Heidegger's 'Being and Time': A Reader's Guide

by William Blattner

Continuum's Reader's Guides are clear, concise and accessible introductions to classic works of philosophy. Each book explores the major themes, historical and philosophical context and key passages of a major philosophical text, guiding the reader toward a thorough understanding of often demanding material. Ideal for undergraduate students, the guides provide an essential resource for anyone who needs to get to grips with a philosophical text.

Heidegger's Being and Time is one of the most influential and controversial philosophical treatises of the 20th century. It had a profound impact on Sartre and Merleau-Ponty in their further development of phenomenology and existentialism, hugely influenced Gadamer's hermeneutics, and paved the way, partly directly and partly indirectly through Heidegger's later thought, for the emergence of deconstructionism. In addition to being a very important text, it is also a very difficult one. Heidegger presents a number of challenges to the the reader, asking them to abandon many assumptions fundamental to traditional philosophy, such as the mind/body distinction and the concept of substance. The text also introduces a whole host of new concepts and terms and as such is a hugely challenging, yet fascinating, piece of philosophical writing.

In Heidegger's 'Being and Time': A Reader's Guide William Blattner explains the philosophical background against which the book was written and provides a clear and concise overview of the key themes and motifs. The book then examines this challenging text in details, guiding the reader to a clear understanding of Heidegger's work as a whole. Finally Blattner explores the reception and influence of the work and offers the student guidance on further reading. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential and challenging of texts.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, 21st Century

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2006

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not so much a reader's guide as an insightful companion to Being and Time, which is fine. What isn't so fine, for me, is that it barely touches on temporality (the crux of Division II). Blattner says that most readers don't get past section 66, so that's where he stops. Phooey!

The best advice I got on reading Heidegger was to "follow the phenomenon," and Blattner offers several examples to help the reader do just that. He doesn't follow the structure of B&T precisely, choosing to explain some things in an order different than they occur in B&T, so some independence is expected in the reader. He also interprets a few things that ought to be critically received, such as interpreting anxiety as "depression." This may be a defensible reading, but it certainly isn't the only one (or the best one, in my opinion.) At times the book reads more as a critical essay than an introduction or "guide," which isn't bad, except that it is represented as being just that, a guide. In any case, this isn't Being and Time "Made Simple." There are no Cliff's Notes for Heidegger, kids.

It's a four-star book, but giving up on Division II was a real bummer.

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to go with 5 stars for this one. Now, you might be thinking; why would a reader's guide ever need five stars? Well, because the book itself is a absolutle failure. Not only does Blattner make sense of the parts that matters, but he also puts those into context. Interestingly, and at some level, hilariously, he also throws out large sections of the text. Since Heidegger planned to write two volumes, only ended up with one, and huge chunks of that are considered failed, this makes perfect sense. Battner instead spends his time on things you can't get out of the text, like differences between various translations, further material from other of Heidegger's work, and the reception and current relevence of the text. In short, I have to give it five stars because he cleaned up the absolute mess that Heidegger made.

[John Shillington · Rating 5 out of 5]

tl;dr Bill Blattner's guide to Being & Time is excellent: crisply written, engaging, clear and insightful. Highly recommended for anyone needing a warm, witty and wise mentor to help them navigate Being & Time. And who doesn't?

For just about anyone reading Heidegger's Being & Time (B&T), having a guide (in the sense of "someone discerning and knowledgeable") is pretty much essential. I started out on my own in 2007 and, before I got too far, I was fortunate enough to stumble onto Hubert Dreyfus's wonderful podcast of his Fall 2007 course covering division I of Being & Time:

https://archive.org/details/Philosoph...

By the time I started the Dreyfus course, I had already managed to finish the "Introduction" to B&T, albeit with great difficulty and little comprehension. Some of the first advice Dreyfus dispensed was, roughly, "Skip the Introduction. Heidegger wrote it after he was finished, and it's best to read it after you've read the rest of division I." Excellent advice, in retrospect. He also offered advice about which companion guides were best, and Blattner's guide was foremost among those recommendations. [Blattner is one of Dreyfus's former students.] At the time, I read bits and pieces of Blattner's guide, and liked them well enough, but I ended up focusing on Dreyfus's lectures and the text. The Dreyfus course only covered division I, though, and my reading of B&T petered out after the course finished.

Ten years later (2018), I *finally* picked up B&T again and managed to soldier my way through to the end (division II). I needed something to help me make sense of division II, which had left me feeling like I was hanging on by my fingernails at best, and completely lost much of the rest of the time. Here's what I found in the intro to Blattner's guide: "Both because it is unusual for students to venture that deep into Being & Time on their first reading, and because the account Heidegger offers is both highly obscure and almost certainly unsuccessful, I will not wade into chapters 4-6 of division II." Haha. That was disappointing, for about a microsecond, and then heartening: it introduced the possibility that I was not a *complete* fool. So I read through Blattner's guide from front to back and thoroughly enjoyed it. Blattner provides context, alternate readings and translations, examples and clarifications, and reasonable advice about which interpretations of Heidegger's (often obscure) terminology make the most sense.

Do I have a better understanding and appreciation of B&T, having read Blattner's guide? Absolutely. I recommend it without reservation to anyone making the difficult but deeply rewarding journey through division I (and the first half of division II) of Being & Time. And definitely check out the Dreyfus lectures: Dreyfus was a truly wonderful teacher.

[Haihai · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best guide ever read. better than any commentary I have read in my own language

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eminently readable guide to Heidegger's tome.

[Joelle Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joelle Reads Her Bookcase #66

A useful guide for introducing you to Being and Time, meant to be read before or together with Heidegger's work.

[Matt Person · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great references to modern day "phenomenon". Explained Heidegger's concepts at a more relatable level.

[Doug Dahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank god this book was ready-at-hand.

[Noone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely the best introduction and/or guide to Heidegger's Being and Time that I have come across. It seems that Blattner (who is strongly endorsed by Dreyfus) is obviously a genius of some kind. I really like the way text is organised in that it is not crudely cut up into explicitly distinct chapters. It feels more like, when reading the book, that the text, and the ideas in it, hang together as one amorphous whole, as does like Heidegger's Being and Time. He also uses great examples to get his points across.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who have a rough time with Macquarrie and Robinson's translation of Being and Time, Division 1, the best way to make Heidegger's argument ready-to-hand is reading this book and listening to the B and T lectures by Blattner's mentor Hubert Dreyfus, who has made them available for free online as a resolute master teacher should.

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Results/A...

[Yama · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best reader in the history of readers. PS Heidegger is incredibly confusing, daunting, and honestly poorly written despite his work on ontology being arguably the most important philosophy to come out of the 20th century.

[Alexander]

A very valuable guide. I highly recommend this to anyone tackling Heidegger's daunting text.

[Tblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be an invaluable companion to reading Being and Time. William Blattner was clear in his understanding of a not so clear Heidegger.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike many, I actually enjoy Heidegger.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does a fantastic job with Division I, but, as a student of Dreyfus, Blattner misses the importance of temporality and the entire second half of the book.

[Alastair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic aid to a seriously challenging read, this guide is somewhat let down by not covering any of the last 100 pages of Being and Time. Blattner explains the omission of course but given the guide is under 200 pages anyway I don't see that thirty extra pages on this section would do much harm. Plus I'm led to believe Blattner has lots of interesting views on temporality in Heidegger so it seems doubly odd he wouldn't want to shape first time reader's views with his, and point out some of the deficiencies in this contentious part of the book. Other than this omission, a great guide with lots of helpful phenomenological examples.