An Essential Companion to Heidegger
581721
Reading the original text of Being and Time is a daunting task. Magda King effectively breaks down the author's arguments and addresses them, one by one, in a rigorous but readable fashion.

This book is highly recommended for students of the text, as well as for people (like myself) who already consider themselves familiar with it. Whichever camp you fall into, you will end up learning something new.
911056
If you've never read Heidegger, this probably isn't too bad of a place to start out. He actually reveals a great deal more about his motives and methods in the first part of this than in a lot of his other writings. Both his circular style of questioning (and Heidegger is all about questioning, not arguing, not declaring, but really asking sincerely about what things are.) and his emphasis on close, intensely focused etymological readings are well laid out here and not as difficult to get at as a lot of his later writings on poetry, language and art can be. It's a 'hard' text regardless, not because Heidegger is a bad writer, but because focusing in on the things he does is sincerely difficult, it takes work. But sometimes he'll just come out of nowhere and clobber you with a brilliant, haunting thought amidst all of the dense word play and grammar. An intense inquiry from an intense mind.
274540
This cogent compendium of well-chosen readings can be read by the novice or the scholar, useful as it is for reflection and cogitation. The readings are handily arranged into six major sections: social and political philosophy, philosophy of religion; philosophy of art and culture;  metaphysics; epistemology;and philosophy of science. Each section has a  brief introduction; and in a few cases, a summary essay. Excerpts from  selected works of various philosophers--classic and otherwise--give a  well-rounded fullness to the major topics and concepts being examined. A  bibiliography of primary source material and a full index enhance  retrievability options. This will surely stimulate even the most inert of  minds.
4165435
I received the book with the exact same condition as advertised by the seller in a timely manner - no complaints there! As for the text itself, I am currently enrolled in a seminar with the author himself, Iain D. Thomson, at the University of New Mexico, and his words (both inked and in-person) explain the almost-unintelligible words of Heidegger's postmodern world-picture in a new, fashionable way.
3497726
Rarely do you find a book that covers a dense topic in a remarkably lucid manner.  This is such a book.  The book is, as it says it is, a dictionary.  It covers *some* terms in Hegelian studies.  It does not cover all of them (being around 300 pages).  Further, it is aimed at undergraduates, not specialists.  With that said, I have found this the most useful introduction to Hegel.  One amazon reviewer complained that this book wasn't good because Magee didn't have an entry on "positing."  Seriously?  The book is quite fine.

Below are some of the highlights.

Overview of Hegel's Thought

For Hegel human beings are the self-consciousness of existence itself (Magee 2).  Hegel inverts Aristotles chain of being.  The lower gives way to the higher.  The highest form of consciousness will include self-reflection.  The goal of the Absolute is to posit enough in order for it to be an "idea of an idea," all previous ideas having been sublated.

Earlier philosophers used absolutum to mean God, but god defined as a coincidence of opposites (Magee 19).  Hegel: when the Absolute is conceived as the transcendent unity of all things (cancellation of differences), it is really an empty concept. The Absolute is the whole.
existence exists in order to achieve consciousness of itself (20).  Perpetually gives rise to conditions for it to overcome. The final moment is when self-relatedness is achieved through self-consciousness.

For Hegel universals and particulars are not separate things.  Nor are universals in particulars.  Rather, particulars are within universals (61).  The universal has no reality apart from its concrete realization.

Spirit as self-consciousness has a dual object: the thing out there (given in perception) and itself, which is in opposition to the thing.  The subject is moved to transform the object out of the desire to confront itself.  When a subject wishes to know itself, it must split into a subjective side (which knows) and an objective side (known).  Since we desire total self-reflection, this means transforming the object into a mirror of myself (70).  This leads to postmodern violence.

Analysis and Conclusion:

Magee focuses on Hegel's key works (each book given at least a two page treatment), with *most* of the key terms in the book.  Key philosophers (Kant, Schelling, Marx) receive substantial treatment.

There is some repetition, but I suppose that can't be help.  Magee concludes with a short but useful bibliography.
1858350
White's edition of Hegel's monumental work on politics is excellent: useful to first-time readers and specialists alike.  It is the best English translation of this work to date: accurate down to small details of the German, and highly readable.  The Introduction, Notes, and Glossary provide just the right amount of information and, more importantly, provoke philosophic reflection.
  Several translation decisions are worthy of special attention.  The most daring, and most helpful, is White's translation of the central term Fursichsein, normally translated "being for itself," as "being as itself."  White, drawing on Hegel's Science of Logic, makes a convincing case for this decision.  This departure from literalness gets at what Hegel means by the term and makes many crucial passages come out with more concreteness and clarity.  Beisichsein gets the concrete (and accurate) rendering "being at home with oneself."  "Conveyance" rather than "alienation" for Entausserung helps to stave off confusion.  Another noteworthy rendering is "worldly being" for Hegel's Existenz, which allows "existence" to translate Dasein.  The ubiquitous "aufheben" is rendered "suspend" (after the suggestion of W. A. Suchting).  These are but a few of the intelligent departures from both tradition and literalness that bring the reader closer to Hegel's meaning.
  White's edition is especially appropriate to first-time readers of Hegel.  The Introduction brings out what is at stake in Hegel's project, now as much as then; and the Glossary provides a reader-friendly introduction to Hegel's often-confusing language.  One rejoices in a translation that gives students and teachers access to a profound and difficult work that can provoke the most searching examination of modern political assumptions.
4426766
A book about Heidegger by his most famous student, Gadamer, who became a renowned philosopher in his own right sounds very promising. Heidegger's Ways is a collection of essays on Heidegger written over the span of 21 years, from 1960-1981. Most essays follow a similar structure--they begin by pointing out Heidegger's significance in the history of philosophy, give us some background of Heidegger's education and the situation of philosophy department in German universities at the time when he arrived. Some essays are commemorations of a Heidegger birthday. Others move on eventually to address Heidegger and/on...some topic: existentialism, Kant, religion, theology, metaphysics, language, Plato, art, history of philosophy.

In the process we get some anecdotes and gossip, just what the reader expects. But not nearly enough which makes sense once we learn that Gadamer arrived in Freiburg to study with Heidegger during his last year teaching there. Then Heidegger moved to Marburg--the very university from which Gadamer transferred. After teaching there for years Heidegger returned to Freiburg. Gadamer knew about Heidegger before that, as many German philosophy students did. They had heard about Heidegger's lectures on Greek philosophers, those lecture notes were sought after and distributed by students. These lectured caused quite a commotion and Gadamer's first hand account of the impact Heidegger had as a teacher manages to convey how important and revolutionary his thought was.

We learn of Heidegger's background in mathematics and physics, his Catholic studies that emphasized Aristotle, how he came to focus on Being, the influence of the phenomenological method and how Heidegger would use it to go over his previous influences: theology and Greek philosophy. Heidegger eventually set aside Catholicism for Protestantism and he also set aside Husserl's own phenomenological project. Kierkegaard and Dilthey became influences but Heidegger didn't just adopt blindly these thinkers' ideas, he also worked through and against them to come up with something uniquely his own. The deeper he got into the question of Being Heidegger more and more realized that language was more of an impediment than a tool. How to talk about Being without falling back into the language of metaphysics which he was trying to "overcome?" It was the poet Hlderlin who gave Heidegger the necessary impetus to move forward.

While the essays are somewhat repetitive, there are two topics that Gadamer tends to focus on: language and art. The issue with the former is, as mentioned, that Heidegger ended up in a dead-end street. As a result his language become more unusual and as his critics claim, Heidegger ended up doing quite a bit of violence to language. Gadamer aims to address these criticism and justify why Heidegger had to talk (think) the way he did.

Art is something no German philosopher, thinker, intellectual is exempt from addressing for some reason. One could setup an aesthetics Ph. D. curriculum solely based on German thinkers from Kant to Sloterdijk. It's become almost a stumbling block for them. It certainly nearly was for Heidegger who almost lost himself in writer-artist Nietzsche. Gadamer, too, overemphasizes I think the topic of art in Heidegger--understandable in his case since hermeneutics is his field.

Most of Gadamer's articles only gloss superficially over a variety of philosophical topics. One gets the impression he wrote them for his contemporaries and expected readers to be intimately familiar with Kant, Neo-Kantianism, Husserl. I read the articles in chronological order, not in the order presented in the book. It's only in the later articles, and in particular in the final three written in 1981, that Gadamer's writing becomes more explanatory and goes more into detail.

A book that will work out and clarify things about Heidegger's philosophy this is unfortunately not.
1174571
This book demonstrates why Mensch should undoubtedly be considered one of the foremost exponents of phenomenology today. Radical readings of Levinas, Freud, and Lacan, along with other major figures in the history of philosophy, lead Mensch to the conclusion that the existential Other is, in fact, the unconscious element of our Self. Teasing out the way in which this part of the Self shows itself to be without ever giving itself as explicit, Mensch meditates on the implications of this reading within political philosophy and weak theology. Stunningly original and yet grounded in the philosophical tradition, this is a masterpiece in the nascent canon of the 21st century.
644268
Michael J. Loux's _Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction_ is an excellent introduction to the metaphysical issues which are of paramount importance in contemporary Anglo-Australo-American analytical  philosophy.
Another reviewer has already noted Loux's helpful treatment  (in Chapters 1 and 2) of realism vs. nominalism as regards universals; I  concur and shall therefore limit my summary here to other features of the  text.
Loux devotes Chapter 4 to a crucially important topic of which many  readers may not even have been aware: the ontological status of  _propositions_. Do properties, kinds, and relations cover all the sorts of  abstract entity whose existence we must admit, or do  "propositions" constitute another such class?
Loux dedicates  Chapter 5 to a discussion of _modality_ (necessity and possibility). In  particular, he provides a solid introductory discussion of possible-worlds  modalism.
And in chapters 3 and 6, Loux tackles the problem of the  "concrete particular" -- first in regard to what it is (the  subtitle of Chapter 3 is "Substrata, bundles, and substances"),  and second in regard to how such an entity persists through time  (endurantism, perdurantism, presentism, eternalism).
The presentation is  clear and accessible throughout, and each chapter is helpfully introduced  with a summary of its important points. Readers interested in this topic  will find Loux's work both readable and self-contained; those who wish to  read further will profit from his suggestions for further reading (at the  end of each chapter).
Readers unfamiliar with the field may also want to  pick up _ A Companion to Metaphysics_ (edited by Jaegwon Kim and Ernest  Sosa), a fine collection of 264 alphabetical entries by various respected  philosophers. And the _Oxford Companion to Philosophy_ (edited by Ted  Honderich) is an excellent general reference which no student of philosophy  should be without.
(The Routledge Contemporary Introductions to  Philosophy series seems to be very good in general, by the way; Robert  Audi's _Epistemology_ is also highly recommended.)
671849
This book is an excellent introduction to the thought and life of Martin Heidegger. The author strikes a remarkably satisfying balance between biographical detail, historical events, and Heidegger's own philosophical writings. I found it to be a pleasure to read and I consumed it very quickly once I got started. Safranski used an economy of space to graft the details of Heidegger's beginnings, his early education and the choices he had to make. The author is wise enough to demostrate where real life events may have impacted on the subject's later views. Safranski has done research to add hitherto unknown (at least to this reviewer) facts that shed a slightly different light on Heidegger and on those he knew. I think the obvious, but not unimportant relationship is with Ardent. Safranski gives the details and relates how Ardent viewed, and later came to view, her association with the married Professor. (There is nothing all that scandolous about the story, except perhaps for its banality and "fallenness of everyday life"-likeness. Safranski is good enough to craft some quotes by Ardent into drole comments on Heidegger's legendary stiff upper lip. Heidegger comes across as a pardox in many chapters and Safranski is wise enough to not try to settle the confusions or demystify the man. It is a thorough and deliberate accounting of the philosopher's life which can catalyze readers to return to Heidegger's philosophy and take their own measure of it. Somehow by reading about a man's birth, life, death and some of the banal commonalities, or fallenness, of his life- like he has an interesting brother- it makes the bewilderment engendered by philosophy less discouraging.
3874056
For students of process-relational thought, this little book is a true gemRobert Mesles gives us a much-needed introduction and very approachable overview to the thinking, philosophy, and language of Alfred North Whitehead.

  For those new to the subject, process-relational philosophy addresses the ontological over-emphasis western society has historically placed on the static state of being (expressed in all aspectsculture, languages, etc.) versus the ever-changing quality of becoming (which is easily observable in the birth, growth, life and death of all living things).  This bias is a philosophical perspective that goes back at least as far as Plato, so it is understandable that we have difficultly in seeing it, questioning it, and looking at the alternative:  the process-relational perspective.

  Further, it is commonly acknowledged thatwhile process-relational ideas have the potential to be very important contributors to ongoing dialogue about the problems of our complex timeslearning Whiteheads unique terminology is a prohibitively large barrier.  Well, thankfully, with Mesles book, this is no longer the case.  Process-Relational Philosophy allows Whitehead to be accessible to a much larger audience.

  This perfectly-sized 123 page book addresses the major themes of Whiteheads seminal 1929 Process and Reality.  Mesles chapters flow well from one theme/idea to another.  He builds conceptually, beginning with why process thought matters and finishing with a succinct appendix:  Getting Technical:  Whiteheads Languagea whirlwind tour of actual entities, eternal objects, prehension, concrescence, etc.  Each chapter finishes with the helpful So What? and Looking Ahead summaries which keep the reader focused and curious through this thought-provoking material.  Mesle does a nice job of putting process-relational thought in the larger context of the philosophical ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, etc.  Anecdotes from his personal journey and always encouraging the reader to apply the abstract ideas to his/her own life for a validity-check keep the material relevant and interesting.  Though there is some repetition, in my opinion, it serves well to keep the reader on-track through some fairly esoteric conceptual ideas.

  This book is excellent for beginners and intermediate readers alike.  I purchased it in 2008, shortly after it came out, and only recently got around to reading it.  This was a mistake.  If you are interested in process-relational thought, read this book first without delay.  You will thank Robert Mesle for giving you a perfect starting foundation.
3327878
Terry Pinkard's new translation of the Phenomenology is, for the most part, an improvement upon Miller's translation of the Hegel's most famous work.

The first oddity I noticed was that the Inhalt for the Vorrede is missing. This was useful for students new to the text, as they tried to make sense of the Preface. The second is that some italicization does not correspond to the Meiner Edition.

Like many scholars, I have some qualms with the Cambridge Editions of Hegels Werke (beginning with di Giovanni, extending to Pinkard) about the translation of particular terms, (e.g., Dasein as "existence," since Hegel frequently uses "Existenz" as well); in the case of Pinkard's translation, the "watchwords" are usually flagged. This is helpful for those unfamiliar with the language.

I disagree with Pinkard's interpretation of Hegel on a number of fronts. While it may be the case that translations are always already interpretations, Pinkard is remarkably successful at translating without building his interpretation into the text.

Unfortunately, I believe that A.V. Miller's translation is the more readable option. One pays a price for translation readability, however, and with a case such as this, the cost is consistency. Although I do not find many of Pinkard's choices to be especially felicitous, the translation is consistent throughout, which is arguably the most important feature of a reliable and successful translation. For this alone, I recommend purchasing Pinkard's translation, which will be the standard translation in years to come.
953843
Collingwood is one of the best philosophers in the tradition of the German Idealists--indeed, reading his work will do more to help you to understand Hegel than reading almost anything else will.  Aside from being a great philosopher, he is also an extremely clear writer, and he is able, in simple prose, to demonstrate how dialectical ideas have direct and obvious bearing on everyday life.  This book should be the basic "organon" for modern philosophers, but it is, sadly, rarely read.  Reading this can improve your understanding of logic, of natural science, of induction and deduction, of historical method, of the distinctive nature of philosophy, of language, and more.  It is also an excellent companion to his other great work, "Speculum Mentis."  If you know Collingwood only from his writings on art and/or history, you owe it to yourself to read this work (and Speculum Mentis), to understand the deeper philosophical context behind those writings.  (Of course, if you don't know his important and influential writings on art and history, you should read those too!) This book is of the highest philosophical and literary calibre, and belongs in every serious philosophical library.
4455356
This book is a collection of essential texts concerning the bridge between Neo-Classicism and, reaching its zenith, Romanticism in German Aesthetic thought. Today, I believe these texts are one of the most important in the history of ideas, because it is the first time thinkers have questioned their ethical place in society, and under what conditions the Good is, in fact, a representation of the Beautiful. This is not only a reaction to Immanuel Kant's two books, Critique of Practical Reason and Judgment, but is also a reformation of the battle to weaken Reason in the face of the rising development of technology.

The first half, Neo-Classicism, are essays by Hamann, Lessing, and Moritz. They are excellent essays that deal with reviving themes put forth by Greek Mythology, Virgil, and Homer. The last half, the romantics, Schiller, Holderlin, Novalis, and Shlegel, rethink Neo-Classicism and puts them under a new aesthetic light, which not only believe in the classical concept of perfection and beauty, but how it relates to ethics, where at its ultimate peak, all man strives to become "a work of art."

The essays may be very technical prima facie, but through reading other texts, such as Frederick Beiser's The Romantic Imperative, you understand the central concerns of the German romantics, and how these concepts are useful today.
3128804
Rainer Funk brings together the most lucid and poignant passages from Fromms oeuvre.  The chapters are concise and the ideas are cogently presented.  In Fromm's humanistic writings and critiques one, of course, finds references to Marx and Freud.  However, one can equally recognize the insights of Heidegger, Nietzsche and even the mystic traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism and Christianity. Fromm's insights on capitalism and the 'having' mode of being are incredibly insightful and should offer the reader a great deal of reflection, especially in context with today's consumerism.  Yet, in contrast, Fromm offers suggestions to free oneself from the limited and pernicious sensibilities of materialism and pecuniary greed.  This collection will be an excellent complement to Marx, Veblen and Marcuse, and an indispensible introduction to Fromm and the Frankfurt school.
645853
Devoid of most of the commentaries and interpretations that most copies of this text have, this is an ideal companion for those who can already understand the philosophy, or who wish to come to their own interpretation without the opinions of others influencing them.

Beautifully presented, the text of this edition is easily  referenced and quickly scanned by eye when looking for a particular passage.

Strongly recommended to anyone, even if you already have a larger, commented, copy.
4970209
This work, when allowed to saturate upon the mind, opens one up to many more questions and possibilities then the book addresses alone.

First and foremost is the fact that the translations of greek writings which are widely accepted as the norms, are in fact very open to other interpretations. I think we often assume (under the notion that scholars themselves made the translations) that the Greek language has a direct correlation to our English, which simply is just not the case. While I have always admired Heraclitus since first reading him, having Heidegger break down his writings and give them what he believes is a more accurate interpretation, brings the formers philosophical thought further to life. In fact, it is through opening up the possibilities of these words that Heidegger's philosophy is able to expand.

Additionally, "Introduction to Metaphysics" is an extremely accurate title, even though as others have commented, it does not exactly fall in line with what today is called 'metaphysics.' However, the questioning that takes place pushes one past 'physics' as it were (past mathematics, logic, and symbols). To quote, "The authentic task given here is what we do not know; and insofar as we know this genuinely--namely as a given task--we always know it only in questioning." What Being truly is can only be sought through a continuous questioning, a questioning which has in mind "the perspective for the opening up of Being (which) must be grounded originally in the essence of Being-here as such a site for the opening up of Being." To me, this speaks of presence, of awareness, (might I say, Eastern ideals) and these notions themselves push one beyond the book, to a path of questioning, exploration, and growth.

And in brief:
I enjoyed his rebuttal of positivistic philosophy.
If you feel bogged down by his repetitious nature at the beginning of the book, carry on! You will be glad you did.
"Leading is a questioning going-ahead, a questioning-ahead. This is a leadership that essentially has no following"
"The only one who knows is the one who understands that he must always learn again, and who above all, on the basis of this understanding, has brought himself to the point where he continually can learn. This is far harder than possessing information."

Cheers!