Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction

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Author: Michael Inwood
Philosophy Heidegger

This book, written by Michael Inwood, is my first interaction with the “A Very Short Introduction” series of books. My initial reaction is impressed, as this is exactly the sort of book I was looking for in an introduction. The book manages to give a very serious, very in depth overview of Heidegger's thought. I appreciated that the book mainly ignored Heidegger's biography, a problem I've had with other introductory books, and tended to err on the side of being overly academic and overly in depth on issues, rather than skipping over them.

Heidegger holds a special interest for me. My first introduction to him was in a Contemporary Philosophy course a few years ago. We read a relatively small (15–20 pages) excerpt from Being and Time, and I was hooked. After my initial introduction to Heidegger from Being and Time, I wanted to read the text in its entirety. I purchased a recent edition, and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since (~2 years). It's not that I don't have the motivation to read the book. On the contrary, I am highly motivated. Rather, I haven't felt during that time that I had the philosophical sophistication to tackle such a behemoth.

In order to gird myself for the slog that I'm sure Being and Time will indeed be, I've been attempting to read everything I can about Heidegger and Being and Time to improve my comprehension. It's akin to drinking health potions and fixing up my armor before entering the dragon's lair. In addition to a few introductory texts, I listened to an entire college course podcast by Hubert Dreyfus on Heidegger, and learned a great deal. I'll put a link to that podcast at the bottom.

After reading this book, I think I finally feel ready to tackle Being and Time. My first book on Heidegger was Heidegger in 90 Minutes, which I found largely unhelpful. The text spent far too much time (it seemed like half the book) discussing Heidegger's biography, including his alleged Nazi affiliations. While that discussion is certainly important, I wasn't terribly interested in Heidegger the man, but in Heidegger the philosopher. I felt that the text was only able to stick to its 90 minute mark by spending an overly long time examining Heidegger's life and then doing a woefully inadequate job of explaining his philosophy. It reminded me a book that promises “C++ in 2 weeks” and then accomplishes this by spending 1 week discussing variables, if/else statements, loops and other relatively easy topics, then says midway through “We aren't going to cover pointers in this text because that's too advanced” before skipping right to object-oriented topics.

However, despite my appreciation for this book, I did have a couple quibbles with it. The ties between Heidegger and the Nazi party are fairly well-documented, with several of Heidegger's German contemporaries giving the impression that Heidegger was, if not an enthusiastic Nazi, at least preoccupied enough with his status as a university Rector that he toed the party line. That being the case, it distressed me a bit to see the book in several places mount pretty full-throated defenses of Heidegger, claiming either that he wasn't a Nazi, but a secret resistor (which seems far fetched) or that even if he was a Nazi, it was more due to his allegiance to the abstract goals of Nazism and to German nationalism than to antisemitism (which seems like standard Nazi apologism). I don't want a lot of Heidegger biography, but more than that I don't want the biography that is there to be a defense of Heidegger's Nazi tendencies. A more balanced way of handling this subject would have been for the author to say “The subject of Heidegger's Nazi affiliations is a long and exhaustively researched subject. My personal view is that Heidegger was not a Nazi. Here are some books that defend that view. Here are some that argue against it.” As it is, the book seems to be interested in giving the beginner Heidegger student the impression that aspersions of Nazism on Heidegger are simply fear-mongering.

One other thing I would have liked to see is more effort by the author to show Heidegger's impact, who he influenced and why. For instance, Heidegger had a massive impact on Continental philosophy, and was terrifically influential to existentialists. However, that subject only gets the briefest of mentions, with Inwood writing only a paragraph about Heidegger's influence on other thinkers, and mentioning only Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Ortega y Gasset, Gadamer and Derrida as philosophers influenced by Heidegger. This seems like too bland and short a treatment of Heidegger's influence. For instance, one of Sartre's most important works is Being and Nothingness, a continuation and to some extent reinterpretation of Heidegger's primary work. Merleau-Ponty's entire oeuvre is essentially “Heidegger but with respect to the body”. All of existentialism owes Heidegger a huge debt. I would have liked to see a page or two on Heidegger's influence, rather than a single paragraph that essentially says nothing.

To be fair to Inwood, I may be overly critical because I am not the Heidegger neophyte. I've read some Heidegger, read a couple introductions to him, and I've listened to an entire college lecture by noted Heidegger exegist Hubert Dreyfus. Overall, I would recommend Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction very highly. It is exactly what I wanted out of an introduction, excepting the issues noted above.

The author does provide a recommended reading list at the end, but the books there are fairly standard Heidegger recommended reading. None of them stand out to me for a recommended reading section.

The Dreyfus podcast can be found here.