Heidegger equated philosophical thinking with the physical labours of farmers and herdsmen.

Evidence

When the young farm boy drags his heavy sled up the slope and guides it, piled high with beech logs, down the dangerous descent to his house, when the herdsman, lost in thought and slow of step, drives his cattle up the slope, when the farmer in his shed gets the countless shingles ready for his roof, my work is of the same sort. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 313

Categorization

• SHARE: This exact passage would delight the right person — someone into Heidegger or into the philosophy-of-place literature.
• XREF: connects to: Heidegger contrasted traditional farming with modern technology as unforced versus forced extraction of nature — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 581; Contemporary observers read Heidegger’s persona as rural and unpolished — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 244; Heidegger’s deliberate peasant persona and obscurity were central to his philosophical mystique — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 189

Broader Connections

• Heidegger contrasted traditional farming with modern technology as unforced versus forced extraction of nature #epitomizes (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 581
• Contemporary observers read Heidegger’s persona as rural and unpolished #corroborates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 244