Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 20th century, , language: English, abstract: Martin Heidegger is widely considered one of the most controversial and influential philosophers of the twentieth century, his influence extending to the works of several philosophers, as well as in important philosophical schools such as existentialism and phenomenology. At the same time, his philosophy is also regarded as notoriously difficult, highly idiosyncratic and often even obscure. It is considered that there are several ways of reading Heidegger, which, in turn, is due to the existence of several 'Heideggers', the major distinction being the one that happened with die Kehre, or, 'the turn'. This turn, which began in the 1930s, marks a departure from the earlier Heidegger and the beginning of a philosophical approach that separates his magnum opus, Being and Time (1927), from subsequent works.