Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks)

I bought this book as a guide to Heidegger's "Being and Time", which most people acknowledge is a difficult book to understand. I found Muhall's book heavy going - He seems to get bogged down in details. It may be that Mulhall's book is intended for professional philosophers.I subsequently obtained a copy of "A Commentary on Heidegger's "Being and Time"" by Michael Gelven (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Commentary-Heideggers-Being-Time/dp/0875805442/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358053914&sr=1-1), which is a much clearer guide for the intelligent lay-person. It is, unfortunately, not available in a Kindle edition at present.

Very useful book, highly recommended if you are struggling with Heidegger

I wanted to read this Routledge Philosophy Guidebook for a number of reasons including trying to determine whether I want to commitment myself to the effort of reading Being and Time (B&T) itself. Most people who are thinking of reading B&T will be aware of concerns over Heidegger’s work including charges of charlatanism and as such it is worth reading an introductory book like this to help get a grip on Heidegger’s thought and see how far you are willing to go with it.One key point here is the choice of introductory book. I chose this one on the basis that it was widely available and not too long (around 200 pages), however the introduction does point out that there are other translations of B&T (i.e. the Stambaugh translation  Being and Time: A Revised Edition of the Stambaugh Translation (SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy) ). ). most secondary texts to B&T including this one align themselves with the John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson translation published by Blackwell ( Being and Time ) (which seems to have established itself as the “industry standard”) translation. The point is that if you are tempted to read the Stambaugh translation (I am) you will probably be better off reading a companion text designed to work with that translation, Magda King’s book ( A Guide to Heidegger's Being and Time (Suny Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy) ) might be worth looking at in this respect, but at 400 pages it represents a much bigger commitment to read. As for choosing between translations of B&T I recommend doing your own research and allowing yourself to be guided by your own aspirations in reading B&T.In terms of the qualities of Mulhall’s book I would say that it is well structured to mirror B&T itself and for this reason it is an ideal companion text as you can read it as a stand-alone book (as I have) and read it in conjunction with B&T itself using it to put the sections of B&T you have just read into context. That said I did note that in chapters 5 to 8 relating to part 2 of B&T the were lots of references to “ecstasis” this term is not explained at all which is a real issue as the use of ecstasies in Heidegger’s work does not conform to any other definition of the word I have found, i.e. it forms parts of a specific Heideggerian lexicon. I did find information online to help explain this term but it is conspicuously missing from Mulhall’s book. In the first 4 chapters however Mulhall does a good job at selling Heideggerian thought. he present’s its best qualities i.e. the novel approach and the relevance of the question Heidegger is investigating; but Mulhall is lacking a certain ability to convince, this however is in essence an issue with Heidegger’s work in general. I am afraid I just cannot follow Mulhall and Heidegger along a path that asserts that my state of mind (my mood) says something objective about the world. More fundamentally however I just remain unconvinced by the argument that by considering things in terms of their “readiness-to-hand” opens the window to engaging with objects in a way that allows me to engage with their Being. At times Mulhall’s writing draws me in but at other times I am just left doubting and considering if the approach towards experiencing the Bing of things is in fact just simply facile. This might all seem quite damming, but I have got out of the book what I was looking for i.e. I am getting a better idea of whether I want to commit to reading B&T itself and I haven’t given up on the idea just yet. Personally my next step is to watch the Hurbert Dreyfus lectures of B&T on you tube (28 videos in total) it certainly looks like a compressive lecture course by one of the experts in the field and I would recommend others coming to B&T for the first time to check these out as a study aid.

This is an excellent introduction to Heidegger. It does not assume a degree in philosophy at the same time as it does attempt to over-simplify the complexities of Heideeger's thinking. Made me glad I was exploring Being and Time, Heidegger's most famous work