Being and Time

Philosophy

First published: 1927
Print length: 512 pagesState University of New York Press, 2010

Description

Martin Heidegger begins with a question philosophy has allowed to become obscure: what does it mean for something to be? He approaches that problem through Dasein, the human mode of being defined not as an isolated mind but as existence already involved in a world. After an extensive introduction, the book examines the structures of everyday life and then relates Dasein to temporality. Public opinion and mass society encourage people to lose themselves in anonymous expectations, while authenticity requires confronting one’s own finite possibilities. The argument recasts familiar experiences as clues to the meaning of Being, asking readers to reconsider how time, individuality, social life, and mortality shape the very horizon within which anything can appear meaningful.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Academic · Dense · Technical

Pace

Slow

Tone

Cerebral · Earnest · Philosophical

Structure

Argumentative

Focus

Argument · Ideas

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 5 / 5
Ideas: 5 / 5
Structure: 5 / 5
Background knowledge: 5 / 5

Themes

CommunityFreedomIdentityKnowledge and truthMortalityOppression

About Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher whose work shaped phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism, with a broad influence across the humanities, social sciences, and theology. His central concern was the “question of being”: what allows anything to become intelligible as the kind of thing it is. In Being and Time, he pursued this inquiry through Dasein, his term for human existence understood not as an isolated mind but as already involved in a world. Heidegger’s characteristic method combines close description with the interpretive recovery of questions that, in his view, the philosophical tradition had obscured. His readings of Presocratic thought and Kant revisit the foundations of metaphysics, while The Question Concerning Technology extends the same approach to modern life, asking how technology determines what appears real or valuable. Dense, technical, and at times poetic, his writing repeatedly unsettles familiar concepts by tracing the assumptions beneath them.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: State University of New York Press
Language: English
ISBN: 9781438432755, 9781438432762

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