Broadly speaking, I approach Heidegger’s work in the 1920s as an account of “intentionality” (that is, of how we relate to objects). I reconstruct and develop the transcendental conditions of intentionality Heidegger proposes, most of all what he calls our “understanding of being”. What currently interests me the most is the account of “ontological failure” I believe is implicit in this, and what it tells us about how Heidegger conceives of the transcendental conditions of intentionality. In particular, I think it points at the important fact that Heidegger is a realist about entities in the sense that our transcendental conditions enable us to encounter entities as they really are while simultaneously shaping this encounter. Other canonical figures relevant for this project are Kant, Husserl and Gadamer. Scholars that I find particularly inspiring for this project and whose work had a significant impact on how I read Heidegger are Steven Crowell, Sacha Golob, John Haugeland, Tobias Keiling, James Kinkaid and Morganna Lambeth.

Originally, I conceived of this project as primarily concerned with Heidegger’s work on Kant (what also explains the title mentioned above with which I don’t fully identify anymore). During my first year of PhD research, I recognised that while Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant is highly relevant for this project of mine – partly because Heidegger in the Being and Time project is doing a version of transcendental philosophy, and partly because he expresses important ideas of his own phenomenology in his interpretation of Kant -, I should approach the problems from a broader angle. Thus the focus on Heidegger’s own phenomenology, especially between 1925 and 1929, of which his engagement with Kant is one important facet.