Heidegger's Being And Time: A Reader's Guide (Reader's Guides)

Analytic philosophers half a century ago would probably find the recent "acceptance" of Martin Heidegger into their ranks a base repugnance. But here we stand in the twenty-first century with proponents of the Analytic school researching, teaching, and writing books on this once scourged Continental outcast. This somewhat begrudging acceptance seems to originate with Heidegger's radical perspective on epistemological issues. William Blattner, author of this book, one of numerous reading guides to Heidegger's 1927 magnum opus "Being and Time," attended Herbert Dreyfus' Heidegger classes at Berkeley. Dreyfus penned one of the most acclaimed American commentaries on "Being and Time" and hails predominantly from the Analytic tradition. It should come as no surprise that one of his star students, Blattner, should approach Heidegger from within more or less the same framework. "Heidegger's Being and Time" shines brightest when dealing with aspects closest to the Analytic tradition.

The book comprises four main chapters. The first, "Context," contains a brief biography of Heidegger's life from his birth in 1889, his religious early years, his subsequent abandonment of theology in favor of philosophy, tutelage and mentorship under Husserl, "Being and Time," fame, his turn towards the "later Heidegger" in the 1930s, his nefarious affiliation with the Nazis throughout World War II, up to his death in 1976. Chapter two, "Overview of Themes," outlines Heidegger's attitude towards the subject-object philosophical tradition, which he depicts as a distortion of human experience. Here Blattner outlines the structure of Being and Time, namely, its two divisions. This reader's guide, he says, will cover the bulk of Division I, but only segments of Division II. Blattner finds Heidegger's view on temporality and being in that division "almost certainly unsuccessful." Later on he claims that most don't read past section 65 of "Being and Time" and calls the succeeding arguments weak, obscure, radical, and not influential. As such, those looking for help with Division II should look elsewhere.

"Reading the Text," the third chapter, makes up the vast majority of the book's content. In short, it's the meat of this guide. Blattner breaks this relatively enormous chapter down into seventeen sections, each dealing with salient Heideggerian themes: Heidegger's conception of Ontology, phenomenology, Existence (Dasein), "Being-in-the-World," The self and the "Anyone" (usually translated as "the They"), Disclosedness and the "There" (ontological versus geometrical distance), Disposedness (mood), Understanding and Interpretation (contrasted with cognition), Language (discourse and assertion), Realism and Idealism (Heidegger's responses to epistemological skepticism and the ontological problem, namely, does the world depend on our experience), Heidegger's notion of truth, the everyday, owned, and disowned life, falling, Anxiety, Death, Guilt and Conscience, and resoluteness and self-ownership. A short fourth and final chapter deals with Heidegger's reception in Continental (Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer) and Analytic philosophy (debates with Cassirer, Carnap, and subsequent dismissal from the Anglo-American school over interpretations of Kant).

Within its Analytic framework, the book presents a great overview of Heidegger's basic ideas. Throughout, it gives valuable context and background on much of what Heidegger's philosophy reacts to. In this it excels. That said, some rough exigetical spots crop up when Blattner deals with what he calls Heidegger's "existential" side. The sections on ownedness (often translated as "authenticity"), fallenness, and anxiety suffer slightly from too much Analytic-speak. They also suggest that Heidegger fits more comfortably within the existentialist school than is actually the case. Plus, Blattner's equating "anxiety" with what we would today call "depression" may furrow some brows. Blattner also takes much umbrage in the sixteenth section of chapter three with Heidegger's dismissal of ethics, which he also finds potentially anti-semitic and burdened by the worst side of Nietzsche's thought (i.e., disdain for "the rabble"). Though not everyone will agree with his interpretations on these points, the bulk of the book remains a readable, challenging, and informative guide to arguably the twentieth century's most influential philosophical text, "Being and Time." Expect to work. Nothing about Heidegger, even introductory books about his work, resembles dainty strolls through the park. Sharpen the brain and dive in.

Being and Time definitely requires introductory and supplementary materials for a fruitful study. The problem here is that the reader's guide designed to provide these resources does a very poor job at selecting widely, ordering logically and applying instructively the tools it gathers. If we learn anything from a perusal of even the first few pages of Heidegger's text, from the first, our terms are of utmost importance. Blattner, however, applies throughout a sloppy cobbling together of his own unreflective language, conceptual dumming-down through reductive explication, sophmoric generalizations, and facile comparisons. One would do well to read this guide in order to feature, by contrast, the ease, clarity and transparency of reading Heidegger's text. It's not a bad ancillary or otherwise miscelaneous resource, but as a primary interprative tool, it's just plain awful. There's got to be a better way.

'Heidegger's Being And Time' by William Blattner is an instalment in the Continuum series of readers guides - intended as a companion to reading Heidegger's Being and Time.

This is a nice small text (under 200 pages), Blattner has a strong grasp of Being and Time and is particularly helpful in decoding much of the abstruse jargon used by Heidegger. Blattner also comments on some of language used in standard English translation of Being and Time by Macquarrie and Robinson. Being and Time has come to be recognised as one of the more important and influential philosophical texts of the twentieth century. Despite its importance, however, for the non-Heideggerian it can seem impenetrable - stylistically speaking, it represents some of the worst aspects of German philosophy writing; verbose, rambling and ambiguous.


I read this text in conjunction with Hubert Dreyfus's UC Berkley course and found it very useful - enjoying Heidegger more than I previously have. Dreyfus's Being and Time couse is available free at itunes/UC Berkley/humanities. Dreyfus also has a Being and Time commentary that is worth a look.