Making Sense of Heidegger

Thomas Sheehan is professor of religious studies at Stanford University and professor emeritus of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. His many publications include Becoming Heidegger (2011) and translations of Heidegger's Logic: The Question of Truth (2010) and Husserl's Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology, and the Confronataion with Heidegger (1997).

• Frequently Cited German Texts and their English Translations / Foreword / 1. Introduction: Getting to the Topic / Part I: Aristotelian Beginnings / 2. Being in Aristotle / 3. Heidegger Beyond Aristotle / Part II: The Early Heidegger / 4. Phenomenology and the Formulation of the Question / 5. Ex-sistence as Openness / 6. Becoming Our Openness / Part III: The Later Heidegger / 7. Transition: From Being and Time to the Hidden Clearing / 8. Appropriation and the Turn / 9. The History of Being / 10. Conclusion: Critical Reflections / Appendices / Bibliographies / Index

This detailed, meticulous study addresses the confusion surrounding Heidegger scholarship. Cutting through all mysticism associated with the question of being, Sheehan uncovers the phenomenological bases of the 'early' and 'late' Heidegger, paying special attention to their Aristotelian heritage. Sheehan’s argument, at its core, is persuasive: he contends that the obsession with being has obscured the reality that the center of Heidegger’s entire project is the 'clearing,' wherein being takes place. Sheehan attaches a number of key Greek and Heideggerian terms to the idea of the clearing—for instance, the Logos that keeps it open or its becoming-one’s-own (Eigentum) in the event (Ereignis). The book is insightful not only as a contribution to Heidegger studies but also as a source of inroads into ancient Greek philosophy, informed by a new understanding of Heidegger's thought. Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty.