Bloomsbury Heidegger and Authenticity: From Resoluteness to Releasement: 21 (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)

About the Author Mahon O'Brien is Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Sussex, UK. He is also the author of Heidegger and Authenticity: From Resoluteness to Releasement (Continuum, 2011). Product Description Arguing for the thematic and structural unity in Heideggers thought from Being and Time right through to the later writings, this book focuses on the summons to authenticity; labeling the move as the key to identifying recurring patterns and themes in Heideggers protracted confrontation with modernity. Heidegger's thinking in the decades following the publication of Being and Time is often deemed irreconcilable with that work. Critics contrast the notion of resoluteness. in Being and Time with Heideggers post-war account of releasement in an attempt to establish a discrepancy between the allegedly voluntarist humanism of his early work and the supposedly anti-humanist thinking of his later work. By contrast, Mahon O Brien argues for the structural and thematic coherence of Heidegger's movement from authenticity to the search for an authentic free relation to the world as captured by the term releasement. By demonstrating the structural and thematic unity of Heidegger s thought in its entirety, O Brien paves the way for a more measured and philosophically grounded understanding of the issues at stake in the Heidegger controversy. Review "An original look at one of the most discussed concepts of Heideggers thought - and an interesting interpretation of the consistency of this thought."--Sanford LakoffMahon O'Brien's volume mounts a stirring defense of the fundamental continuity of Heidegger's thinking, centered in the concept of authenticity. Without discounting the evolving nature of Heidegger's thinking or ignoring l'affaire Heidegger, O'Brien demonstrates the constancy of Heidegger's summons to human beings to move beyond the constraints of anthropocentric metaphysics and relate authentically to things, letting them be. Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Chair, Professor of Philosophy, Boston University, USA--Sanford LakoffMahon O'Brien's Heidegger and Authenticity: From Resoluteness to Releasement represents an important contribution to Heidegger studies. By treating the question of authenticity as a central theme throughout Heidegger's work, O'Brien offers a compelling interpretation of Heidegger's thought as a continuous whole. O'Brien's careful readings will challenge the view that there is a radical break in Heidegger's development between the supposed metaphysical voluntarism lingering in early writings such as Being and Time and the putative new departure into releasement in the later period. Gregory Fried, Suffolk University, Boston, USA--Sanford Lakoff