Theodore Kisiel
The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time
$31.95, £21.95 paperback
9780520201590
Available Now
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."
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."
"The most complete and the most enlightening reconstruction of the genesis of Being and Time that we can hope for at this time. . . . [We] come to see far more clearly not only where this book came from, but also what its genesis has made possible for us."—Jean Grondin, Archives de Philosophie
"[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 Thomä, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Provides to date the most authoritative and comprehensive account of the development of Heidegger's thought towards the 'failed project' of Sein und Zeit . . . . With a historian's eye for significant detail and a philosopher's sense of the basic issues, Kisiel deftly shows what is accomplished and what is not yet achieved, what is re-named or re-thought, and what, sometimes regrettably, is dropped or left undone in lectures and writings by Heidegger on the way to Sein und Zeit. . . . Indefatigably researched and richly nuanced."—Review of Metaphysics
"Nothing less than a mine of factual, historical, methodological, and philosophical materials previously unknown to the English-speaking world. . . . Kisiel's book cannot be praised too highly."—Choice
"[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 Thomä, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Provides to date the most authoritative and comprehensive account of the development of Heidegger's thought towards the 'failed project' of Sein und Zeit . . . . With a historian's eye for significant detail and a philosopher's sense of the basic issues, Kisiel deftly shows what is accomplished and what is not yet achieved, what is re-named or re-thought, and what, sometimes regrettably, is dropped or left undone in lectures and writings by Heidegger on the way to Sein und Zeit. . . . Indefatigably researched and richly nuanced."—Review of Metaphysics
"Nothing less than a mine of factual, historical, methodological, and philosophical materials previously unknown to the English-speaking world. . . . Kisiel's book cannot be praised too highly."—Choice
"A magisterial accomplishment that will be the standard in this field for years to come."—John D. Caputo, Villanova University
"Outstanding, entirely original, absolutely groundbreaking. . . . It is quite simply the best account to date—and the best we can expect for decades in the future—of the philosophical development of Heidegger's early thought."—Thomas Sheehan, Loyola University
"Outstanding, entirely original, absolutely groundbreaking. . . . It is quite simply the best account to date—and the best we can expect for decades in the future—of the philosophical development of Heidegger's early thought."—Thomas Sheehan, Loyola University
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