The Finitude of Being

Reviews / Votes

"Finitude is clearly a central notion in Heidegger's thought, but its meaning has never been elucidated in the context of his entire work. Stambaugh tackles this difficult issue, and she does it with insight and elegance." - Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

"This book shows great insight into the main thrust of Heidegger's complex body of work, provides many clarifying examples, offers helpful parallels with the thought of other philosophers. And, perhaps most important of all, Stambaugh shows that her topic transcends narrow scholarly concerns, addressing the age-old and perennially vital question of the nature and limits of human knowledge and power.

"The author has a first-class reputation as a translator of several of Heidegger's important works, and is the author of two significant studies of Nietzsche's philosophy. She had numerous conversations with Heidegger during the last ten years of his life, in the course of which she was able to obtain detailed help from him concerning difficult aspects of his thinking and problems in translating key terms in this thinking into English. In this book, she is able to draw on this background in interpreting several of Heidegger's later and posthumous publications, focusing on an absolutely central, and very difficult, notion (the finitude of being) in Heidegger's thought. The book incorporates the first scholarly study of one of the most important of Heidegger's works, the long-awaited and posthumously published (1989) Beitraege zur Philosophie." - Joseph P. Fell, Bucknell University