Heidegger on Language and Death

Joachim L. Oberst teaches in the Program in Religious Studies and the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of New Mexico, USA.

• 1. Introduction: Death's Impact on Existence in and as Language; Part I: Subjectivity and Selfhood in Heidegger's Being and Time; 2. The Question of Authenticity and Inauthenticity Revisited; 3. The Concept of 'Authentic Mitsein' in Heidegger's Being and Time; 4. The Meaning of Heidegger's Concept of Death in Being and Time; Part II: The Existential Nature and Ontological Origin of Language According to Heidegger's Being and Time; 5. Martin Heidegger on the Origin of Language in Being and Time; 6. The Legacy of Herder in Heidegger's Language Origin Theory; 7. Birth of Language as Language of Death; Part III: Hegel, Benjamin and the Case for Heidegger's Linguistic Ontology; 8. Heidegger's Hegel: The Linguistic Awakening of Spirit in the Presence of Death; 9. Walter Benjamin: A Unacknowledged Predecessor of Martin Heidegger; 10. Conclusion: Heidegger's Parmenides.

"Joachim Oberst provides a profound and provocative elucidation of Heidegger's mysterious thinking about the relation between the origin of language and our experience of death. Anyone hoping to understand why so many great Judeo-Christian thinkers found themselves inspired by Heidegger's existential philosophy (and vice versa) will need to read this impressively erudite, deeply challenging, and yet resolutely edifying book." - Iain Thomson, University of New Mexico, USA