Martin Heidegger

"Heidegger" redirects here. For other uses, see Heidegger (disambiguation).

Martin Heidegger
Heidegger in 1960
Born26 September 1889
Meßkirch, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire
Died26 May 1976(1976-05-26) (aged 86)
Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg,
West Germany[1][2]
EducationCollegium Borromaeum [de]
(1909–1911)
University of Freiburg
(PhD, 1914; Dr. phil. hab. 1916)
SpouseElfride Petri (m. 1917)
Partner(s)Elisabeth Blochmann (1918–1969)
Hannah Arendt (1924–1928)
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolContinental philosophy
Existentialism
Hermeneutics
Phenomenology
InstitutionsUniversity of Marburg
University of Freiburg
Theses
Doctoral advisorArthur Schneider (PhD advisor)
Heinrich Rickert (Dr. phil. hab. advisor)
Main interests
Political partyNazi Party (1933–1945)
Signature

Martin Heidegger (/ˈhaɪdɛɡər, ˈhaɪdɪɡər/;[3] German: [ˈmaʁtiːn ˈhaɪdɛɡɐ];[3] 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a wide range of topics including ontology, technology, art, metaphysics, humanism, language and history of philosophy. He is often considered to be among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century, specially in the continental tradition.

In April 1933, Heidegger was elected as rector at the University of Freiburg and was widely criticized for his membership and support for the Nazi Party during his tenure. After World War II he was dismissed from Freiburg and banned from teaching after denazification hearings at Freiburg. There has been controversy about the relationship between his philosophy and Nazism.

In Heidegger's first major text, Being and Time (1927), Dasein is introduced as a term for the type of being that humans possess. Heidegger believed that Dasein already has a "pre-ontological" and concrete understanding that shapes how it lives, which he analyzed in terms of the unitary structure of "being-in-the-world". Heidegger used this analysis to approach the question of the meaning of being; that is, the question of how entities appear as the specific entities they are. In other words, Heidegger's governing "question of being" is concerned with what makes beings intelligible as beings.

  1. ^ "Martin Heidegger". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 12 October 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
  2. ^ "Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) - Universitätbibliothek Freiburg". University Library Freiburg. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
  3. ^ a b Wells 2008.