Being and Time

⚖The case for it

What does it mean to be? Not 'What exists?' but 'What is Being itself?' Heidegger's analysis of Dasein (being-there, thrown into a world, anxious before death, lost in the They) is the most original ontology since Aristotle. The language is notoriously difficult; Heidegger invented half his vocabulary. But his account of being-toward-death as the condition of genuine living is permanently important.

— the canon

✕The case against

Heidegger published half a book; the promised second part never appeared. The half that exists coins a private vocabulary (Dasein, the They, ready-to-hand) that you learn like a foreign language, then circles its own ground twice. And six years after writing it, the philosopher of authenticity joined the Nazi Party, a fact the book cannot be fully quarantined from.

— the honest librarian