The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy

A provocative reassessment of Heidegger’s critique of German Idealism from one of the tradition’s foremost interpreters. Heidegger claimed that Western philosophy ended—failed, even—in the German Idealist tradition. In The Culmination, Robert B. Pippin explores the ramifications of this charge through a masterful survey of Western philosophy, especially Heidegger’s critiques of Hegel and Kant. Pippin argues that Heidegger’s basic concern was to determine sources of meaning for human life, particularly those that had been obscured by Western philosophy’s attention to reason. The Culmination offers a new interpretation of Heidegger, German Idealism, and the fate of Western rationalism.