the canon

People bitch about the canon of philosophy from time to time. But there's a reason it's there, and it has to do with the fact that we are finite, mortal creatures. Consider the amount of philosophy (or anything else, for that matter) that's been written. It is more than you or I could read in a hundred lifetimes - and as soon as we were finished, another volume two times larger would have been produced by the modern academy (ok, maybe I exaggerate). The point is that we need a way to figure out what's worth reading, and it needs to be really quick - in order for our criteria to distill eight million items down to twelve (or w/e), they need to operate very quickly. The canon serves this function, as do other things.

For my part, one of the criteria I employ involves whether or not I speak the same language - and I'm not exactly talking about English vs. German here. Even in English, I find Heidegger almost unintelligible. So I don't read him further. My main worry is that this is just an excuse for being lazy, or inflexible, since I have other reasons (other criteria indicate) that MH is worth reading.