This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is both interesting and informative, as well as quite readable. Clearly a scholarly work, it stimulates though.

soy industrial y requiero de actualizacion en mis formulaciones.

This book is an excellent example of how to devastate an opponent by using a hidden straw man approach. You summarize his position, thereby giving your book a borrowed richness while demonstrating your knowledge of the topic, then you reduce your opponent's position to five restatements of your own that you say are equivalent of his position. Of course, you have already secretly occluded your opponent-he has slipped your grasp. You then systematically show that each of these five positions is valueless and a mere misunderstanding, not really philosophy at all. Then you sadly announce how you were deceived by the author's rhetoric into believing he had anything to say, but upon examination, it all disappeared. Then in the last part of the book, you advance your own view, which is, amazingly, opposite of your so-called devastated opponent. You say that your opponent secretly wanted religion but could not find it. You hope that your naïve, unsupported psychologizing won't be noticed. The only problem is that the last part of the book is boring, and the book's only real interest and energy is the first part, which was borrowed from your superior opponent. The technique is masterful, and should be learned by all who want to deconstruct rather than construct.

Readers who come to this text hoping for a breezy summary of a Great Dead Philosopher's thought will be disappointed. This is a sophisticated and somewhat demanding study by a scholar who doesn't shy away from detailed analysis of primary texts, or for that matter, detailed analysis of works which influenced Heidegger (primarily Aristotle's METAPHYSICS, Husserl's LOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS, and Kant's first CRITIQUE). Also, throughout this book Philipse compares and contrasts the interpretation he is proposing with those of other contemporary commentators such as Hubert Dreyfus, Richard Rorty, and John Caputo. In short, if you are going to get anything from this study you had better already know your Heidegger, have some acquaintance with the history of Western philosophy, and already be familiar with some recent American Heidegger scholarship.

Anyone who meets these grim qualifications will probably conclude, as I have, that this book is a remarkable achievement. In less than four hundred pages of text Philipse manages to articulate and examine five themes which run through Heidegger's corpus, illustrate how these themes intertwine and diverge, and clarify what problems they solve and what problems they create. This study is critical in tone, but not mean-spirited. And I think this tome exemplifies a kind of admirable intellectual rigor notably absent in much of what passes for Heidegger scholarship these days.

Warning: Ignore the blurb and summary on this book's back cover. This is not yet one more discussion of Heidegger's Nazism (Philipse devotes only thirty pages to this tedious topic).

Philipse clarifies all the murkiness of Heidegger's thinking and what emerges is so creepy, you'll want to get all you Heidegger books out of the house. He first clearly analyzes Heidegger's ideas then evaluates them. The result is devastating: not only did Heidegger never apologize for his involvement with the Nazis, but even after their fall, he longed for a way to restore many of their ideals. His philosophy emerges as a disguised attempt to revive various creepy Germany-as-the-great-world-culture kind of ideas. My thanks to the author for clearing all this up so I did not waste more time trying to make out what the fuss was about.

Although the book and the SAT II: Physics test stress on different things, "How to prepare..." is one very good book. The chapters are well developed and explained. The problems are more computational than they must be. I used that book to prepare myself but my country and many others use SI units. As you know, the Physics test also use SI units. However, I had to face constantly problems and theory concerned with English system.

The more practice tests the better(by the way there is a nice problem explanation area after each test). If you are looking for a book that helps you from the ground up, forget it. Take another physics course at school. I found this book very useful for checking up on my physics.

This book is a fun one for penetrating the world of the medieval monk. Hermann is a delightfully loquacious observer of the workd around him with an idiosyncratic view on everything. Nelson has done a great job capturing the flavor of the man and his times. I'm not giving it full marks though because the lack of an index is problematic for those of us who want to find specific passages quickly!