"Being and Time changed the course of philosophy." -Richard Rorty, New York Times Book Review "Heidegger's masterwork." -The Economist "What is the meaning of being?" This is the central question of Martin Heidegger's profoundly important work, in which the great philosopher seeks to explain the basic problems of existence. This first paperback edition of John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson's definitive translation also features a foreword by Heidegger scholar Taylor Carman. A central influence on later philosophy, literature, art, and criticism-as well as existentialism and much of postmodern thought-Being and Time forever changed the intellectual map of the modern world. As Richard Rorty wrote in the New York Times Book Review, "You cannot read most of the important thinkers of recent times without taking Heidegger's thought into account."