Recovering the Mystery: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Cooper, Dao and Zen

In identifying a ‘vision of mystery’ as central to the later work of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, and relating this to certain Daoist and Zen texts, Recovering the Mystery seeks to throw light on the notion of a meaningful human life.

Wittgenstein and Heidegger do not try to answer traditional (Western) philosophical problems. Rather, their literary strategies are directed towards the reader regaining what Kierkegaard would have called a ‘primitive impression’ of their existence, within which...