Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Martin Heidegger: Paths Taken, Paths Opened (20th Century Political Thinkers)

Since the publication of Victor Fariass Heidegger and Nazism, the discussion about the political significance of Martin Heideggers thinking has been distorted. Because of his association with the Third Reich, some have dismissed Heidegger out of hand while others have sought to explain away certain connections. What is often lost in the writing of critics and advocates alike is an honest assessment of Heidegger as a political thinker and a frank interest in understanding his work. Martin Heidegger: Paths Taken, Paths Opened takes Heideggers philosophy on its own terms and explores the pivotal significance of his phenomenology for political theory. Heidegger opposed, at the deepest level, everything that informs the global, technological civilization that seems to be the fate of humanity. Yet even in the liberal and technologically oriented West we cannot proceed without a confrontation with his thought. In this timely addition to the 20th Century Political Thinkers series, Gregory Bruce Smith shows Heideggers thought to be an inescapable challenge to our current ethical habits and contemporary political institutions. In this path-breaking work, Smith establishes the centrality of Heideggers thought, even to those who would claim to be his most ardent critics. Smith also addresses difficult interpretative questions regarding the relationship of Heideggers early and later work and the status of political ideas with respect to Heideggers phenomenological project. A work of broad interpretative breadth and keen political insight, Martin Heidegger: Paths Taken, Paths Opened establishes the undeniable importance of Heideggers thought for the future of the tradition of political philosophy.