martin heidegger
Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976), German philosopher, who developed existential phenomenology and has been widely regarded as the most original 20th-century philosopher. Heidegger was born in Messkirch, Baden, on September 22, 1889. ... Heidegger began teaching at Freiburg in 1915. ... Standing behind all major strands of postmodern thought, Heidegger announced the end of philosophy and of humanism, and was a vocal supporter of Hitlers National Socialism. ... However, as early as 1957 Heidegger foresaw the computer, what he called the "language machine," or the sprachmaschine. Heidegger was especially influenced by pre-Socratics, by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. ... 1962), Heidegger was concerned with what he considered the essential philosophical (and human) question: What is it, to be? ... To Heidegger, what was at stake was nothing less than Western thought as it has been known - not only his philosophy, but its natural sciences, its human sciences, its everyday discourses. ... Because these objects and artifacts come to humanity from the past and are used in the present for the sake of future goals, Heidegger posited a fundamental relation between the mode of being of objects and of humanity and the structure of time.