“How many scholarly stakes in the heart will we need before Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), still regarded by some as Germany’s greatest 20th-century philosopher, reaches his final resting place as a prolific, provincial Nazi hack? Overrated in his prime, bizarrely venerated by acolytes even now, the pretentious old Black Forest babbler makes one wonder whether there’s a university-press equivalent of wolfsbane, guaranteed to keep philosophical frauds at a distance.” (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Heidegger’s “Being and Time” was a required full semester course as an undergraduate English major. I dutifully read his florid, murky drivel for hours on end. However, I was profoundly influenced by his ideas on “authenticity” and whether a person’s thought can be classified as authentic without benefit of full social and cultural isolation. When is a person acting purely on inner awareness and intent? Is it necessary to adopt sensory deprivation in order to not be reactive in some manner that is not wholly authentic? Or is it purely Heidegger’s impoverished social status which formed in the boy and young man a need for isolation in order to think for oneself?
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