[(Heidegger for Beginners )] [Author: Eric C. Lemay] [Aug-2007]

Writers & Readers Documentary Comic Book #47

by Eric LeMay

The ideas of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger have been described as an intellectual time bomb, as some of the most revolutionary thought in western history. Despite the enormous amount of secondary scholarship available on Heidegger, it is–due to the complexity of his thought and the density of his writing–difficult for the curious beginner to gain an insight into Heidegger’s philosophy. Heidegger For Beginners serves as an entry into the ideas of one of the 20th century’s most important thinkers, situating Heidegger’s thought within its philosophical and historical context–alongside such thinkers as Plato, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl and Sartre. Heidegger For Beginners explicates many of Heidegger’s central ideas, including the Nothing, average everydayness, care, existence, be-in-the-world, the One, the critique of technology, anxiety, and most importantly, Being–a notion which may offer us the key to understanding the very mystery of our own existence.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels, Biography

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Hi there and thanks for visiting my goodreads profile. I'm a writer working in the foothills of Appalachia, Ohio.

I've got a new collection of essays coming out. It's called In Praise of Nothing. If you'd like to take a look, you can download an excerpt here.

There's also a multimedia version of the book with audio and video content. You can find a sample of that material at the book's website, which includes three "playable" essays based on some familiar games:

http://www.inpraiseofnothing.org

Feel free to get in touch. It's a quirky collection, and I'd welcome your thoughts.

Reviews

[Sanjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A descent introduction to an abstruse thinker.

[Gabriel Baquero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to Heidegger! For the first time in my life, I feel as if I can finally read some Heidegger without being totally confused.

[Amanatia Junda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Membaca sebuah buku ilustrasi tentang Filsafat dan ditambahi dengan embel embel Untuk Pemula, bukan berarti pembaca dapat asal asalan membacanya. Bagaimanapun, masih dibutuhkan konsentrasi penuh dan keheningan suasana saat saya harus mencerna lembar per lembar buku Heidegger untuk Pemula.

Buku yang saya baca merupakan versi terjemahan dan diterbitkan oleh Kanisius. Kebetulan saya tengah mengoleksiseri Filsafat untuk Pemula. Ada Lacan, Saussure, dan Sartre yang belum saya baca sampai tuntas. Akhirnya, malam ini pun saya beritikad menyelesaikan Heidegger terlebih dahulu, dengan menimbang nimbang urutan masa hidup antar per tokoh.

Tapi ternyata, Heidegger adalah filsuf abad 20, cukup muda, dan mungkin sejajar masanya dengan Sartre. Sejujurnya, ekspektasi saya tidak terlalu tinggi saat memulai membaca Heidegger. Meski dengan ilustrasi dan gaya penyajian yang menarik, pengalaman saya mengingatkan bahwa buku seri lainnya cukup susah dipahami, terjemahan tidak begitu oke, dan terlebih tema berat disampaikan masih terasa berat.

Namun, alangkah terkejutnya saya saat mendapati saya begitu mudah menyerap pola pemikiran Heidegger. Ilustrasi dan kalimat kalimat penjelas berpadu dengan takaran yang pas. Bahkan kalau diingat ingat, buku seri Filsafat Heidegger inilah yang paling merasuk di otak saya ketimbang seri yang lain.

Pertama, buku ini tidak serta merta mengisahkan kehidupan Heidegger sejak lahir atau muda. Justru pembaca harus berangkat kembali ke zaman Yunani Kuno, menyegarkan ingatan tentang filsuf filsuf pendahulu. Awalnya saya sempat kurang antusias karena merasa bertele tele, namun ternyata fungsi flash back sejarah Filsafat sangatlah krusial untuk landasan kritik Heidegger setelahnya.

Konsep Heiddeger tentang eksistensi ternyata sangat sederhana, dengan entitas dan kesatuan yang melingkupi sebuah eksistensi makro. Penulis buku ini benar benar melihat hampir semua kebaikan dari konsep filsafat Heidegger. Saya pun sering terhanyut dan menemui banyak fakta yang berhubungan dengan bacaan dan diskusi saya akhir akhir ini. Tentang memandang teknologi dan estetika.

Sayangnya, niat mulia penulis harus tergerogoti oleh halaman terakhir. Ada penjelasan yang mana Heidegger dijelaskan sebagai pendukung Nazi. Ada alibi kuat mengapa Heidegger menjadi Nazi, dan mau tak mau saya juga cukup menyetujui alibi dan kritikan orang orang terhadap Heidegger.

Well, yang paling mengganggu adalah halaman tambahan dari kutipan kutipan asli Heidegger yang jelas merusak kesederhanaan narasi di awal. Dari bahasa jerman saja sudah rumit untuk menjelaskan filsafat, lalu ditambah pula proses menerjemahkan, jadilah pembaca semakin bingung. Kemubadziran ini karena narasi awal sudah sangat jelas membantu pembaca untuk memahami filsafat eksistensialisme Heiddeger.

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

The genre of comic-book style intros to weighty intellectual topics can lead to good results. In this case, maybe not. In light of emerging demands for trigger-warnings and safe-spaces on college campuses, the style of this entry on Heidegger now appears to foreshadow that infantilizing approach. Heidegger here is misrepresented as if a 1960s Tim Leary type guru to the Boomer-gen flower children behind the New Left.

[Thomas O'Toole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most important thing about this book is that I stole it from a church library. To me, anyhow. The second most important thing is that, a few weeks after I stole it, I sat in that same church a few feet from a worshipping Robert Mueller, which forced me to consider the wide character gap between myself and the aforementioned Robert Mueller. He never would have stolen a book from a church library. I know that. Lucky for me the book is about Martin Heidegger (a Nazi) and not, for example, a decent guy like Thomas Aquinas. That would have been tough. Anyhow, this book is either for someone who sincerely wants to know about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger but is too lazy to read books written by Martin Heidegger (a small market, I'd venture) or somebody who wants to pretend he knows something about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger with as little investment of effort as possible. This book has large type accompanied by cartoons, and it doesn't make a huge demand on the reader's intelligence. Sort of like a Trump intelligence briefing, only with fewer mentions of Donald Trump. The part of the book that stuck with me was the discussion of Heidegger's views of "technology" -- by which he meant everything that wasn't a human being. He thought that earlier philosophers -- particularly Christian philosophers -- went wrong by believing that humans were the center of universe and everything put there should be considered from the perspective of whether it was useful or not for human beings. He's got a point. The idea that everything is here for us to exploit has been a destructive notion. If the bible had said, "Hey, don't roast the planet or kill off all the other species, God likes them too" we all probably would be better off. Heidegger also had some interesting ideas about how we can acquire a better understanding of reality through everyday experience (as opposed to, say, reading books about reality). If you're somebody who wants a very loose understanding of what Martin Heidegger believed, without investing too much time and effort, this is the book for you. Sadly, the book did not contain a facetious defense of theft (e.g., No just law can restrain man's desire for knowledge!) or a lawyerly argument that it's not really theft if I never intended to steal the book and was, in fact, ready to return the book but the library was being used for a church lady meeting of seemingly interminable duration. I'll take it back when this covid stuff ends. I promise.

[Ged · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love phenomenology and this made me love Heidegger. So of course I’m biased to this book.

Although the concepts discussed here are seemingly simple, I suspect as with Husserl’s phenomenology that they are just deceptively so. And to fully extrapolate the profundity of Heidegger’s ideas, one necessarily has to go beyond the basic introduction this book provides.

But, as something that introduces the reader to Heidegger’s basic terms and concepts, I think this book explains them in a fun and easy way to understand.

Nevertheless, I do think we can still see hints of Heidegger’s profundity in this book, which we can glean from one of its examples.

In opposition to viewing things solely by their utility, Heidegger would instead look to art as to how it views things in our world.

To Heidegger, Vincent Van Gogh’s “A Pair of Shoes” doesn’t simply view a shoe as a thing to be used for walking or to be measured and sold. Instead, the painting reveals the shoe’s relation to everything else:

“Someone walks for miles in these shoes every day, and comes home exhausted in them at night. Someone lives and works in them, and every scratch and tatter is an evidence of someone’s whole existence, the entire world of a peasant farmer.”

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series of books are quite good for providing clarity for extremely abstract philosophy or for summarizing those philosophers with a dense body of work. They also include well-composed bibliographies if one is looking for source material for academic work or further reading. The illustrations are engaging. In spite of all of this, I rated Heidegger for Beginners three stars ("liked it") because I just didn't fall in love with it. Maybe because Heidegger supported Hitler or perhaps because he is foundational to later deconstructionist philosophers that have excited my imagination a little more? I dunno. I hope if you pick up this book you enjoy it at least as well as I did.

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A funny little comic book introduction to Heidegger I've had on my shelf since I was 13 but never read. I'm not sure how accurate the work is in its exposition as I've just barely scratched the surface of Heidegger myself. Still, a funny little book. I've always been fond of the cartoon exposition format.

[A13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Короткая и действительно полезная книжка про философию Хайдеггера, фактически комикс, а не связный текст. Между делом и про историю философии, важные понятия и имена, развитие и состояние идей. Мне, как полному профану в этой области, все показалось очень интересным и легкоусвояемым, особенно почему-то Сартр.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read through this fun cartoony book in an hour or two and loved it. It’s surely missing a lot, but it provides a basic understanding of Heidegger’s concepts which I envision providing a framework for me to delve into his works without scratching my head so much. I see this as the equivalent of sitting through an engaging lecture or two. Worth checking out for some of the awesome drawings alone.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divertido scrolling sobre el místico nazi lleno de reproches. Ir contra el olvido del ser, buscar el lenguaje original, conseguir la autenticidad, todo muy poético y bondadoso, pero ¿qué pasa con la política? LeMay & Pitts llevan muy bien el scrolling hacia esa inescapable continuidad entre Heidegger y el nazismo.

[Vicente Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a very concise introduction that prepares the reader to into reading the actual work of Heidegger. After reading it I bought and started reading Being and Time and makes much sense after having read this introduction.

It is fully illustrated as a comic, you can read it in one afternoon.

[Beth Melillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the comic book style the book took. If this is the way of the series I would definitely read more. I was unfamiliar with Heidegger other than name, dates, Nazi-ism and phenomenology, so this was a readable, fun, introduction.

[Shey Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy funcional y precisos los datos.

[Rolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good insight into Heidegger, though not as approachable as it hopes to be.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was quite impressed. The art is dated, but it gives a good overview of a fascinating philosopher and gives sufficient acknowledgement of the bad stuff

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

What better place than a comic book can one picture the fantasy of Heidegger as a benevolent, smiling, kindly, grandfatherly man concerned about care for the whole race and authentic living? It was fun to escape reality of for a little while.

LeMay did mention Heidegger's bad characteristics. But there's really no controversy left, or dust to settle. He was not a good man. Either he didn't live by his own philosophy, or his philosophy is not one that I would choose to live by.

[Leonardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy interesante. Había algunas cosas que tenía oidas, y otras no tanto. Creo que valió la pena empezar por acá. Me sacó un poco las ganas de leer "ser y tiempo" porque debe ser realmente complicado, y debe ser mejor leerlo en alemán... bueno, habrá que ponerse a estudiar alemán en tal caso.

Me parece que es una buena introducción, incluso algo pesada, son muchos conceptos, no es un libro que se lleve fácil por más que sean cien páginas de dibujitos. Me gusta la cuestión esta de los libritos introductorios, hay muchos temas, no se puede leer todo (voy cayendo en la cuenta de eso) entonces estos libritos te ayudan a meterte en temas, pero sin la levedad que tiene un video de youtube, o un documental de canal encuentro (lejos de desmerecerlos, pero esto te permite detenerte, pensar, volver a leer... me parece que en ese ejercicio uno aprende más).

Hay cosas que no sé si es que no entendí o no estoy de acuerdo. Me parece que sigue habiendo un dualismo platónico detrás de esta cuestión del ser y el Ser. ¿no? Si alguno que me lee sabe más que yo que me explique por favor. Lo demás es bastante evidente (me llamó la atención leerlo justo después de "el hombre en busca de sentido" porque se complementan y tienen mucho en común, Viktor leyó a Martín seguramente, y en alemán suertudo. Además yo decía que quería leer algo más pro-nazi, bueno esto no es exactamente eso, pero por ahí anda, al menos en términos teóricos, me parece). Lo que digo que es bastante evidente es toda la cuestión de "Ellos" (¿el ello freudiano viene de acá?), el ser-ahí, el yo-en-el-mundo, el arrojo, la caída... bueno, todo el asunto.

[Ben Bush]

The pink highlighter in my library copy of this added heightened impact to important elements of this book. Heidegger's later fixation on Greek seemed a little strange to me: the idea that any one language would have a hold on the truth, but I suppose that if language is a part of how we create understanding than the language of those philosophers who Heidegger believed to have had a more authentic encounter with the world would be especially, um, authentic as well. There was a lot of interesting stuff in here and as someone who's fairly unfamiliar with philosophy it helped me to understand why the various highly particular terms were important. I love the term 'standing stock' to describe people and things as simply supplies to be used to an end. It made me think weirdly of Doseone's albums with the sextet Subtle where he deploys "the Not" or "the Great Nothing Much" as an entity not unlike Heidegger's nothingness. Dose also uses Corbusier's modular man as emblematic of the, as Heidegger would say, "technological" viewpoint. Dose, of course, self-describes as someone who doesn't read books and cites "The Never-Ending Story" as his inspiration. I This was my first time reading one of these comic book guides to philosophers and I would do it again. I can't wait to figure out what people are talking about when they mention Lacan because all that goes through my head is "Jacques lacan, Jacques Lacan" to the tune of that funk song that goes "Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan."

[Brad Kittle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had come across some youtube videos on Heidegger and wanted a greater understanding of what he believed. This booklet was really helpful to me, providing the booklet got it right. Everyone says Heidegger is a bit obtuse. I'm always fascinated by how philosophers can take certain things as fundamental or as "Ground" but don't apply this faith to God, who seems to me to be the best explanation for being the Being behind being (Dasein). I thought of the scripture in Acts 17 where Paul is trying to explain God to the philosophers in Athens; he states: "In Him we live and move and have our being." I've ordered a couple more books a long this line, one by Heidegger and one about Heidegger; for some reason, I want to understand his thought. F.Schaffer calls him a mystic because he (Heidegger) states that we can never know rationally what is there, but that language reveals that something is there. Man speaking becomes the mouth piece on what is there. This aspect of Heidegger's thought seems so close to biblical truth; but, of course, is not. The bible deals with a personal God, that created men in His image, thus with personality. God is there. He exist. He has being and we find our being in Him.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never taken a philosophy class, so my only real introduction to philosophy and philosophers has been through history class. Now, I'm taking History and Philosophy of Engineering Education. This class sometimes makes my brain hurt, but it really does have some very interesting readings. One of them referenced Heidegger heavily, and I came across this book at the local library book sale the next weekend, so of course I had to pick it up!

Honestly, I can't say how well this one describes his work, but it gives an excellent discussion of philosophers who came before to help the reader understand why and how Heidegger's ideas came about. I thought it was a pretty good introduction, though the one thing I think they didn't discuss well enough was the time period and contemporaries he was dealing with when forming his philosophies. Now I'm interested to know if there are other books in this series!

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed this introductory book. Heidegger traces the root of the world’s problems to Descartes (Ergo cogito sum) which he thinks is backward (Being versus Nothingness) because it places humanity above other beings in the world. Very much like Daniel Quinn. I liked the way Heidegger based his philosophy on the experience of everyday living. Another key ideas seems to be that life (being) has three modes: 1) undifferentiated – this is when you completely accept the culture into which you are born; 2) inauthentic – this is when you recognize your cultural influence is nothing but a coincidence and move outside of it, only to join another culture; and 3) authentic – this is when you step outside of your culture and take responsibility for your being and facing death as the end. A

[Richard]

While no expert on Heidegger, I have come across and bumped into Heidegger's philosophy over the years in the writings of others - most notably Paul Tillich. That said, I was impressed with Lemay and Pitts's introductory book. The authors do a fine job explaining the broad contours Heidegger's unique philosophy and the meaning of some of the philosopher's idiosyncratic terminology, e.g. Being, beings, Daisen, being-in-the-world, bestand, gestell. There is a useful bibliography of books by and about Heidegger included too. I definitely want to delve into Heidegger more and can imagine keeping this small book handy when that time comes.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

File under things you grab off a friend's shelf on a road trip.

Particularly helpful: the reminder of how confusingly Heidegger uses the word "technology", by which he means our human penchant to take the world as a gift and judge each inhabitant (tree, critter, rock...) not as an independent being but as stock, as a resource to exploit, as a thing that is important only and precisely because of the many ways it might benefit us: the converse of the interconnected web of all existence. "Technology" is a horrible word to choose to stamp this attitude, but I appreciate again his careful dissection of the attitude and its effects.

[Matty Boca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best intro to Heidegger I've read, and my favorite from this illustrated series. Great for just getting the basic ideas/vocab down before you drill down on heavier Heidegger.

On that note, I want to emphasize it's a great primer but isn't quite enough to really understand the meat of Dasein, Being, etc...

This helped me hop into the Cambridge Companion to Heidegger and some other essays on him.

[Printable Tire]

As so far I've only been able to make it to page 140 of Being and Time, this book should be useful if I ever decide to pick up where I left off. Assuming of course this is an accurate encapsulation. Was a quick and easy read and the illustrations helped to lighten the mood and illustrate difficult concepts in obvious ways.

[novia · Rating 5 out of 5]

made my world goes round,
literally.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was extremely helpful in getting the broad contours of Heidegger's philosophy.

[Luís Branco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good!

[Anirban Nanda]

Recommended as a primer to Heidegger.