Martin Heidegger was born on September 26th, 1889 in Messkirch, Germany and died 86 years later on May 26th, 1976 in Freiburg, Germany. He is considered to be one of the three most influential philosophers of the 20th century along with John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein. His monumental yet never finished 1927 book, Being and Time, (Sein and Zeit in German) reconsidered how to approach the subject of ontology—or what is the meaning of Being in its most general sense.
Early Childhood
Heidegger was the oldest son in a traditional Catholic family, and his father worked as a sexton in the local church. Immersed in a religious life and family found Heidegger being trained for the priesthood at a young age, and in 1903 he left for high school in Kronstantz, Germany on a scholarship from his church. Then in 1906 he moved to Freiburg to continue his studies.
Brentano’s Dissertation, and the Meaning of “Being”
Although his studies had been for the priesthood it was in 1907 that his life would change course dramatically and philosophy would take its roots as his primary field of study. He received a gift from a priest at the Trinity Church in Constance. The gift was a book that was the dissertation of another philosopher, Franz Brentano, and was entitled On the Manifold Meaning of Being according to Aristotle (1862). The dissertation, according to Brentano, sought “to solve difficulties experienced scholars [had] called insoluble”: determining the meaning of the word “Being” (Krell, 4).
University Studies at Freiburg
Not until 1909, though, did he enter the university after being dismissed as a Jesuit novice. His initial studies continued in theology, but in 1911 he finally broke ties with theology and began to take seriously studies in philosophy. He graduated in 1913 after being awarded a P.h.D. with a dissertation entitled The Doctrine of Judgement in Psychologism: A Critical-Positive Contribution to Logic (1913)
Life as a Professor
Heidegger was awarded his professorship in 1915 at Freiburg University after completing the necessary second dissertation for a teaching position. He early courses generally covered Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy.
In 1916 his way of thinking about and doing philosophy changed when he met a new faculty member: Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. By 1919 Heidegger’s lecture courses were famous throughout universities in Germany for his insight and interpretation of Aristotle’s texts. Students said he taught how to think, not just to learn.
He would lecture at Freiburg until 1923, act as assistant professor at Marburg from 1923-1928, and return to Freiburg in 1927 where he resigned in 1934 as rector of the University.
Being and Time, and the Question of “What is Being?”
Being and Time is unquestionably his most famous book, and perhaps the most influential of all philosophical inquiries in the West during the 20th century. The central question which pervades the book’s entirety concerns the meaning of “Being”. Simply put: “What does it mean for something to be?” “What is it to be?”
The question in Western philosophy is as old as Ancient Greek intellectualism. But Heidegger felt the question had forever been posed incorrectly because philosophers never understood what Heidegger would call the “ontological difference”: the difference between a “being” in particular and the meaning of “Being” in it most general sense. It was this fundamental mistake which Heidegger explored and critiqued on his way to a proper understanding of “Being”.
Nazi Involvement
As influential as he is, his writings are often met with reservation because of his May 1933 to January 1934 involvement with the Nazi Party.
References
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Martin Heidegger.
The Cambridge Guide To Heidegger, ed. Charles B. Guignon. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: 1993)
Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, 2nd edition, ed. David Krell. (Harper Collins: San Francisco: 1993) Biographical information taken from the introduction.
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