"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. 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. " This first paperback edition of John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson's definitive translation also features a new foreword by Heidegger scholar Taylor Carman.