East Asian imagery resonates throughout Martin Heidegger's writings. In
this exploration of the connections between Daoism and his thought, an
international team of scholars consider why the Daodejing and
Zhuangzi were texts he returned to repeatedly and the extent Heidegger
adhered to Daoism's core doctrines.
They discuss how Daoist thought provided him with a new perspective,
equipping him with images, concepts, and meanings that enabled him to
continue his questioning of the nature of being. Exploring the
environment, language, death, temporality, aesthetics, and race from the
groundlessness of non-being, oneness, and the Way, they illustrate how
these themes reverberate with ontological, spiritual, and
epistemological potential.
A lesson in the art of Daoist and cross-cultural ways of thinking, this
collection marks the first sustained analysis of the influence of
classical Daoism on a major 20th-century German philosopher.