Martin Heidegger

The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [EP audiobook]

This is the third chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Three: The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [mp3] [YouTube] [50 minutes] Heidegger’s synthesis of the Continental tradition [mp3] [YouTube] Setting aside reason and logic [mp3] [YouTube] Emotions as revelatory [mp3] [YouTube] Heidegger and postmodernism [mp3] [YouTube]

The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [EP audiobook] Read More »

Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?”

This week in Contemporary European Philosophy we are reading Martin Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” In this recent survey (dominated by philosophers from the English-speaking world), Heidegger ranks as the 18th most-identified-with non-living philosopher. “What Is Metaphysics?” was first delivered in 1929 as Heidegger’s inaugural lecture at the University of Freiburg. Here is my summary of

Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” Read More »

Cyberseminar on postmodernism — update

Prompted by Eduardo Marty’s link to this discussion of postmodernism and libertarianism, here are updated links to my 1999 cyberseminar on The Continental Origins of Postmodernism, conducted while I was on sabbatical and Scholar-in-Residence at the Atlas Society. Abstract for the course: For this 1999 online seminar “The Continental Origins of Postmodernism,” TAS Director of

Cyberseminar on postmodernism — update Read More »

Warby reviews Nietzsche and the Nazis

Australia’s Lorenzo Warby’s review of my Nietzsche and the Nazis. Intriguing sideways connection to Heidegger and militarism: Warby also reviews Brian Daizen Victoria’s Zen at War, “a study of how Zen Buddhism became deeply complicit in Japanese militarism,” just as Heidegger’s mystically-charged writings became complicit in German militarism. Warby there points to this piece by

Warby reviews Nietzsche and the Nazis Read More »

Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School [EP]

[This excerpt is from Chapter 5 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Marcuse and the Frankfurt School: Marx plus Freud, or oppression plus repression Marcuse had long labored in the trenches of academic philosophy and social theory before coming to fame in America in the 1960s. He studied philosophy at Freiburg

Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School [EP] Read More »

Heidegger and postmodernism [EP]

[This excerpt is from Chapter 3 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Heidegger’s synthesis of the Continental tradition Martin Heidegger took Hegelian philosophy and gave it a personal, phenomenological twist. Heidegger is notorious for the obscurity of his prose and for his actions and inactions on behalf of the National Socialists

Heidegger and postmodernism [EP] Read More »