Never got around to reading Heidegger? Now we have a great excuse. The German philosopher’s work — which provided the underpinnings of existentialism, postmodernism, and deconstructionism — reeks of another ism: Nazism.
So argues a book by French scholar Emmanuel Faye, newly published in English translation by the Yale University Press. Drawing on previously unavailable materials, Faye concludes that it’s impossible to separate Heidegger’s work — “hate speech,” in the New York Times’s characterization — from his personal views and allegiance to Hitler.
Among those taking note are Carlin Romano ’79MPhil, with a blistering essay headlined “Heil Heidegger,” and Ron Rosenbaum ’68. The author of Explaining Hitler, Rosenbaum connects Faye’s book with new revelations about Hannah Arendt, Heidegger’s Jewish lover, whom Rosenbaum accuses of helping to “usher Heidegger back into the intellectual version of polite society” after World War II.
Heidegger was far more complicated than Emmanuel Faye (who BTW is Jewish) would lead to to believe. He had a Jewish lover (Hannah Arendt) and a Jewish mentor (Husserl) to whom he dedicated his masterpiece “Being and Time”. If his philosophy is indeed impossible to separate from Nazism, then apparently it’s quite easy to separate it from anti-semitism, thus undermining the chief basis for Faye’s attacks.
Also, it’s important to point out that Heidegger was deeply anti-technology, which was something quite contrary to the Nazi regime, which heavily invested in technological innovations, from helicopters, to jet fighters. Based on this fact alone, I think the entire premise goes out the window.
Hey Joe – It would be an undeserved kindness on my part to describe your reasoning as even facile; in matter of fact it is thoroughly moronic. First, by choosing to mention Faye’s ethno-religious identity, you yourself indirectly reveal a bias which you might want to examine. Secondly, the fact that Heidegger was under the tutelage of a “Jew,” or that he at one point had sex with one, can in no sense be offered as proof mitigating the apparently ontological hatred which he (Heidegger) expressed and directed towards Jews and Jewishness. Furthermore, if you had even bothered to crack the cover of Faye’s book (too much intellectual heavy-lifting for you, no doubt) you would discover an eminently well-written and researched work which deals with Heidegger’s writings (thought) and teachings (action), rather than the complicated “soul” or “mind” which you somehow believe Heidegger to have had. In other words, if you had bothered to read the book, you might have discovered that Heidegger’s philosophy, tout court, is fed upon his hatred of the parasitic non-German par excelence, the “Jew”. Next time, re-read your comments before you post them, to perhaps save yourself from some embarassment.
The review states that:
“{…}Heidegger’s philosophical writings are fatally compromised by an adherence to National Socialist ideas.” “Fatally compromised”—what in the world can this mean? To someone who is seeking a better understanding of the most difficult aspects of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas’ questions concerning being and truth, Heidegger’s Being and Time, is perhaps the only work of twentieth century philosophy that can actually shed light on these problems. To such a serious student, I would actively encourage them to read Heidegger and the authentic interpreters of his philosophy before reading a work that is ad hominem and cannot account for the fact of Heidegger’s positive influence in all fields of learning, not only philosophy.
Yes, this is very old news. It is truly baffling, on the one hand that perhaps the greatest philosophical mind since Kant could be so seduced by power and the Fuhrer. On the other hand it does very little good to start with Heidegger by saying “he was a nazi”. The effect of such an epithet is to effectively render the student incapable of understanding Heidegger’s true gift—philosophy. It is a classic ad hominem strategy. It is more profound and more cognitively difficult to see the incredible scope of Heidegger’s genius, while at the same time acknowledging that he embraced National Socialism. Unfortunately the effect of this kind of literature misses the point—it is not Heidegger’s biography that interests me, but his interpretation of the meaning of being. We end up with the undesired effect of having people going around who know nothing of Heidegger’s teachings but who know all about his political affiliations. What a pity!