Being and Time (SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)

In 1996 I bought the John Macquarrie translation of 'Being and Time' by Martin Heidegger and have read it 76 times over the past 20 years. I bought the Joan Stambaugh translation because she translates the greek symbols into english for a better understanding of Heidegger. Back to the conversation. In the beginning I was reading 'Being and Time' as if it was a book and had an author (subject/object thinking). Somewhere around the 70th reading it came to me that there was no book, no printing on the page, and no author. There is no 'subject' (me) or 'object' (the book). The only thing present was me be-ing the conversation that I was already engaged in. Martin Heidegger did a masterful job of laying out the conversation so I didn't miss anything. Be-ing the conversation has allowed me to strip away enough presuppositions forced on me by the entanglement of the world (Heidegger calls it falling) and begin to recognize my own 'thinking'. In 'Being and Time' Heidegger mentions that there is discovering (un-covering) and covering (Covering Your A__ (CYA). 'Falling' into the world's entanglement is how we deny accountability, hide in the crowd, and choose mediocrity (the status quo). By participating in the conversation (reading 'Being and Time') multiple times over 20 years I have 'distanced' myself from the world's entanglement and 4 months after my 70th birthday I'm actually beginning to get a sense of who I am. If you're getting a sense of what I'm talking about then buy the book and engage in your own conversation. In 1996 I typed out the 387-page 'Being and Time', imported it into a Nook e-reader and read 'Being and Time' 76 times over 20 years. I suggest you do the same. However, I implore you to get a Kindle. The Kindle store has numerous books by Heidegger which you can download including 'Being and Time'. Because the Stambaugh translation does a better job of translating 'Being and Time' I would like to download it to my Kindle Oasis without having to type the book. However, the Stambaugh translation isn't available for Kindle yet. If you're reading this you are on the product page for the book. Could you scroll up (or down) to "Product Details" (on the left side of the page) and then look over to the right side of the page and find "Tell the Publisher!" and click on "I'd like to read this book on Kindle". Maybe, together we can make this happen

Certainly, there is substantial variation in motivation of readers to read Being and Time (1927) by Martin Heidegger. This variation can range from the lowly motivated, "Guess it might be nice to understand Heidegger,"to the highly motivated, "I must understand Heidegger, at all cost." Readers can also vary in their expertise in philosophy from those who are general readers to graduate students and professors of philosophy. I count myself among the latter spectrum, i.e., the highly motivated, although I'm not a professor of philosophy nor was I a graduate student in philosophy. Insofar as one is sufficiently primed to read Being and Time, this translation by Joan Stambaugh and Dennis J. Schmidt makes Heidegger especially accessible. My first attempt to read Being and Time ended in frustration and failure. So I obtained several seemingly more comprehensible books: "Introduction to Metaphysics," by Martin Heidegger (English version, 2000, Yale University Press); "Being-in-the-World," by Hubert L. Dreyfus (1991, MIT Press); and "Heidegger Explained," by Graham Harman (2007, Carus Publishing, Open Court). After studying the books mentioned above I obtained Being and Time in the current translation (Stambaugh/Schmidt). What a difference! Compared to my first attempt reading Being and Time the second time proceeded more smoothly and with greater comprehension. Preparing myself by reading the preparatory works mention above was well worth the effort. Being and Time is now highly accessible to this highly motivated reader. Whether one studies texts supplementary to Being and Time I suggest one method of reading Heidegger's treatise: simply plod along as best as one can. The temptation - at least for me - was to meditate on small bites of text trying to digest their meaning perfectly. This is a bad strategy in my opinion. Using this method, finishing Being and Time could take months. Instead simply move along at a slow but steady pace without worrying about perfect comprehension. This is because Heidegger repeats the major themes in Being and Time throughout the entire book. Perhaps think of reading Being and Time as climbing a steep, treacherous mountain. The highly motivated hiker encounters all sorts of difficulties along the way but keeps moving forward towards the summit. I recommend highly this translation of Being and Time.

To further my philosophical understanding and insight. Mind you, there is a lot of depth in this book, but the more one reads it the more it unfolds and provides light on his points on dasein and the nature it presents.

<[email protected]> I am Germanless, but in comparing this translation to MacQuarrie and Robinson I find 1)Stambaugh is easier to read with a free flow in her English which however at times leads to indefinieness; 2) Stambaugh will sometimes come to a more definite and clearer conclusion than M&R, but then sometimes the reverse; 3) Stambaugh has an excellent index organized much like M&R's with a few headings M&R does not have BUT it has NO German index as M&R has; 4) Stambaugh has the later marginal comments Heidegger made that M&R does not. However, sometimes M&R has a formulation that seems more precise and more like Heidegger than Stambaugh. M&R also has footnotes on the translation that are sometimes crucial to understanding what is going on in the main text. And it English index has a few headings not found in Stambaugh as well as having a German word index. Having BOTH translations, and being able to compare them, can be an emense help in understanding Heidegger.

The text is legible and well formatted but the cover is blurry, and it appears this is a reprint. Otherwise great.

Actually haven't read it yet because i got bogged down reading a very controversial book by his mistress and lover, Hannah Arendt, about banal nature of evil, most particularly in the person of Eichmann. The book was put together from a series of articles she had written covering Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. Apparently a good many in the Jewish community did not like her tone. I on the other hand, think it is a quite well written book that shows that people can be quite monstrous without looking so. This guys looks and acts like an ordinary shoe clerk who mistakenly wandered off the street into SS headquarters and without any particular animus against Jews, he insists, thought it looked like a fun place to work, better than selling shoes or whatever.

Heidegger is already fairly dense to begin with, but I think this translation does a great job. Personally, I found this particular translation significantly easier to read than the older Macquarrie/Robinson version. Additionally, the kindle Text-To-Speech function is extremely helpful. Reading really good philosophy always gave me a headache and made the going rather slow. But reading on my kindle, with the Text-To-Speech function in tandem, allows me to get through a heavy text like this in A SINGLE DAY!! I feel like a philosophical-cyborg. :P

I've given this a 5-star rating for two reasons: First, Being and Time is an important work, not only for understanding 20th century philosophy, but for understanding what it means to be human. Everyone ought to read this book, not just those interested in philosophy. Second, Stambaugh's translation, while not perfect, makes this work much more accessible than previous translations.

It is difficult to think of a modern philosopher who wrote as profoundly and originally as Heidegger. In my view Heidegger is the greatest philosopher since Kant, although Nietsche-ites and Wittgenstinians would no doubt disagree. "Being and Time", as anyone who knows anything about philosophy should know, is his magnum opus. He wrote many other works in his long career (mostly lecture transcriptions), but they can all without exception be traced back to concepts originally set out in Being and Time. Despite that and rather strangley, Being and Time is not the place to start a study of Heidegger. His writing is so idiosyncratic that you really must get used to his language first before diving in to this huge work - otherwise you are likely to give up within the first 100 pages, which is unforgiveable. Start instead with the useful "Introducing Heidegger" (ISBN: 1840460881) or the well-written "Heidegger: a beginner's guide" (ISBN: 034080324X). Then progress to the excellent collection of Heidegger's writings in "Basic Writings" (ISBN: 0415101611). Only then would I recommend diving into Being and Time. So what is the significance of Being and Time? To me, its importance lies in its questioning of the premises which the rest of philosophy since Plato has taken for granted. What is the nature of human existence? What does it mean to 'be'? But not only does Heidegger ask these questions, but he provides highly original answers too. And bizarrely - although his language is abstruse and difficult - what he has to say fits remarkably well with common sense. We do not exist as isolated, abstract 'individuals' prior to our introduction to society. Instead we exist as beings situated in a societal context, with hopes, aspirations, regrets and relationships with other people and things. Over the course of 250 or so dense pages, Heidegger systematically deconstructs (yes, he invited deconstruction long before Derrida) the concept of what it is to be an individual that has lain beneath 2000 years of philosophizing, including Descarte's 'cogito ergo sum' principle which provided the foundation for Enlightenment ontology. Then, in the last 150 pages he moves on to the concept of time, again demolishing accepted views in order to gain a more 'primordial' understanding of what it means to be a human being living through a series of 'Moments'. As the blurb to this book says, Being and Time has had a huge influence on fields well beyond philosophy. In particular, his ideas about what it means to live 'authentically' have provided rich pickings for psychology. Discerning readers will also notice resonances with some Eastern philosophical traditions (Taoism and Buddhism in particular), and this particularly interesting line of analysis has been pursued in a number of recent books (see ISBN: 1565181190 and ISBN: 0415140382). In summary - make time for this towering work. You are unlikely to ever read a more profound piece of extended philosophical writing.

Really even to know what some other people are talking about you should read this. If you liked Doctor Who when it was philosophical, before the 90s. Hint you will get the name better on Being in and Stuff....Ch 5. Paragraph 2. I got this copy for my God Daughter, my copy is out of print and it is a fabulous book. Many are, but no book shelf is complete without this. I'll let you decide on the merits of the philosophy when you read it.

There is nothing to dislike. It's an amazing book

Awesome read

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