Martin Heidegger Biography

The Man who would Create Being Martin Heidegger was born September 26th, 1889 in Messkirch, Germany and died on May 26, 1976 in his hometown. Martin was originally raised and educated in order to become a priest. His local church supported his schooling by scholarship in order that he may attend high school in Konstanz and further. Ironically, it was the pressuring support of the Catholic Church and the friends he later made during his schooling that eventually caused him to defect from the Church to pursue and become one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. After graduating from high school in 1909, he spent two weeks as a Jesuit novice, and then being discharged allegedly for health reasons, enrolled at Freiburg University to study theology. However, for reasons unknown, but most likely because of his lack of desire to become a priest, he broke off his studies in theology after only two years. Rather than theology, Heidegger focused his studies instead upon the fields of philosophy, mathematics, and natural sciences. During his remaining years of study at Freiburg, Heidegger worked with Edmund Huserll, a friend who would influence Heidegger’s later works and help start Heidegger’s rejection of Catholicism. He received his doctorate in philosophy in 1913. In 1915, Heidegger returned to Freiburg University to teach as assistant to Huserll. World War I briefly interrupted his work, as he was drafted into the military, but was dismissed after two months, again because of health reasons. Heidegger then began to work on his habilitation thesis in order to capture the chair of Catholic philosophy at Freiburg. In 1915, he was instead appointed Privatdozent, or lecturer. Then in 1917, Heidegger married Elfride Petri, with whom he had two sons and a daughter: Joerg, Hermann, and Erika, although he did have a notorious affair with his student and philosopher Hannah Arendt while teaching at the University of Marburg in the 1920s. Despite this, she