On My Own Publications

by Martin Heidegger

Throughout his life, Martin Heidegger commented on his own thinking. Reading and interpreting one's own writings were part of his working style, of the entirely self-critical orientation of the journey in the landscape of thought.

On My Own Publications (volume 82 of Heidegger's Complete Works) is the first English-language translation of the philosopher's notes and personal thoughts on works he published throughout his life.

Focusing on his fundamental works, Being and Time (1927), What is Metaphysics? (1929), and The Origin of the Work of Art (1935/36), On My Own Publications offers a rare look inside the mind of an influential thinker.

532 pages, Hardcover

Published February 4, 2025

About the author

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ten years after its publication and while in the middle of writing “Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event)” - Heidegger rereads “Being and Time” for the first time and considers its shortcomings and the most annoying public misrepresentations. For example - he realized that stating “Da-sein ek-sists” was a mistake and it generated the entire existential reading of the book and that he should have used “Da-sein in-sists” instead. Related to this, he directly acknowledges here that “Da-sein” cannot be translated in any common/metaphysical language at all; that is the concept is not intelligible outside his thinking. In fact the entire “Being and Time” project is denounced here as a transcendental-horizontal one and that should be replaced with an event-historical one in “Contributions” and afterwards; that is the understanding of Being is replaced by the happening of Beyng. More than half of this book is dedicated to “Being and Time”. The rest are his reflections on “What is metaphysics?”, “The origin of the work of art”, “Country path conversations”, and “Letter on humanism”. There is a lot of thinking and writing in here, but it is fragmentary and dispersed; thus it is difficult to say anything meaningful in a brief review.