Reviews for Heidegger's Topology: Being, Place, World

The average rating for Heidegger's Topology: Being, Place, World based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-17 00:00:00 Timothy Murray After months of on-and-off reading with frequent recourse to Heidegger's primary texts, I can say this is an excellent and valuable interpretational work (one of the best I've seen so far), that can be of interest both to experts and Heidegger starters. First, the book, in its 300+ pages is not afraid to use large portions of its space for extremely detailed discussions of Heidegger's concepts and arguments - often nearly in the mood of analytical philosophy with its abstract examples, that nevertheless work well as illustration. Second, considering myself quite well-acquainted with Heidegger's major arguments and ideas, the book nevertheless provides valuable in setting up a number of interesting and novel connections between them. Third, the book's overall methodological orientation is another strong case - while reading Heidegger's work chronologically, it nevertheless reads into it a series of 'productive failures', which, despite the language of the 'turning' do not assume linear breaks, but instead look at Heidegger as constantly reflecting back on thoughts he's put forward, revising them (both with respect to his resources and with respect to historical events), and Heideger's increasing awareness (and explicitness) that the problem of place occupies in his system throughout the evolution of his thought. Even though the book does not engage with Heidegger's politics as directly as for example Elden's Speaking against Number, this also brings to light much about his involved-ness with National Socialism and a later, imperfect, but philosophically challenging 'sobering up' from such a politics (culminates in the last part of the last chapter on Heidegger's critique of technology, its 'intersections' with the work of Arendt and Camus and the questions of democracy and totalitarianism) both in reading Heidegger's ideas against history and history against Heidegger's ideas.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-10-23 00:00:00 Stephan Keusch mildly interesting, but written in such a po-mo fashion that it's almost unstomachable