Heidegger in Dialogue

<JATS1:p>Comparative readings offer an accessible introduction and shed light on Heidegger’s thought by examining it in the context of the work of other philosophers.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>This collection of comparative essays by the late Robert E. Wood puts Martin Heidegger in dialogue with a number of other thinkers, such as Martin Buber, Max Scheler, Edith Stein, John Dewey, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as thinkers whose relation to Heidegger has been more commonly examined (Plato, Hegel, Jean-Paul Sartre). A number of recurrent themes stand out, indicative of the issues that anchor the author’s general interpretation of Heidegger. These include: the distinction between meditative and calculative thinking; Heidegger as a thinker of the heart; releasement (Gelassenheit); the prominence of concealment (lethe) and the mystery of Being; the importance of art and poetic thinking; the relation to the Other; mortals and the divine; and the significance of attunements or dispositions, ranging from shock and horror to wonder and awe. Wood’s perspective emerges as a distinctively Catholic reading of Heidegger, emphasizing common ground and a relation to the whole throughout.</JATS1:p>