Philosopher · Contemporary
Martin Heidegger
1889–1976 · Phenomenology; the question of Being
Raised Catholic and once a Jesuit novice and seminarian; broke with “the system of Catholicism” in 1919, practiced a methodological atheism, and asked for a Catholic burial.
Being and Time re-opened the question of Being through the analysis of Dasein: being-in-the-world, care, anxiety, being-toward-death, authenticity and the fallen anonymity of “das Man.” The later Heidegger traced the history of Being's forgetting through “onto-theology” and technology, and awaited a god who might yet pass by; he joined the Nazi party in 1933 and never adequately repudiated it.
Why he matters: Rahner's Spirit in the World and Hearer of the Word, Edith Stein's critique in Finite and Eternal Being, Przywara, Balthasar, Jean-Luc Marion and John Caputo all engage him; his critique of “onto-theology” forces Catholic philosophy to say what it means by calling God ipsum esse subsistens.
Where to be careful
His separation of faith from philosophy (“Christian philosophy is a square circle”) tends to fideism and denies the harmony of Dei Filius ch. 4 and Fides et Ratio 43–48; his historicized truth and rejection of ethics as “values” leave no natural law (Veritatis Splendor); his Nazi engagement and the Black Notebooks are a grave matter the Church cannot pass over (Mit Brennender Sorge).
Reading
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Being and TimeMartin Heidegger · Division I at least; Division II for death, conscience and authenticity.
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Martin Heidegger's Existential PhilosophySt. Edith Stein · Her critique, appended to Finite and Eternal Being.
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Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming MetaphysicsJohn D. Caputo · Whether Thomas's esse escapes the charge of onto-theology.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each question the test asks.