Short extracts from reviews of Heidegger: A Beginner's Guide
'The merit of Michael Watts work - what I find particularly appealing about it - is his ability to grasp the abstruse and abstract nature of someone's thought, and render it in clear, concise, and concrete terms. He is a master at this!' (Roy Martinez, Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Spelman College, Atlanta, USA).
'To write clearly and accessibly, and yet present a philosopher's ideas without trivialising or distorting them requires considerable intellectual discipline. This challenge is, arguably, all the more severe in the case of philosophers such as Heidegger and Wittgenstein…Michael Watts has understood his responsibilities to the 'newcomer' very well.' (Extract from The Philosophers' Magazine [Summer 2002] review by Jonathan Derbyshire, Culture Editor of New Statesman and Managing Editor of Prospect).
'Michael Watts gives an exceptionally clear and readable account of Being and Time, while also performing the difficult feat of weaving this into an account of Heidegger's later writings. He provides valuable guidance for the beginner through the complexities of Heidegger's thought and much of interest for those who are already 'on the way'.' (Michael Inwood, Trinity College, Oxford).
Ideal for complete beginners, this is an exceptionally readable and reliable overview of Heidegger's thought, refreshingly free from the complex jargon typical of most academic philosophy. Full of concrete examples, Watts provides easy access to key Heideggerian notions of authenticity, falling, throwness, angst, guilt, conscience, technology and death, while also navigating the difficult relationship between earlier and later texts, to provide readers with a strong sense of the overall continuity of the Heidegger's thought.
