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Publication
State University of New York Press (2010), Edition: Revised, 512 pages
Description
The publication in 1927 of Martin Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time, signaled an intellectual event of the first order and had an impact in fields far beyond that of philosophy proper. Being and Time has long been recognized as a landmark work of the twentieth century for its original analyses of the character of philosophic inquiry and the relation of the possibility of such inquiry to the human situation. Still provocative and much disputed, Heidegger's text has been taken as the inspiration for a variety of innovative movements in fields ranging from psychoanalysis, literary theory, existentialism, ethics, hermeneutics, and theology. A work that disturbs the traditions of philosophizing that it inherits, Being and Time raises questions about the end of philosophy and the possibilities for thinking liberated from the presumptions of metaphysics. The Stambaugh translation captures the vitality of the language and thinking animating Heidegger's original text. It is also the most comprehensive edition insofar as it includes the marginal notes made by Heidegger in his own copy of Being and Time, and takes account of the many changes that he made in the final German edition of 1976. The revisions to the original translation correct some ambiguities and problems that have become apparent since the translation appeared fifteen years ago. Bracketed German words have also been liberally inserted both to clarify and highlight words and connections that are difficult to translate, and to link this translation more closely to the German text.… (more)
Media reviews
Hva er det å være? Værensspørsmålet er ifølge Martin Heidegger det sentrale spørsmålet i all filosofi. I sitt hovedverk Væren og tid (1927) undersøker han væren i dens grunnleggende form, og ønsker å si noe om det faktiske livet menneskene lever. Martin Heidegger definerte sitt
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filosofiske prosjekt som fenomenologi – en metode for å få fenomenene til å vise seg selv slik de frem¬trer i vår bevissthet gjennom å sjalte ut ubegrunnede oppfatninger om dem. Heidegger viste i sine fenomenologiske analyser hvordan verden ikke er totali¬teten av alt som eksisterer, men en forståelseshorisont eller livsverden som ligger til grunn for hvordan de enkelte tingene fremtrer for oss. Helt sentralt i denne forståelses-horisonten står tiden. Språklig beveget Heidegger seg langt utenfor det etablerte. Han innførte stadig nye begreper – «tidslighet», «væren-i-verden», «tilhåndenhet» – og han gjorde lite for å forklare disse begrepene for leseren. Med filosofen Lars Holm-Hansens oversettelse og innledende essay bringes Heideggers hovedverk nå et godt stykke nærmere norske lesere. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Ashwell
Books Not To Leave To Read Until One Week Before The Essay's Due In, Part One: Sein und Zeit
Being and Time, opus of rampant Nazi and all-round right-wing bastard Martin Heidegger, will cause the most voracious and determined student a sharp intake of breath when its five hundred densely-written
Heidegger's themes are in an incredible number of ways similar to Nietzsche's. Your brain will therefore, finding that Nietzsche said roughly equivalent things in more interesting and memorable ways, find gripping onto what Heidegger actually said rather like wrestling a single, specific greased eel in a pit of identical greased eels. But at the time he wrote Sein und Zeit he didn't think much of Nietzsche, so getting them mixed up is a Bad Idea. Similarly, the existentialists, feminists and various other twentieth-century schools of Continental philosophy adapted his terminology with profligate glee, and so unless you've ignored everything coming out of that tradition you'll find yourself mixing up Heidegger's concept of the Other with what de Beauvoir means by the term, and so on.
Speaking of which, old Martin was of the opinion that conceptual thought needed to be destroyed in order to reattain authenticity in one's relation to oneself and the world, and his vocabulary-building shenanigans are a somewhat less pleasant way of achieving this than a pickaxe to the back of the head. Much labour must be spent sorting out the distinctions between ontic and onological, and gaping at words like 'ownmost' that result from Heidegger's over-the-top love of the tendency, shared by both Germans and philosophers, to create a completely new term, nuanced and difficult to grasp, by violently shoving words up each others' arses.
Add to this the fact that he's generally translated by people who believe the only thing anybody could be interested in when reading Heidegger is the translation itself. You're assumed to have a working knowledge of German to really understand why the hell 'existential' and 'existentiell' are being used for different things, and the (not infrequent) Latin and Greek you're assumed to be able to deal with yourself, without the aid of footnotes. (There are appendices, supplied by Heidegger himself, but these just point you to the relevant Latin or Greek work). While doing all this, you have to work very hard to keep control of your general feeling of being creeped out by the Jew-denouncing revolutionary-conservatism underlying everything.
Don't get me wrong - there are excellent, valuable, important ideas in here. But they're very carefully obscured, so as to protect them from non-philosophers.
The good news: it's only about 40% of what the bastard was originally planning to publish.
Being and Time, opus of rampant Nazi and all-round right-wing bastard Martin Heidegger, will cause the most voracious and determined student a sharp intake of breath when its five hundred densely-written
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pages (plus abundant appendices) lands in their reading-list, causing audible squeaks from the books beneath it.Heidegger's themes are in an incredible number of ways similar to Nietzsche's. Your brain will therefore, finding that Nietzsche said roughly equivalent things in more interesting and memorable ways, find gripping onto what Heidegger actually said rather like wrestling a single, specific greased eel in a pit of identical greased eels. But at the time he wrote Sein und Zeit he didn't think much of Nietzsche, so getting them mixed up is a Bad Idea. Similarly, the existentialists, feminists and various other twentieth-century schools of Continental philosophy adapted his terminology with profligate glee, and so unless you've ignored everything coming out of that tradition you'll find yourself mixing up Heidegger's concept of the Other with what de Beauvoir means by the term, and so on.
Speaking of which, old Martin was of the opinion that conceptual thought needed to be destroyed in order to reattain authenticity in one's relation to oneself and the world, and his vocabulary-building shenanigans are a somewhat less pleasant way of achieving this than a pickaxe to the back of the head. Much labour must be spent sorting out the distinctions between ontic and onological, and gaping at words like 'ownmost' that result from Heidegger's over-the-top love of the tendency, shared by both Germans and philosophers, to create a completely new term, nuanced and difficult to grasp, by violently shoving words up each others' arses.
Add to this the fact that he's generally translated by people who believe the only thing anybody could be interested in when reading Heidegger is the translation itself. You're assumed to have a working knowledge of German to really understand why the hell 'existential' and 'existentiell' are being used for different things, and the (not infrequent) Latin and Greek you're assumed to be able to deal with yourself, without the aid of footnotes. (There are appendices, supplied by Heidegger himself, but these just point you to the relevant Latin or Greek work). While doing all this, you have to work very hard to keep control of your general feeling of being creeped out by the Jew-denouncing revolutionary-conservatism underlying everything.
Don't get me wrong - there are excellent, valuable, important ideas in here. But they're very carefully obscured, so as to protect them from non-philosophers.
The good news: it's only about 40% of what the bastard was originally planning to publish.
Show Less
LibraryThing member agricolaoval
A brilliant analysis of the structures in the everyday, real world around us. The style takes some getting used to mainly because of the attempt to describe the structures by means of newly made up terms constructed from the everyday language. Keeping that in mind it is fairly easy to follow his
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reasoning. The treatise does not lead to any definite conclusions, but anyway it is kind of fun to follow him on the road. And when the old dude finally throws in the towel he certainly does it in style. Show Less
LibraryThing member klyoder
I'm almost through this and I've found a lot of what he says to say to be stimulating. His criticisms of traditional western metaphysics (subject/object discussions in particular) opens up a lot of thoughtful questions about the basic assumptions of everyday life and thought. I find myself doubting
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his assertions about authenticity vs inauthenticity when it comes to Being--I feel like these labels are not explicated enough for me to have a satisfactory a priori kind of understanding of what he means by them. Also, his ideas about temporality are pretty confusing, though maybe I just need to get through to the end. Also, it's gotta be a lot better in German. MH is quoted as saying that English stopped mattering in like the 11th century... Show Less
LibraryThing member pingdjip
Well, it was a hard read :)
He uses all these made-up words, and in defining them uses other made-up words, not seeming to aim at clarity at all. The long sentences, stringing unclear concepts together, make for frustrating reading.
There’s one exception: when he discusses “das man”, meaning
Plus, it was fun comparing these passages to Foucault. I knew that french post-structuralists were influenced by Heidegger, but i had not anticipated this level of similarity: heidegger’s “man” is very close to Foucault’s “discours”.
It took me a long time to get a grip on the book’s contents, but finally i did, i think. Central is the threefold way of (human) being: (1) thrown into the world, (2) lost in superficial conventions (“das man”), but (3) every now and then able to confront your personal (im)possibilities, make decisions, shape your future, be sort of free.
Although this is not untrue, it’s also a bit of a cliche, isn’t it? For it to be wise or illuminating i would have needed something more, something else, instead of strings of concepts, built around the threefold distinction and expanding it into a large and pompous building.
Besides, human relationships (that you are born into) are hardly only about conventions. “Das man” seems a rather narrow window on culture, interdependence and interaction.
The reason I pushed through was my reading club: i read it together with friends. It was a bit like climbing a mountain together. Also, sometimes Heidegger’s insistance on the inward turn reminded me of meditation, which i’m into. And, finally, I really liked the biography by Rüdiger Safranski: it’s a wonderful, well-written book, putting heidegger’s work into perspective.
He uses all these made-up words, and in defining them uses other made-up words, not seeming to aim at clarity at all. The long sentences, stringing unclear concepts together, make for frustrating reading.
There’s one exception: when he discusses “das man”, meaning
Show More
the superficial crowd, conventions, how “they” are used to doing or saying things. Heidegger hates “them” so much that he loses the mumbojumbo and produces an easy to understand litany, almost poetic.Plus, it was fun comparing these passages to Foucault. I knew that french post-structuralists were influenced by Heidegger, but i had not anticipated this level of similarity: heidegger’s “man” is very close to Foucault’s “discours”.
It took me a long time to get a grip on the book’s contents, but finally i did, i think. Central is the threefold way of (human) being: (1) thrown into the world, (2) lost in superficial conventions (“das man”), but (3) every now and then able to confront your personal (im)possibilities, make decisions, shape your future, be sort of free.
Although this is not untrue, it’s also a bit of a cliche, isn’t it? For it to be wise or illuminating i would have needed something more, something else, instead of strings of concepts, built around the threefold distinction and expanding it into a large and pompous building.
Besides, human relationships (that you are born into) are hardly only about conventions. “Das man” seems a rather narrow window on culture, interdependence and interaction.
The reason I pushed through was my reading club: i read it together with friends. It was a bit like climbing a mountain together. Also, sometimes Heidegger’s insistance on the inward turn reminded me of meditation, which i’m into. And, finally, I really liked the biography by Rüdiger Safranski: it’s a wonderful, well-written book, putting heidegger’s work into perspective.
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LibraryThing member WalkerMedia
It must be lost in translation. Reading about his philosophy is fascinating. But reading his work in itself...ugh. I'm definitely getting the feeling that a knowledge of German would be helpful. I would have preferred that he had invented new terms instead of using countless variations on Being, a
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practice which only serve to confuse the reader unless he has the patience to read very slowly and carefully with absolutely nothing around to distract him. I stopped less than 100 pages in. After reading A Very Brief Introduction to Heidegger, I am convinced that one day I will tackle this book again. Show Less
LibraryThing member djross
The most important work of 20th century philosophy (just to clarify, I define the work of Bernard Stiegler as 21st century philosophy). A careful reading will be transformational.
LibraryThing member adriank
Absolutely the only reason I understood a word of this book is that a magnificent woman with a doctorate in philosophy who is fluent in German explained every paragraph of it.
LibraryThing member evanroskos
i didn't read all of it. but i read it with 2 of my friends who actually had backgrounds in philosophy. we read long passages out loud and sifted through the words to get at the meaning. it took 13 months. i learned alot. i respect the ideas. but damn if it wasn't like reading an alien comic book.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Magnum opus of one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century. I found his comments on death particularly interesting. While he can be abstruse, a comparison and contrast with the thought of Wittgenstein helped me discover more depth in his writing.
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1927
Physical description
512 p.; 6 inches
ISBN
1438432763 / 9781438432762
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