Heidegger’s obscure style reflects an aim to overturn all of metaphysics

Evidence

Thus, it can help to think of Heidegger as an experimental novelist, or a poet. Yet, even while rejecting the traditional philosophical virtue of clarity, he was adamant that he was a philosopher, and that there was nothing merely literary or playful about his language. His purpose was to overturn human thinking, destroy the history of metaphysics, and start philosophy all over again. A little violence done to language is to be expected, given an overall aim that is so extreme, and so violent. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 210

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: what it means for a philosopher to write like a poet while disavowing the literary — the productive tension between style and doctrine.
• XREF: connects to: Heidegger’s philosophical intensity reflected a threatening inner landscape — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 192; Heidegger accepted awkward prose as the price of overturning the history of philosophy — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 204; Heidegger deliberately writes obscurely to produce an estrangement akin to Brecht’s theatre — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 204 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Heidegger accepted awkward prose as the price of overturning the history of philosophy #corroborates (0.95) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 204
• Heidegger deliberately writes obscurely to produce an estrangement akin to Brecht’s theatre #corroborates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 204