The Culmination

"The Culmination is rich and complex and . . . fascinating." * European Journal of Philosophy *
"Pippin has the rare gift of being able to translate the abstruse language of earlier philosophical eras into a contemporary idiom without oversimplification or trivialization." * The European Legacy *
“Can thought explain why it cares about what it thinks? Can the mind account for its own minding? Drawing on his decades of reflection on German Idealism, Pippin supports Heidegger’s answer: no. The implications for the history of philosophy and for its future are profound.” -- Richard Polt, Xavier University
“The Culmination is by far the deepest and most thorough study of Heidegger’s reading of Hegel and its centrality to his account of the history of metaphysics. Pippin makes a compelling case that the rationalist equation of thinking and being remains a dogmatic assumption absent a more radical reflection on how meaning is disclosed in nonrational ways. If, as Pippin says, Heidegger understood the idealist tradition better than anyone before him, it would be fair to add that Pippin has appreciated Heidegger’s reading of that tradition more profoundly than anyone yet has." -- Taylor Carman, Barnard College
“With typical lucidity, Pippin executes his most extensive engagement with Heidegger to date, focusing on Heidegger’s insistence on the finitude of reason and its inability to do justice to the question of philosophy: the meaning of being. At the same time, The Culmination vividly illustrates how difficult it is to imagine an ‘other’ beginning, where thinking is not modeled as rational knowledge but as attunement to the sources of mattering and meaningfulness. An indispensable resource for anyone concerned about the future of philosophy.” -- Steven Crowell, Rice University