[Martin Heidegger], George Steiner's treatment of this over-and underestimated figure, is exemplary, or very nearly so. Only very nearly so, because he too shares, to different degrees, in both the under- and the overestimation. He admits, modestly, to lack of professional expertise in philosophy; and this doubtless accounts for his limited recognition of the large measure of good sense which is discernible in Heidegger's strictly philosophical criticism. On the other hand, it is hard not to feel that Steiner overestimates the ultimate importance of Heidegger for philosophy and for the history of human thought in general. There is, after all, something absurd in the suggestion that he belongs in the class of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant. It is absurd because, in spite of the genuine critical insights to be found in Heidegger's masterwork, the actual, detailed intellectual content that can be distilled from page after page...