Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift [Hardcover]

Making Sense of Heidegger presents a radically new reading of Heideggers notoriously difficult oeuvre. Clearly written and rigorously grounded in the whole of Heideggers writings, Thomas Sheehans latest book argues for the strict unity of Heideggers thought on the basis of three theses: that his work was phenomenological from beginning to the end; that being refers to the meaningful presence of things in the world of human concerns; and that what makes such intelligibility possible is the existential structure of human being as the thrown-open or appropriated clearing.

Sheehan offers a compelling alternative to the classical paradigm that has dominated Heidegger research over the last half-century, as well as a valuable retranslation of the key terms in Heidegger's lexicon. This important book opens a new path in Heidegger research that will stimulate dialogue not only within Heidegger studies but also with philosophers outside the phenomenological tradition and scholars in theology, literary criticism, and existential psychiatry.

Thomas Sheehan is professor of religious studies at Stanford University and professor emeritus of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. His many publications include Becoming Heidegger (2011) and translations of Heidegger's Logic: The Question of Truth (2010) and Husserl's Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology, and the Confronataion with Heidegger (1997).

This detailed, meticulous study addresses the confusion surrounding Heidegger scholarship. Cutting through all mysticism associated with the question of being, Sheehan uncovers the phenomenological bases of the 'early' and 'late' Heidegger, paying special attention to their Aristotelian heritage. Sheehans argument, at its core, is persuasive: he contends that the obsession with being has obscured the reality that the center of Heideggers entire project is the 'clearing,' wherein being takes place. Sheehan attaches a number of key Greek and HeideggerialSk