Being and Truth

In these lectures, delivered in 1933-1934 while he was Rector of the University of Freiburg and an active supporter of the National Socialist regime, Martin Heidegger addresses the history of metaphysics and the notion of truth from Heraclitus to Hegel. First published in German in 2001, these two lecture courses offer a sustained encounter with Heidegger's thinking during a period when he attempted to give expression to his highest ambitions for a philosophy engaged with politics and the world. While the lectures are strongly nationalistic and celebrate the revolutionary spirit of the time, they also attack theories of racial supremacy in an attempt to stake out a distinctively Heideggerian understanding of what it means to be a people. This careful translation offers valuable insight into Heidegger's views on language, truth, animality, and life, as well as his political thought and activity.

Gregory Fried is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Suffolk University. He is author of Heidegger's Polemos: From Being to Politics and editor (with Richard Polt) of A Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics.

Richard Polt is Professor in the Philosophy Department at Xavier University. He is author of The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy and Heidegger: An Introduction.