Profile of Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 - May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher who had a pivotal influence in phenomenology, existentialism, deconstructionism, hermeneutics, postmodernism, political theory, psychology, and theology. He has tried to lead philosophers away from questions of metaphysics and intellectualism towards questions of ontology. This is the meaning of existence. Heidegger influenced many philosophers; Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Xavier Zubiri, Karl L?witt (1899-1965), and others. Karl L?with〉, Maurice Merleau-Ponty〉, Jean-Paul Sartre〉, Jacques Derrida〉, Michel Foucault〉, Jean-Luc Nancy〉, and Philippe L'Oreal〉. Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe have all studied his work.

Table of Contents [hidden]

1 Biography

2 Philosophy

2.1 Influences

2.2 Being and time

2.3 Late writings

3 He and Nazi Germany

4 Writings

5 Film

6 References

7 External Links

[edit] Biography

Heidegger's birthplace Meskirch Born in Meskirch, Baden-Württemberg, Heidegger came from a Catholic family. His father, Friedrich Heidegger, was a priest in the Catholic church in the small town of Meskirch, and in 1892 his sister, Maria, was born, while his brother was born in 1894. Martin Heidegger attended parochial school at an early age and became interested in the question of the meaning of existence when, at the age of seventeen, he borrowed Brentano's book The Multiple Meanings of Being According to Aristotle from a priest. He studied theology for two years at the university, then switched to philosophy, and took courses in both the humanities and the natural sciences. he completed his doctoral dissertation, "The Psychological Doctrine of Judgment," in 1913 at the University of Freiburg, under the supervision of K?ltter Lee and Schnyder, and his lecturer's qualification thesis was titled "Deng Scott's Doctrine of Categories and Theory of Meaning." he received his Ph.D. degree in 1914. After the outbreak of World War I, in August 1914, Heidegger enlisted in the army, but was discharged two months later because of ill health.In 1917, the last year of the First World War, Heidegger married Everett Petty, and after their marriage he re-enlisted in the army, serving on the Western Front. He stayed in Germany for a long time and worked on his desk.

In 1918, after returning from the war, Heidegger officially became Husserl's senior teaching assistant, and taught under Husserl's guidance while studying. Most of the lectures centered on Aristotle. Although he was y influenced by Husserl's phenomenology, the focus of his lectures was not entirely Husserlian, and in November 1920, when the teaching post at the University of Freiburg became vacant again, Husserl recommended Heidegger to Nathorpe. Heidegger was preparing to publish a major work on Aristotle in the seventh volume of the Annals of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, edited by Husserl. Heidegger printed out two copies of a 40-page manuscript. One copy was sent to Natorp, the other to himself. After reading the original manuscript, Natorp marveled at the astonishing power of his philosophical ideas, and replied to Husserl immediately.

In 1923 he began his tenure as professor of philosophy at the University of Marburg. At this time he began to create his own villa (the Hütte) in Totenau Castle and began to concentrate on writing the first draft of Being and Time. In the same year he was elected very distinguished and honored but at the same time Protestant professor of philosophy at the University of Marburg. Among those with whom he worked were theologians Rudolf Bultmann, Ernst Friedl?nder, Nicolai Hartmann, and the neo-Kantian philosopher Paul Natorp. The summer of 1925's lectures, "The History of the Concept of Time," was the prototype of Being and Time. Time.In the winter of 1925, Heidegger was nominated for a full professorial chair. According to the demands of the time, he had to publish immediately. So, from January to April 1926, he retired to his villa and organized the History of the Concept of Time into the first 240 pages of Being and Time. Husserl also went on vacation to Tottenau Castle during this period and discussed with him the main concept of time in the world. In February of the following year, Being and Time appeared in the eighth volume of the Annals of Phenomenology and in a single volume. Six months later, he was awarded the title of full professor in Berlin.

In 1928, Husserl retired, and Heidegger resigned his seat at the University of Marburg to return to the University of Freiburg to succeed Husserl as chair of philosophy. Since 1931, Heidegger had become increasingly associated with the German Nazi party, which he joined in 1933 and was elected rector of the University of Freiburg. However, his inaugural speech (Rektoratsrede), in which he used a great deal of Nazi rhetoric in keeping with Nazi propaganda, made him notorious. In particular, he spoke of the purpose of the German university as being "to educate and train the leaders and defenders of the destiny of the German people. He even advocated that the three pillars of the university were 'labor service, military service and intellectual service'. Although he resigned as rector in 1934, he did not resign from the party, and from 1945 to 1947 he was banned from teaching by the French professional authorities because of his Nazi background. In 1951, the privileges of retired professor emeritus were withdrawn. He was regularly invited to teach in 1951, 1958, and 1967, but in 1976 Heidegger died in his birthplace of Meskirch and was buried in Roman Catholic rites.

[edit] Philosophy

Martin Heidegger was one of the major philosophers of the twentieth century. His thought reached into various fields. His discussion of ontology made him one of the founders of existentialism - even though he could not be reduced to the free subjective interiority of human beings referred to in the early writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. His ideas have inspired much philosophical work. For example, Sartre used his ideas extensively. His writings were adopted in Germany, France, and Japan, and even in the 1970s still had a large following in North America.

He rejected some modern trendy concepts such as the division between fact and value. He refused to include morality in his theoretical system. These various things brought about misunderstanding of him by other philosophers. His political stance and personal behavior also became the subject of attack.

[edit] Influence

When Heidegger was a young man, he touched upon Aristotle's thought through the medium of theology. The traditional concept of existence can be traced back to the time of Plato. This early contact laid the foundation for Being and Time. Initially Heidegger was known as a phenomenologist. The phenomenological approach can be described as understanding experience without prior knowledge. It is a way of getting to the essence of things by bypassing the assumptions of abstract theory. Husserl was the father of phenomenology and Heidegger's mentor. Although he had some disagreement with Husserl on phenomenology and was increasingly interested in the concrete problems of existence, phenomenology undoubtedly occupied a special place in his groundbreaking thought. He categorized Being and Time as a phenomenological ontology.

Heidegger's thought was also influenced by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, S?ren Aubert Kierkegaard, and others.

[edit] Being and Time

Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), published in 1927, was Heidegger's most influential work. This century-defining work is his most famous philosophical work and earned him a professorship at the University of Freiburg. The book was only the first half of Heidegger's project, but later abandoned writing the second half and became the definitive text. In this book, he inquires into the nature and condition of human existence by determining the priority of existence over sein/being/esse. Although he refused to recognize himself as an existentialist, Being and Time is regarded as the beginning of existentialism.

[edit] Later works

While Heidegger claimed that all of his writings were concerned with a single question, the question of existence, his focus slowly changed over the years since the publication of Being and Time. This change is known as Heidegger's turn. In his later writings, his focus shifted from doing to dwelling. He concentrates less on the structure revealed by everyday behavior and painful experience, and instead focuses on how behavior depends on preconditions such as the openness of being. The importance of being human is to maintain this openness. This distinction between early and late focus is more than a fundamental conceptual split, as in Ludwig Wigenstein's distinction between early and late. This has been sufficient and very important for the break in the Heideggerian corpus (Early:-1930, Late:1931-).

[edit] He and Nazi Germany

Before being elected rector of the University of Freiburg, Heidegger had already joined the Nazi Party on May 1, 1933.In April 1934 he resigned as rector. He resigned as rector in April 1934, although he remained a member of the Nazi Party until the end of the war. During his tenure as rector, the University of Freiburg banned Heidegger's former Jewish teacher, Husserl, from the university library, triggering Nazi ethnic cleansing legislation. In a 1941 reprint, Heidegger deleted Husserl's contribution to Being and Time, claiming that he was pressured to do so by his publisher, Max Niemeyer, and in a 1935 publication of An Introduction to Metaphysics, he refused to remove the words 'the inner truth and greatness of this movement': '... ... these are the so-called philosophies. And what we have before us today, which is called the 'philosophy of National Socialism', is not the same as the inner truth and greatness of the movement (die innere Wahrheit und Gr?e dieser Bewegung) - the encounter between planetary technology and modern mankind (n?mlich die Begegnung der planetarbeitsgemeinschaft). die Begegnung der planetarisch bestimmten Technik und des neuzeitlichen Menschen)-that which has no connection with anything, but fishes in the chaos [of concepts such as] 'value' or 'unity' [that are composed of]. of concepts such as] 'value' or 'unity']." [1] Many readers, including his past student Habermas, read this as evidence of Heidegger's commitment to National Socialism.

[edit] Publications

Sein und Zeit (1927) Being and Time

Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1929) Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik

Einführung in die Metaphysik (1935, published 1953) An Introduction to Metaphysics

Erl?uterungen zu H?lderlins Dichtung (1936-38) An Exposition of H?lderlin's Poetry

Beitr?ge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936- 1938, published 1989) Contributions to Philosophy

Holzwege (1950) The Road in the Woods

Was hei?t Denken? (1951-52) What is Called Thinking?

Der Satz vom Grund (1955-56) The Principle of Reason

Identit?t und Differenz (1955-57) Identity and Separation

Gelassenheit (1959) The Presentation of Thinking

Unterwegs zur Sprache (1959) The Path to Language