Naturalizing Heidegger by David E. Storey is a rigorous philosophical examination of Martin Heidegger’s thought, aiming to reinterpret and integrate Heideggerian existential and phenomenological insights within a naturalistic framework. Storey investigates the tension between Heidegger’s emphasis on human existence, authenticity, and being-in-the-world, and the naturalistic perspectives of contemporary philosophy, cognitive science, and empirical inquiry. He argues that key aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy—such as Dasein’s situatedness, temporal understanding, and engagement with the world—can be “naturalized” without losing their existential significance, meaning that they can be reconciled with a scientific understanding of human beings as embodied, historical, and socially embedded creatures.

The book explores Heidegger’s critiques of Cartesian dualism, traditional metaphysics, and the objectivist approach to human cognition, showing how these critiques can inform contemporary debates about mind, behavior, and human agency. Storey also examines the implications of Heideggerian concepts like thrownness, care, and authenticity for naturalistic accounts of human action, suggesting that existential insights provide a richer understanding of human motivation, decision-making, and social interaction than purely mechanistic models. Throughout, Storey engages with both Heideggerian scholarship and modern philosophy of mind, demonstrating that existential phenomenology and naturalistic inquiry are not necessarily opposed but can mutually illuminate each other.

Ultimately, Naturalizing Heidegger presents a sophisticated synthesis that preserves the depth of Heidegger’s insights into human existence while situating them within a framework compatible with empirical and scientific perspectives, offering readers a way to appreciate Heidegger’s philosophy as both existentially meaningful and intellectually rigorous in a contemporary naturalistic context.