Martin Heidegger
1889 – 1976 German philosopher
The philosopher of being, and one of the most influential and controversial of his century.
- Religion
- Raised Catholic and once bound for the priesthood, he broke from the church; his later thought centers on being rather than God. He joined the Nazi Party in 1933, a stain that remains deeply controversial.
- Affiliations
- Rector of Freiburg University under the Nazis. Member of the Nazi Party.
Heidegger asked what it means to be, arguing in Being and Time that we understand existence through our own finite, time-bound lives. His work shaped existentialism, hermeneutics, and much of later philosophy. His membership in the Nazi Party permanently shadows his legacy.
Connections
- mentor of Hannah Arendt — She studied under Heidegger, a bond complicated by his Nazism.
- student of Hannah Arendt — Arendt was his student and, for a time, his lover.
- influenced Jean-Paul Sartre — Sartre built his existentialism on Heidegger's analysis of being.