Martin Heidegger

Being and Time

It made him world-famous overnight and remained, as planned, unfinished.

💡 Did you know? „Being and Time“ (1927) made Heidegger instantly famous: yet it remained unfinished.

Dasein

The being for whom, in its very being, that being is at issue: 'being-in-the-world'.

💡 Did you know? Instead of „human“ Heidegger says „Dasein“: a being for whom its own being is at issue.

being-towards-death

Only by facing one's own finitude does one exist 'authentically'.

💡 Did you know? Only awareness of one's own mortality lets a person live „authentically“, according to Heidegger.

the they

What 'one' does, thinks, says: inauthentic existence in the average of the others.

💡 Did you know? „The They“ (das Man) is the anonymous mass we dissolve into: „that's just how one does it“, without choosing for oneself.

Edmund Husserl

'Being and Time' is dedicated to Husserl: Heidegger had the dedication removed in the Nazi era; his conduct towards his Jewish teacher is considered shabby.

💡 Did you know? Heidegger was assistant to Husserl, the founder of phenomenology: but broke with his Jewish teacher in the Nazi era.

rector of Freiburg

He publicly promoted the regime, remained a party member until 1945 and never publicly apologised.

💡 Did you know? In 1933 Heidegger became the Nazi rector of Freiburg University: the most controversial point of his biography to this day.

Black Notebooks

Their publication from 2014 onwards reignited the controversy over thinker and work.

💡 Did you know? The posthumously published „Black Notebooks“ contain antisemitic passages and weigh heavily on his memory.

in the hut at Todtnauberg

The 'hut' became a myth: after his visit, Paul Celan wrote the poem 'Todtnauberg'.

💡 Did you know? Heidegger most liked to think and write in his simple mountain hut in the Black Forest, without electricity or running water.

enframing

Technology 'enframes' nature and man as mere standing-reserve: from the lecture 'The Question Concerning Technology'.

💡 Did you know? With „enframing“ (Gestell) the late Heidegger describes how modern technology sees the world only as a stock of raw material.

the house of Being

From the 'Letter on Humanism' (1946): in language, man dwells.

💡 Did you know? „Language is the house of being“: in it, said Heidegger, being dwells and shows itself.

existentialism

Gadamer's hermeneutics and Derrida's deconstruction also draw on him: despite all controversy.

💡 Did you know? Without Heidegger's „Being and Time“, Sartre's existentialism would be unthinkable: even though Heidegger distanced himself from it.

Meßkirch

Born in 1889, the son of a cooper and sexton; died in 1976: he remained demonstratively true to his origins.

💡 Did you know? Heidegger was born in Meßkirch in Baden and is buried there too: attached to his homeland all his life.

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher whose main work „Being and Time“ posed anew the question of the meaning of being.

💡 Did you know? His entanglement with National Socialism and the antisemitic „Black Notebooks“ still weigh on his memory.