Martin Heidegger

Günter Figal's Phenomenology of Freedom has long become a definitive book. As a contribution to Heidegger research, Figal offers a close interpretation of Being and Time, and in doing so he also considers essential aspects of Heidegger's earlier and later thought. In critical examination and careful reasoning Figal carves out the strong points as well as the weak points of Heidegger's philosophy. Moreover, Figal's book features a systematic discussion of freedom as a phenomenon. As Figal shows, freedom can be understood as free space, as openness of possibilities, in which freedom of action and freedom of the will find their place. Discovering in Heidegger's thinking a conception of freedom that is not to be found in the philosophical tradition, Figal is able also to discuss conceptions of freedom like Aristotle's, Kant's and Wittgenstein's in a new way.
The book, first published in 1988 and translated several times, is now published in a new revised edition, supplemented by an autobiographical afterword.