, Michael Watts provides an overview of Heidegger's thoughts that is suitable for both beginning and advanced students. Free from jargon and the standard idioms of academic philosophical writing, Watts uses several illustrations and concrete examples to introduce key Heideggerian concepts such as thrownness, the clearing, authenticity, falling, moods, nullity, temporality, Ereignis, enframing, dwelling, and Gelassenheit. He avoids over-involvement with the secondary literature and with wider philosophical debates, which gives the writing an immediate, accessible voice. Ranging widely across Heidegger's writings, the book displays an impressively thorough knowledge of his corpus, navigating the difficult relationship between the earlier and later texts and giving the reader a strong sense of the fundamental motives and overall continuity of Heidegger's thought.

A comprehensive glossary of Heideggerian terms provides insightful explanations of his unique use of language, making this book an asset for any student grappling with Heidegger's challenging work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773539174
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2011
Series:	Continental European Philosophy , #12
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Watts is a professional psychologist and independent writer. He has published widely on existentialist philosophy, including Kierkegaard.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Abbreviations x

1 Heidegger's life 1

2 The meaning of life: the question of Being 13

3 The central ideas in Being and Time 39

4 Conscience, guilt and authenticity 81

5 Being-towards-death 95

6 Dasein's primordial temporality 116

7 The "truth of aletheia" and language 141

8 Heidegger on poetry, poets and Holderlin 175

9 Heidegger on art 198

10 Heidegger on technology 217

11 Tao, Zen and Heidegger 230

12 Heidegger's politics 245

Glossary 263

Further reading 284

Bibliography 286

Index 292

Editorial Reviews

"Watts does in general manage to achieve a very high overall level of clarity and accessibility; he plainly knows the primary texts well…there are passages and chapters — I think here particularly of the chapter on temporality, and the discussion of 'ereignis' and 'enteignis' — that achieve a really unusual degree of clarity and illumination in the brief compass allowed." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"This book explains Heidegger's work with admirable clarity and beautiful simplicity, rendering his most difficult ideas, thoroughly accessible and understandable. Throughout the book, Watts displays a deep understanding and an effortless mastery of the text at hand. All of which, expressed in a thoroughly lucid and engaging way." - Paulo De Jesus, Metapsychology

"Michael Watts tackles Heidegger with exemplary skill, tenacity and sobriety. He presents Heidegger's thoughts in plain uncluttered prose and steers the reader through the complexities of Heidegger's terminology. He gives an exceptionally clear and readable account of Being and Time, while also performing the difficult feat of weaving this into an account of Heidegger’s later writings. He provides valuable guidance for the beginner through the complexities of Heidegger’s thought and much of interest for those who are already ‘on the way’." - Michael Inwood, University of Oxford, UK

"A deep and wide knowledge of Heidegger's texts, an unusual ability to bring the issues alive and an unpretentious written style combine in The Philosophy of Heidegger in a truly impressive way." - Dan Watts, University of Essex, UK

"The merit of Michael Watts work – what I find particularly appealing about it – is his ability to grasp the abstruse and abstract nature of someone’s thought, and render it in clear, concise, and concrete terms. He is a master at this!" As a student in the sixties and seventies, the secondary sources on Heidegger that I consulted were mostly William Richardson, S.J., Thomas Langan, William Barrett, Alphonse De Waelhens, Henri Birault, Otto Poggeler, and few others. Had you been available at the time, these sources would have been monumentally superfluous." - Roy Martinez, Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Spelman College, Atlanta, USA

"To write clearly and accessibly, and yet to present a philosopher’s ideas without trivialising or distorting them requires considerable intellectual discipline. This challenge is, arguably, all the more severe in the case of philosophers such as Heidegger and Wittgenstein, who Watts rightly repudiates the notion, implied in some of what Heidegger wrote and put about by certain of his followers, that it is suicide for philosophy to be intelligible. Instead he sets about explaining, so far as is possible in such a short space, the main ideas in Heidegger’s masterpiece Being and Time. Watts also considers the later works in which Heidegger moves furthest from the argumentative canons of Western philosophy. That he treats these works charitably without ever aquiescing in the kind of dazed enchantment they induce in less discriminating minds is a sign that he has understood his responsibilities to the ‘newcomer’ very well." - Jonathan Derbyshire, Culture Editor of New Statesman and Managing Editor of Prospect

From the Publisher