It is precisely because Heidegger’s philosophy lacked a sense of divine transcendence and a moral foundation in God that it is, at least in a certain sense, a failure. Heidegger’s earlier existential writings had a tremendous appeal to mid twentieth century young people such as Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre, who came of age during the Second World War, found much of late and postindustrial bourgeois Western life, itself often devoid of an authentic expression of Christianity, so boring and empty. Heidegger’s middle work was so aligned with the writings of Adolf Hitler and the violent, pagan, (perhaps pseudo-) Darwinist worldview of German Nationalism as to make it difficult it extract value from them. On the other hand, his late work is a fascinating exploration of how language and poetry shape human thought and ways of Being.

¶ 1:19 AM