Reviews for Heidegger Explained: From Phenomenon to Thing (Ideas Explained Series)

The average rating for Heidegger Explained: From Phenomenon to Thing (Ideas Explained Series) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-02-23 00:00:00 Linda S. Bellville 'Cause Lord knows I need this dense and overpowering German juggle-knot explained before Dasein erases that part of my brain that's been gathering dust all of these years. Graham Harman! Dude, you ficken rock! Making the Heideggerian philosophy less a giant bowl of oversalted and stale pretzels that clog the mouth like a wad of factical sawdust and more a manageable serving of those mysterious-but-tasty Bits & Bites™ which feature a delicious surprise with every handful. I'm impressed with the clear and succinct explanation of Heidegger's early Freiburg and Marburg days as an instructor - lecturer (that's the current point where I'm at in the book) shedding the Phenomenological robes he received from Husserl and fashioning new and powerful ones of his own to replace them. I could always sense - under the intimidating and impenetrable prose style that Heidegger presents, at least in translation - the attractiveness of his bedrock ideas. In a manner of speaking, his prose style mimics his early philosophy: Dasein (the reader) must rise above the everyday appearance of Things in order to perceive the hidden layers wherein Being consists, with all of its mysterious shadows and hiddenness that elude the casual observer. In the same vein as recent books I've read by Hugh Graham and Roberto Calasso Heidegger appears to firmly eschew the duality so prevalent in the history of philosophy and theology, and which recurs incessantly in heresies that spring from the principal Abrahamic religions. Although I still don't completely understand him - and, in all likelihood, never will - the concept of Being being a totality that cannot be separated from its environment and studied objectively and impartially, cannot ever be known in its entirety, but is, its meaning in the horizon of Kairological Time which is a threefold structure of the interactions of the Past and the Future with the Present, a Being that is Transcendence, rather than residing in a single absolute at a hierarchical level above the rest of the material world; it's all a philosophical foundation that I believe I can get behind. This book has required a slow and careful reading - even if Harman writes in a much less complex style than his Nibs, the ideas are still deep and powerful and difficult and demand a focus from me that often necessitates two or three passes at the various thematic subchapters - but its rewards are significant, in that I feel reasonably confident that when I return to the actual writings of Heidegger I will no longer feel so utterly and helplessly adrift amidst a formidable thought process that I could not follow in more than the most rudimentary fashion.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-02-26 00:00:00 Eilish Fox Heidegger has been the biggest gap in my reading. He is the one major figure in philosophy that I haven't read -- and hence, everything that flows from him (mainly 2/3rds of modernity) has also been a blank book to me. So for someone looking for a way into this -- this book is just excellent. On the other hand, Harman tries to cover too much to briefly -- and so I found my eyes glazing at some of the ancillary issues, which were simply not well-enough prepared. On the other hand -- I'm started to sound like a two-handed economist here -- Heidegger is one of those thinkers (like Plato and Einstein) who thought he had only one idea -- albeit one BIG idea -- and here Harmen does an excellent job. That one idea, of course, is Dasein -- or more particularly the notion that Dasein is an event. Good place to start, and my thanks to Chris for calling this to my attention.