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piccoline's review
5.0
A delightful book. Harman is a lively and clear writer with a deep understanding of Heidegger. He's basically an enthusiastic friend who's walking alongside you, explaining how interesting he finds key elements of Heidegger's thought. As you would expect of a friend, he's upfront about his own perspective on this task, explains where his take is within the mainstream and also where he might be more toward the fringe. Also as you would expect from a friend, he does his best to strip away mystification and needless impenetrability.
Harman does not ignore nor excuse Heidegger's (massive) personal shortcomings, but rather speaks frankly about his faults. This was particularly helpful for me, as I've long resisted spending much time on such a pompous, proud, unapologetic, selfish fascist. (Yes, actual fascist. He was a Nazi, you know.) By showing awareness of this, and making no excuses for it, Harman avoids the sickening hero-worship of some so-called "Heideggerians" who've turned their hero into a sage or prophet, and must thus now try to argue that somehow he didn't really mean it when he talked about the "inner truth and greatness" of National Socialism.
In short, many thanks to Graham Harman for this wonderful introduction. If you're curious about Heidegger at all, this is an excellent place to start. (His "Further Reading" section at the end will point you to excellent places to continue, if you find you are still interested at the end of the book.)
Harman does not ignore nor excuse Heidegger's (massive) personal shortcomings, but rather speaks frankly about his faults. This was particularly helpful for me, as I've long resisted spending much time on such a pompous, proud, unapologetic, selfish fascist. (Yes, actual fascist. He was a Nazi, you know.) By showing awareness of this, and making no excuses for it, Harman avoids the sickening hero-worship of some so-called "Heideggerians" who've turned their hero into a sage or prophet, and must thus now try to argue that somehow he didn't really mean it when he talked about the "inner truth and greatness" of National Socialism.
In short, many thanks to Graham Harman for this wonderful introduction. If you're curious about Heidegger at all, this is an excellent place to start. (His "Further Reading" section at the end will point you to excellent places to continue, if you find you are still interested at the end of the book.)
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