Richard Polt
Richard F. H. Polt is a professor of philosophy at Xavier University. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago (1991). His main interests are the metaphysical and ethical problems of Greek and German philosophy. He has taught elective courses on a variety of topics, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, German idealism, existentialism, slavery, time, and Heidegger.
Selected publications:
Heidegger: An Introduction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
A Companion to Heidegger's "Introduction to Metaphysics." Edited by Richard Polt and Gregory Fried. New Haven: Yale Unversity Press, 2001.
Heidegger's "Being and Time": Critical Essays. Edited by Richard Polt. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger's "Contributions to Philosophy." Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.
“What makes my life my own is ultimately the sheer fact that it is mine to live, mine to make something of, in the face of my possible non-existence. Every other possibility is something that I may be free not to do, and that someone else may be able to do just as well as I can. But my death is a possibility that necessarily faces me alone: no one can face it for me.”