Marx and Heidegger

This was my doctoral dissertation in philosophy at Northwestern University, defended on May 8, 1975. It considers the two most important philosophers of the modern age. I conducted this research at Heidelberg, where Heidegger’s work was continued, and at Frankfurt, where critical theory extended Marx’ thinking. Marx countered the ideology of individualism by analyzing social structures and interpersonal interactions at different units of analysis than the individual person. Heidegger also questioned the traditional ontology of natural objects with innate attributes by proposing dynamic interactive processes of beings in their ecological context. Today, the philosophies of Marx and Heidegger are still extremely relevant—provided one adapts them to the current socio-historical context and adjusts each to the implicit criticisms of the other.