Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German born philosopher. Although Being and Time (1927), his first major publication, was and remains his most famous and influential, he wrote a number of other significant works after it, including the “Letter on Humanism” (1947), The Origin of the Work of Art (1950), What is Called Thinking (1952), and The Question Concerning Technology (1954). Scholars often distinguish between the Heidegger of Being and Time and the “later Heidegger,” citing a major “turn” in his thought that is supposed to be constituted by an increasing emphasis on “Being” over the analysis of Dasein. His work had a major influence on phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics and, regarding the later Heidegger, French post-structuralism.

Heidegger’s life is the subject of controversy. He was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg in 1928. In 1933 he joined the Nazi party, remaining a member until the end of the Second World War. He was subsequently banned by the Allied authorities from teaching until 1951, under denazification rules. The connection between his philosophy and national socialism remains contentious. The publication in 2014 of the Black Notebooks, a series of notebooks Heidegger kept between 1931 and 1941, alleged to contain anti-Semitic material, has only added to this controversy.