In much the same way as he approaches Descartes, Wheeler approaches Heidegger. The reasons here are somewhat more complicated. First, interpretation of Heidegger has been notoriously divergent: though there is no such thing as a “definitive” commentary on Heidegger, there are less contentious ones (Taylor Carman and Richard Polt are two commentators that spring to mind but are not at all referenced by Wheeler.) Second, Heidegger is a philosopher that has been (mis?) appropriated in areas where there is no philosophical culture. This has given rise to a caricatural Heidegger: the paradigmatic anti-realist, anti-naturalist, relativist and social contructivist pressed into service for those promoting some ideological sub-text. This does no favors for Heidegger in particular and so-called Continental philosophy in general – more on this later. Last but by means not least, Wheeler has the influential work of Hubert Dreyfus to negotiate, again a very distinctive Heidegger on offer.
Wheeler’s overall task is to reject the view that Heidegger’s philosophy is incompatible with or irrelevant to a science of the mind. Heideggerian smooth coping, real-time environmental interplay constitutes a form of knowledge, namely embodied knowledge-how. Embodied know-how emerges as our primary way of gaining epistemic access to the word and takes epistemic primacy over knowing-that (propositional knowledge).
Interesting as I've had this on my "to buy" list for a bit. I am curious as to how he deals with the framing issue (one of the most ill discussed topics of the last couple of years)
