The Philosophy of Heidegger [Paperback]

The Philosophy of Heidegger is a readable and reliable overview of Heidegger's thought, suitable both for beginners and advanced students. A striking and refreshing feature of the work is how free it is from the jargon and standard idioms of academic philosophical writing. Written in straightforward English, with many illustrations and concrete examples, this book provides a very accessible introduction to such key Heideggerian notions as in/authenticity, falling, throwness, moods, temporality, earth, world, enframing, etc. Organized under clear, no-nonsense headings, Watt's exposition avoids complicated involvement with the secondary literature, or with wider philosophical debates, which gives his writing a fresh, immediate character. Ranging widely across Heidegger's numerous writings, this book displays an impressively thorough knowledge of his corpus, navigating the difficult relationship between earlier and later Heidegger texts, and giving the reader a strong sense of the basic motives and overall continuity of Heidegger's thought.1. Heidegger's Life 2. The meaning of life: The question of Being 3. The central ideas in Being and Time 4. Conscience, guilt and authenticity 5. Being-towards-death 6. Dasein's primordial temporality 7. Heidegger's truth of Aletheia and language 8. Poetry, poets and Holderlin 9. Art 10. Technology 11. Tao, Zen and Heidegger

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 accessibl�