I confess, I've never cared for Heidegger. I open up Being and Time and Im suddenly confronted with pages and pages of pompous and turgid prose, with a maze of terminology. I closed it--and have tried twice now-- after the first fifty (although I was up to almost 75 this time) pages. I'm sympathetic to his basic ideas, but I just dont care. And I also am a bit put off by the followers of Heidegger, and their works. And Ive noticed many here (posters I greatly respect) seem to take his ideas as sancrosanct and mimic his style. Now, I'm not a philosopher, and Im sure I would do quite poorly as a philosophy student in graduate school, so perhaps this conditions my distaste.
Then I opened Poetry, Language, and Thought, and loved it.
So I'm left in quite a conundrum: I enjoy his ideas, but not his philosophical writing; I find almost all of his philosophizing terribly pompous and drawn out, yet it still interests me; I dont wish to read his works, but I'll probably try again. I still think however, that Heidegger, like all philosophers, should be taken with a grain of salt.
Then I opened Poetry, Language, and Thought, and loved it.
So I'm left in quite a conundrum: I enjoy his ideas, but not his philosophical writing; I find almost all of his philosophizing terribly pompous and drawn out, yet it still interests me; I dont wish to read his works, but I'll probably try again. I still think however, that Heidegger, like all philosophers, should be taken with a grain of salt.