Jason Powell, Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy: Life and the Last God (New York: Continuum, 2007), x + 155 Pps., $144.00.
Jason Powell has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Liverpool, UK, and is the author of Jacques Derrida: A Biography (2006). Using the Emad/Maly translation of Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy, which was published posthumously in 1989, this book is an attempt to guide the reader through Heidegger’s Contributions. Powell argues that Heidegger was sound in consistently demanding that his reader change their human being in order to accommodate the problem of ‘be-ing’, which is the a matter of actual living and existence as much as it is an apparently special philosophical question. The book’s ideal reader, Powell asserts, will be seeking to learn about Heidegger’s major work for the first time, attracted by the lure of answering the ‘meaning of life’, and a philosophical account of God (x).
Powell begins this book with an introduction that gives a brief account of what the terms be-ing, enowning and human being mean when Heidegger uses these terms, as well as the conditions surrounding the historical genesis of the book, which is probably the most beneficial chapter of Powell’s book. He contends that ‘be-ing’ for Heidegger means the experience of ‘being here’ now in the present life; as such, it is a general fact of our existence (2). Moreover, for Heidegger, the term ‘enowning’ describes an event in which be-ing makes us its own in the moment of insight (7). The introduction also provides the reader with a brief study of the words ‘life’ and ‘God as they are used by Heidegger; Powell notes that the influence of Hölderlin is undeniable when considering how Heidegger uses these two important terms.
Additionally within the introduction, Powell gives a general outline of the overall structure of Heidegger’s book, which aids the modern reader navigate through it. He notes that Contributions is composed of eight chapters: two expository chapters, and six chapters that attempt to ‘join-in’ with the event of be-ing. Powell therefore devotes one of his own chapters within this title to each of Heidegger’s own ‘joinings’, with a single chapter covering the two expository chapters on ‘Be-ing’ and ‘Preview’ by Heidegger (chapter three). Within each of Powell’s seven chapters, he provides discussions of what he deems important contextual information regarding Heidegger’s writing. These discussions, set alongside Powell’s interpretations of the respective ‘joinings’, are: Heidegger’s development in the analysis of ‘life’ and ‘lived-experience’ (chapter one); the progression of Heidegger’s thought beyond what is found in Being and Time (chapter two); the effect of Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche (chapter four); the various works that were composed prior to Contributions in the 1930s (chapter five); and his reading of Hölderlin (chapter six). Powell’s seventh chapter is his concluding notes regarding Heidegger’s text.
All in all, Powell’s book presents Heidegger as an other-worldly thinker. He shows how Contributions continues to define the term ‘Sein’ (‘Being’) and further develops ‘life’ (in a religious sense) as a central theme in Heidegger’s work, which indicates that Contributions was the next step in Heidegger’s philosophical project. Powell’s book, especially its introduction, is excellent; it helps readers understand Heidegger’s at-times difficult style and prose. Powell notes that within Contributions, Heidegger offer us a choice: either become truly human by uniting with the basis of our existence, or continue to dis-humanize ourselves by speaking and acting, as we do today, in objective ways towards God’s creation. Powell hopes, in conjunction with Heidegger himself, that we become truly human. This title is recommended to upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty with interests in Heideggerian studies, as it forms an important bridge between Heidegger’s earlier and later works.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.