ON THE WAY TO LANGUAGE

Heidegger, the founder of so-called atheistic existentialism, rejected the traditional religious answers to human angst and taught that man, by questioning, may understand himself and his destiny and learn to accept both. The miscellaneous pieces in this volume all deal with the material tools of that questioning: language. The first is a Platonic, or rather Socratic, dialogue on the nature of language, and the second (""The Nature of Language"") an essay on the same subject. The third piece is actually composed of three lectures, all of which are concerned with an experience of language. The fourth deals with the quality and significance of words as such; and the fifth (""Language in the Poem"") is a discussion on the poetic work of Georg Trakl. Heidegger does not have the press that he once had, having been largely replaced in the affections of students by his greatest disciple, Sartre; nor do these minor works, despite Peter Hertz's superior translation, have the appeal or importance of Being and Time. A marginal contribution.