Common Ground Publishing (
2009)
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Abstract
In the shadow of a looming global ecological and social catastrophe 'Only a God Can Save Us:
Heidegger, Poetic Imagination and the Modern Malaise' is timely and essential reading. The book
argues that technology by itself cannot save the diversity, integrity and habitability of the planet.
Averting disaster calls for a radical transformation in our very being. Humanity is at an
unprecedented crossroad where crucial and difficult decisions must be made about how we are to
live. This book attends to a crisis in the human psyche that, it suggests, is at the root of the ever
more pressing contemporary problems.
Aimed at an intelligent lay audience it has ramifications in domains ranging from art, literature and
sociology to environmental management, ecology and technology. Moreover, van Leeuwen's
insightful grasp of the core of the Martin Heidegger's later thinking makes this book also invaluable
to scholars and students of this influential and controversial philosopher, as well as those with a
wider interest in continental philosophy. It uncovers an extraordinary, but rarely trodden or
overlooked pathway of thinking that offers the means to a way of being as authentic dwellers of the
earth. The author identifies an ‘in-between region’ within thought where the poetic imagination is
awakened (implicating 'the gods') and enabled to respond creatively. From this emerges the
possibility of a genuinely sustainable way of thinking and active commitment.