Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

At the University of Freiburg, Martin Heidegger was the star pupil of Husserl, and his thought has important phenomenological strands. In 1923, Heidegger became professor at Marburg. Five years later, he succeeded Husserl as chair of philosophy at Freiburg, where he was elected rector of the university. His Being and Time was first published in German in 1927. By this time, Heidegger had developed a philosophical method quite different from Husserl's phenomenology.

Husserl was of Jewish descent, and when Heidegger joined the Nazi party in 1933, this sealed the rift between the two philosophers. The degree of Heidegger's involvement with Nazism, and its significance, has become a controversial topic. In any case, after World War II, Heidegger was banned from academic life until 1951 because of his Nazi sympathies. During this period, he lived in a hut in the Black Forest. He retired from teaching in 1959, and spent the last years of his life in seclusion.

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