Country Path Conversations
ISBN: 9780253004390
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Indiana University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Imaginary conversations.; Philosophy.;

The philosopher's meditations on nature, technology, and evil, written in the final years of WWII, presented in "clear and highly readable translation" ( Philosophy in Review ).

First published in German in 1995, volume 77 of Heidegger's Complete Works consists of three imaginary conversations written as World War II was coming to an end. Composed at a crucial moment in history and in Heidegger's own thinking, these conversations present meditations on science and technology; the devastation of nature, World War II, and the nature of evil.

Heidegger also delves into the possibility of release from representational thinking into a more authentic relation with being and the world. The first conversation involves a scientist, a scholar, and a guide walking together on a country path; the second takes place between a teacher and a tower-warden, and the third features a younger man and an older man in a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia, where Heidegger's two sons were missing in action.

Unique because of their conversational style, this lucid and precise translation of these texts offers insight into the issues that engaged Heidegger's wartime and postwar thinking.

Martin Heidegger was born in Messkirch, Baden, Germany on September 22, 1889. He studied Roman Catholic theology and philosophy at the University of Frieburg before joining the faculty at Frieburg as a teacher in 1915. Eight years later Heidegger took a teaching position at Marburg. He taught there until 1928 and then went back to Frieburg as a professor of philosophy.

As a philosopher, Heidegger developed existential phenomenology. He is still widely regarded as one of the most original philosophers of the 20th century. Influenced by other philosophers of his time, Heidegger wrote the book, Being in Time, in 1927. In this work, which is considered one of the most important philosophical works of our time, Heidegger asks and answers the question "What is it, to be?" Other books written by Heidegger include Basic Writings, a collection of Heidegger's most popular writings; Nietzsche, an inquiry into the central issues of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy; On the Way to Language, Heidegger's central ideas on the origin, nature and significance of language; and What is Called Thinking, a systematic presentation of Heidegger's later philosophy.

Since the 1960s, Heidegger's influence has spread beyond continental Europe and into a number of English-speaking countries. Heidegger died in Messkirch on May 26, 1976.

(Bowker Author Biography)


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