Product Description

This book, ten years in the making, is the first factual and conceptual history of Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" (1927), a key twentieth-century text whose background until now has been conspicuously absent. Through painstaking investigation of European archives and private correspondence, Theodore Kisiel provides an unbroken account of the philosopher's early development and progress toward his masterwork. Beginning with Heidegger's 1915 dissertation, Kisiel explores the philosopher's religious conversion during the bleak war years, the hermeneutic breakthrough in the war-emergency semester of 1919, the evolution of attitudes toward his phenomenological mentor, Edmund Husserl, and the shifting orientations of the three drafts of "Being and Time". Discussing Heidegger's little-known reading of Aristotle, as well as his last-minute turn to Kant and to existentialist terminology, Kisiel offers a wealth of narrative detail and documentary evidence that will be an invaluable factual resource for years to come. A major event for philosophers and Heidegger specialists, the publication of Kisiel's book allows us to jettison the stale view of Being and Time as a great book 'frozen in time' and instead to appreciate the erratic starts, finite high points, and tentative conclusions of what remains a challenging philosophical 'path'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #648322 in Books
• Published on: 1995-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review
"[Kisiel] surveys the conceptual laboratory in which Heidegger in those years mixed his 'blasting powder.' The English reader can thus for the first time get acquainted in depth with the philosophical 'inside story.' The German reader is likewise indebted to Kisiel for many a surprise. . . . An impressive and important book."--Dieter Thoma, "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Customer Reviews

The most important philosophical inquiry into Heidegger-EVER
Dr. Kisiel's painstaking work elaborately explicates seemingly every mode of thought leading up to Heidegger's creation of Being & Time. In my opinion, no other philosopher has ever penetrated deeper into both the historical and philosophical origins of Being & Time. While due to the "density" of the arguments proffered, Genesis is a difficult book to wholly grasp, it still stands as one of the BEST resources to compliment Being & Time. It's a MUST HAVE for any student of phenomenology.

An excellent survey of the earlier Heidegger
I read this book some years ago, and found its summaries of Heidegger's earlier (then unpublished) lectures invaluable. Some of this Heidegger material has since been translated and published in English, but the current availability of this material does not detract from the usefulness of Kisiel's integrated review. Some people may be surprised by the extent to which Heidegger's philosophical way was theologically formed. For example, Heidegger owed a great and lasting debt to Augustine (sermons on 1 John and Confessions) for his own hermeneutical turn, and for his method of reading texts--whether the PreSocratics, Kant or Hegel.

Thus, if you are familiar with Being and Time, and with Heidegger's later writings, you will find much of surprising relevance and interest in Kisiel's study. And you will also see that Heidegger was not distanced from the philosophical discussions of his contemporaries but closely involved in them.

Kisiel's book raises another issue for me. Had Heidegger stayed with his original Catholic commitment, he would not have strayed into the Nazi delusion of 1933-1934. But by then he was no longer grounded in the religious praxis which had formed him. Nonetheless, he returned to the issue of God in his later writings. Such was his 'destiny'--meaning his whole mode of interpretation (outlined in part by Kisiel's book). He could only follow the path that had first opened out to him, albeit at one remove from the Church. Nonetheless, he was buried in a Catholic graveyard, besides his brother--a priest.