Comparative readings offer an accessible introduction and shed light on Heidegger’s thought by examining it in the context of the work of other philosophers. This collection of comparative essays by the late Robert E. Wood puts Martin Heidegger in dialogue with a number of other thinkers, such as Martin Buber, Max Scheler, Edith Stein, John Dewey, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as thinkers whose relation to Heidegger has been more commonly examined (Plato, Hegel, Jean-Paul Sartre). A number of recurrent themes stand out, indicative of the issues that anchor the author’s general interpretation of Heidegger. These include: the distinction between meditative and calculative thinking; Heidegger as a thinker of the heart; releasement (Gelassenheit); the prominence of concealment (lethe) and the mystery of Being; the importance of art and poetic thinking; the relation to the Other; mortals and the divine; and the significance of attunements or dispositions, ranging from shock and horror to wonder and awe. Wood’s perspective emerges as a distinctively Catholic reading of Heidegger, emphasizing common ground and a relation to the whole throughout.
