The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger

by Richard Wolin

Martin Heidegger's ties to Nazism have tarnished his stature as one of the towering figures of twentieth-century philosophy. The publication of the Black Notebook s in 2014, which revealed the full extent of Heidegger's anti-Semitism and enduring sympathy for National Socialism, only inflamed the controversy. Richard Wolin's The Politics of The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger has played a seminal role in the international debate over the consequences of Heidegger's Nazism. In this edition, the author provides a new preface addressing the effect of the Black Notebooks on our understanding of the relationship between politics and philosophy in Heidegger's work. Building on his pathbreaking interpretation of the philosopher's political thought, Wolin demonstrates that philosophy and politics cannot be disentangled in Heidegger's oeuvre. Völkisch ideological themes suffuse even his most sublime philosophical treatises. Therefore, despite Heidegger's profundity as a thinker, his critique of civilization is saturated with disturbing anti-democratic and anti-Semitic leitmotifs and claims.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, for anyone interested in getting a solid explication of Heidegger's thought from Being and Time through the mid-30's, this is an incredibly accessible read. Bracketing for the moment his assessment of Heidegger's relationship to National Socialism, Wolin is incredibly lucid in his presentation of the fundamentals of Heidegger's early philosophy. The discussion of Being and Time as well as the essays and lectures upto 1936 present both clear descriptions of the fundamental tenants of Heidegger's early philosophy as well as its internal philosophical limitations. He is, to my mind, somewhat less successful in drawing the connection between the philosophical project and its affinity for the National Socialist project. Too often, it feels like guilt by association. First, regarding Wolin's assessment of Being and Time: I find it hard to accept a retroactive reading in which the text is somehow a precursor to Heidegger's eventual identification with the conservative national socialist movement. Wolin is right to argue that Being and Time offers no basis for orienting oneself relative to the political situation of 1929-1936 Germany. He is on less solid ground when he suggests that this failure somehow implicates Being and Time with the National Socialist project. He is on more solid ground when he discusses the works of Heidegger from 1929 through 1936. Though I wonder here too. Heidegger clearly saw national socialism as an answer to the perceived failures of liberal democracy in the period 1929 to 1936, but didn't others see similar answers in Soviet/Stalinist communism? Wasn't this a historically driven decision that was similar to other members of the intelligentsia (on the left Benjamin, Lukacs, Brecht on the right Elliot, Blanchot and Pound)? In other words, it seems easy to condemn an individual from the perspective of late 20th Century democratic liberalism. I think feeling the inner truth and greatness of liberal democracy was likely more murky in depression era Germany, where liberal democracy seemed to have utterly failed. I am, after reading Wolin, convinced that Heidegger was committed to national socialism through 1934. I am less convinced that Heidegger is committed to the political project of national socialism after he resigned the rectorship, except, perhaps in the same way as a commited marxist would seek to on the one hand explicate the truth of marxist criticism while simultaneously seeking to distinguish his own philosophy from Stalinism. Wolin's final chapter on Heidegger after the turn is not very convincing. I am sympathetic to the positon Wolin takes, and ultimately my own disillusionment with Heidegger is consitent with Wolin's critique: Being is just too empty a concept to offer a forceful critique of technology. However, I also think Wolin here is a little too dismissive and cursory. He would have been better served to spend more time in the era prior to 1936.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most unapologetic apology for the Western progress narrative I have read, since the works of the figure obviously looming behind this 170 page exercise in virtue signaling, Jurgen Habermas. While implicating any critique of modernity and the dominance of Western intellectual traditions in overt Nazism, Wolin relies on sound-bite banalities like Karl Popper's well worn condition of "falsifiability" to prop up his own truth claims. That is right, KARL POPPER is the only person standing between us and the solipsistic feedback loop of fascism. Wolin never takes a moment to ask himself if this falsifiability thesis is itself falsifiable, but why would he when he can rest his entire thesis on the sheer weight of late-liberal normativity? Anything outside the gamete of the now Kantian now Cartesian framework (belief in God, criticism of the effect of technology, collectivism, anti-humanism) is taken as culpable in the genesis of nazism, except of course precious individualism which is carefully defended. This book is an excellent read in the sense that it embodies the moralistic ravings one can expect from the self proclaimed guardians of enlightenment values within the academy, and in particular the frightening precarity with which they ground their belief systems.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently finished reading Martin Heidegger’s 1927 magnum opus, Being and Time, in its entirety this Fall. Although it was a tremendously rewarding experience, it was also an incredibly grueling and exhausting one as well. I must add, there was also a rather large elephant in the room, as the dark shadow of Nazism loomed heavy over my reading from the very beginning.

A million questions danced around my head. How could one of the most formidable minds in the history of Western philosophy also have been a Nazi? To what extent were his political affiliations informed by his thought, if at all? Can we read philosophy within a decontextualized vacuum of ideas? Can we separate the biographical details of a philosopher from their intellectual output?

Those questions are part of a longstanding debate surrounding Heidegger. I remember some philosophy buddies of mine describing Being and Time as an apolitical work. Indeed, this seems to be a fairly common view on Heidegger. I’ve heard people suggest that he wasn’t explicitly interested in moral or political philosophy, and therefore you won’t find anything of the sort in Being and Time. For others, it seems that Heidegger’s Nazism was more of an opportunistic flirtation for the sake of self-preservation, or for the advancement of his career – an academic ‘will to power’ a la Nietzsche – and nothing more.

In The Politics of Being, intellectual historian Richard Wolin weighs in on the debate and provides a definitive appraisal of Heidegger’s thought. Wolin examines the philosophical and historical evidence that was available to him at the time of publication in 1990. The scope of the analysis runs from Being and Time through to Heidegger’s later works, and extends into his speeches and personal affairs, including the 1933 Rectorship Address, the 1949 lecture series, the 1966 Der Spiegel interview, informal discussions with colleagues, and much more.

The evidence is damning, and Wolin’s conclusions are appropriately scathing. The Politics of Being argues that Heidegger’s political activities and affiliations are not only consistent with his philosophical thought, but his attraction to Nazism in general – and Adolf Hitler in particular – is a direct result of his philosophical thinking. In Heidegger’s writings, speeches and political activities – and in some cases, his inactivity and deliberate silences – Wolin finds a morally and politically impotent thinker, whose narrow pursuit of an all-encompassing fundamental ontology of Being led to a total “eclipse of practical reason” and a complete disregard for anything concerning this-worldly affairs.

There’s no denying that Heidegger was a ferociously creative thinker, and that he possessed a towering intellect. Yet his brilliance is almost certainly overstated. For within the ontological primacy of his thinking, we see a poverty of care for the lowercase beings that make up the constituents of this world. We see a man that lacked and actively shunned all measures of common-sense, human decency, and – as Aristotle might have put it – good judgment. Heidegger’s politics are the direct result of an ontological system cloaked in radically normative judgments of authenticity without any checks and balances – that is, without ‘phronesis’.

In the end, Wolin’s book makes an excellent case for the re-contextualization of philosophy within the broader framework of the history of ideas, society, and culture. One cannot understand Being and Time without acknowledging the historical conditions of Weimar Germany from which the text arose. Likewise, we cannot understand Heidegger’s ontology without extending its tenets to his practical activities in the world. We cannot separate a philosopher from their history, any more than we can separate a spider from their web.

Even more evidence has surfaced since Wolin’s book was published. Heidegger’s private journals – the so-called “black notebooks” – were finally released to the public in the late 2010s. Although I have not read them yet, I’ve heard that they situate anti-Semitism at the innermost centre of his privately-held beliefs. Shocking, indeed – though not at all surprising when we consider the evidence that Wolin has collected here. Add anti-Semitism to a laundry list of terrible qualities and you'll see Heidegger for who he was - an ethical monster who backstabbed his academic colleagues, shrugged off moral responsibility, privileged Germanic and Eurocentric values, blasted democracy, demonized the public realm, and compared the Nazi gas chambers to factory farming.

This isn’t to say that there is nothing redeemable about Heidegger’s thought. If you want to see the heights of Heidegger’s influence upon the continental tradition, I would recommend reading Hans-Georg Gadamer. Heidegger is of critical importance to the history of Western thought, and Being and Time is a seminal text within that canon. A call must be made, though, for a more balanced appraisal of each individual's life and work. We should aim to demythologize, rather than disregard, the more controversial members of the great philosophers. Heidegger must continue to be read, but we should encourage those readings to be, first and foremost, careful and critical.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Wolin’s The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger offers a critical examination of Martin Heidegger’s philosophical engagement with National Socialism. Published in 1990, Wolin’s work has been instrumental in the international discourse concerning Heidegger’s political affiliations and their implications for his philosophical legacy.


Wolin contends that Heidegger’s political activities and affiliations are not only consistent with his philosophical thought but that his attraction to Nazism is a direct result of his philosophical thinking. This perspective challenges the defensive strategy of dissociating Heidegger’s work from his personal political engagements. Wolin’s scholarship aims to demonstrate the existence of a system of communicating vessels between Heidegger’s philosophy and his political positions. 


The monograph is structured to trace the evolution of Heidegger’s thought and its entanglement with political ideologies. Wolin provides a lucid exposition of Heidegger’s early philosophy, particularly the fundamental tenets of Being and Time, and critically examines the internal philosophical limitations that may have predisposed Heidegger toward National Socialist ideology. This approach offers readers a comprehensive understanding of the philosophical underpinnings that could have influenced Heidegger’s political inclinations.


Scholars have recognized the significance of Wolin’s contribution to Heidegger studies. Clare O’Farrell, in her review, acknowledges that the book “certainly succeeds in its aim of bringing ‘a little order into the debate’.”  This endorsement highlights Wolin’s role in clarifying the complex relationship between Heidegger’s philosophical inquiries and his political engagements.


However, some critiques have emerged regarding Wolin’s interpretations. For instance, a reviewer on Amazon argues that Wolin’s approach reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Heidegger’s philosophical work, suggesting that he adopts a journalistic or historiographical perspective rather than a philosophical one. This critique points to the ongoing debate about the appropriate methodology for assessing the intersection of Heidegger’s philosophy and politics.


The Politics of Being is a seminal text that challenges readers to reconsider the intrinsic connections between Heidegger’s philosophical project and his political affiliations. Wolin’s meticulous analysis provides a foundation for ongoing scholarly discourse, prompting a reevaluation of the ethical and political dimensions inherent in Heidegger’s thought.

GPT

[William West · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be an unsatisfying work of philosophy. While I think that the examination of Heidegger’s thought in relation to his, for a time, Nazi politics is a worthwhile one, I think Richard Wolin’s method here is ill-conceived and his book thus inherently unconvincing. Over the course of this review I will have some very deprecatory things to say about “Politics of Being” and the methodology of its author. But I want to begin by saying that I have no outstanding issues with Wolin. Indeed, the only other book I have read by him, “Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption”, I found to be a thoughtful study of the titular thinker, which made “Politics” an all the more disappointing read.

Before I start to talk about the specifics of Wolin’s book, I feel I need to share my own thoughts on the “Heidegger debate”. I like to think I avoid the pitfalls of both extremes of opinion. Clearly, Heidegger was for a period an outspoken (and perhaps opportunistic) exponent of the German National Renewal- the Nazi movement. He not only joined the Party, but under his brief rectorship sought to apply the fundamentals of the Fuhrer Party to the structure of the German university system. His written works during this (fairly brief) period seek to reimagine his philosophy as directly compatible with the National Socialist “revolution”. (These “Nazi works” were clearly the weakest of Heidegger’s oeuvre, reducing his very complex notions of cultural inheritance as foundational to being/ Dasein into crude platitudes about Nationalistic “totality”.)

I have never understood those Heideggereans who somehow cannot allow themselves to accept this very significant blemish on their hero’s biography. Their most far-fetched claims, such that Heidegger was, as he would claim after the war, trying to weaken the Nazi’s control of the university system from within, strike me as almost hysterical. Nor do I discount readings of Heidegger’s pre-Nazi works, such as “Being and Time”, that suggest a predisposition on the author’s part towards some aspects of Nazi ideology.

These extreme apologists seem to share with Heidegger’s harshest critics the notion that if Heidegger was for a time a sincere Nazi, and that there might be some aspects of his philosophical works that make this less than shocking, that this in itself discredits his philosophical contributions as such. I have also never shared, nor fully understood, this attitude. Philosophers are people and as such live in the social world. Heidegger was a German during the 1930s and 1940s who became entranced with Nazism in the same way as a huge portion of the German public. Are we still so entranced with notions of “genius” that we expect the most celebrated thinkers and artists to make the most just and honorable decisions? (Does not the evidence suggest the opposite- that those publicly celebrated as geniuses often find themselves exposed as “transgressors”?)

There is, of course, the old adage about not confusing the artist with their art. While people seem to find this difficult to apply to their assessment of artworks, it seems that many have a hard time even accepting the adage in regards to philosophers. If philosophers are presenting a “world view” then don’t we have to understand their personal beliefs in relation to their written works? This leads to a way of reading philosophy that posits a metaphysical totem of authorial presence forever at work between different works.

It was just this tendency that Louis Althusser sought to combat regarding the oeuvre of Karl Marx. Many more liberal-oriented “Marxists” sought to convince the world that Marx was at heart a humanist because his earliest philosophical writings do, in fact, express such an outlook. Therefor, these Marxist-humanists argued, works of the latter Marx, such as “Das Kapital” had to be read in light of the early Marx. Althusser rejected such claims. The texts written by Marx in his later years did not reflect the outlook of the earlier works and moreover, one could not project the metaphysical presence of Marx on any of his works. The written works were just that, and had to be taken on their own.

In “The Politics of Being” Wolin attempts to posit a metaphysical presence of Heidegger on his entire oeuvre. It is, it strikes me, a humanistic attempt to project a human presence over the texts so it can then villainize that “humanistic construction”. Here we arrive at why I think Wolin’s work is, to some degree, doomed to failure from the start. Wolin subtitles his work “The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger” but in his introduction he acknowledges that Heidegger never offered a “political philosophy”. So, Wolin must posit an authorial presence in all of Heidegger’s works that has a consistent, sub-textual political agenda. Wolin is interpreting a thinker that exists only in his own projection, and interpreting that thinker in ways and categories that simply do not apply to the texts as written.

One of the ways this manifests itself is that Wolin frequently applies terminology from one era of Heidegger’s writings when discussing works written either much earlier or later. If this “humanistic construction” of the subject-author applied a concept at one point, then, Wolin seems to believe, that concept must apply to all aspects of their philosophy, which is comprehended as a monolithic totality. This totality presents, Wolin propounds, a coherent political vision, even without actually writing about politics. Wolin then articulates this “Heideggerean politics” that he invents as one which seeks to make the world “safe for the flowering of being”. But, warns Wolin, this state of the world is actually inimical to the flourishing of human freedom and action.

Another core flaw with Wolin’s approach is that he, like many liberal humanist thinkers (I’m looking at you, Laclau and Mouffe!) assumes that any thought that does not lead to liberal democratic conclusions, or even implications, must be “deficient”. In the course of his book Wolin will accuse Heidegger of conflating philosophy with politics. Does Wolin not do this by saying that a philosophy that does not condone liberal democracy has failed as philosophy? Moreover, the task of specifically political philosophy (which, again, Heidegger never engages in) is to argumentatively propound a certain political order. Liberal humanists like Wolin simply take the superiority of liberal democracy as a given. In no part of “Politics of Being” is liberal democracy defended. It is simply “the good”.

Wolin begins his discussion of “Being and Time” by pointing out that during his Nazi stage Heidegger went on record as claiming that his participation in the Nazi movement was an extension of his thinking as presented in “Being and Time”. Wolin claims that this means it is fare to inquire in what ways the world view presented in “Being” made the author’s attraction to Nazism predictable. Here we already see Wolin projecting an “eternal authorial presence” on Heidegger’s different texts and statements. However, let us grant Wolin this curiosity regarding Heidegger’s magnum opus.

But Wolin then displays what I above described as the second core flaw with his approach in this book. If we can decipher non-democratic tendencies in the world-view of the author of “Being and Time”, claims Wolin, then we begin to see why “Being and Time” fails as philosophy. There is no philosophical maxim that claims that a work that (indirectly) implies a philosophical outlook we disagree with fails as philosophy.

Having said that, the early sections of the book are by far the strongest. While I don’t agree with Wolin’s interpretation of “Being and Time” he does make some important points about that tome that I agree with and don’t know of anyone else making. He begins by claiming that when Heidegger writes that existence is inherently temporal that he implies that Dasein is also necessarily historical. I am not convinced that temporality as discussed in “Being and Time” can be equated with historicity as discussed in Heidegger’s post-“Being” works. Indeed, in many ways “Being” is a Kantian and ahistorical work that attempts to describe the eternal conditions of the particularly human form of being.

Wolin acknowledges that “Being” has ontological “pretensions”. It posits that what is unique about human Dasein is its attempt at self-understanding and, resultantly, self-positing (“verstehen”). But Wolin interprets “Being” (as have other commentators who attempt to reduce “Being” to a response to its historical moment- an interpretation Heidegger was presented with and wholly rejected) as an allegory of post-WW1 German malaise.

Technological modernity had enabled the greatest catastrophe in human (and, especially, German) history. The greatness of German Culture seemed in danger of being reduced to just another “modern” civilization. The concept of “anxiety” that is a key (and perhaps regrettable) aspect of “Being and Time” is interpreted by Wolin as a historical-specific response to the German defeat. Indeed, Wolin claims, the topic of “anxiety” proves that “Being” is a work that envisions existence in terms of historicity.
The fact that Heidegger presented anxiety in relation to death and guilt as an eternal, existential condition (and a concept that was directly indebted to Kieerkegard’s nineteenth century, Danish writings) is just camouflage for Heidegger’s contempt for the culture of the Weimar Republic.

The concept in “Being” of falling into Das Man, of fleeing thoughts of death, responsibility, and contingency through superficial, culturally inherited assumptions, is imagined by Wolin as a social admonition. “Das Man” is not interpreted as the anonymous, generic anybody (including ourselves) but as “they”- the chattering masses of representational, multi-party democracy. “Das Man”, for Wolin, means anyone but Heidegger.

I find this a thoroughly unconvincing interpretation of “falling” and “das Man” in “Being”. Anxiety is presented as eternal and ahistorical as the fact of mortality. We are all anxious, and we all, to some degree by necessity, fall into Das Man. The possibility of transcending Das Man is not something that Heidegger is claiming he has achieved and that the rest of us can’t hope to attain. Nonetheless, Wolin insists that when Heidegger characterizes the desire to overcome falling as coming from something indescribably personal he is indirectly stating that language has become so debased by (historically specific, Weimar-era) democratic verbiage that speech acts are inherently inauthentic. Cultural tradition, and that beautiful German language, have lost all meaning. Even as early as “Being”, according to Wolin, Heidegger claims we live in a nihilistic era of “naked facticity”.

Wolin’s is an utterly bizarre take on the role of language in “Being and Time”. While Heidegger had not yet claimed language as “the house of being” it still plays a hugely important, and positive, role in “Being”. If we fall from anxiety through the use of language as unexamined chat, then we overcome such falling by COMMUNICATING our authentic concerns to others. Language is at once our mode of escape and of transcending fear and uncovering our authentic being. We have all fallen, but we can all get up if we reach for authenticity through our statements. Heidegger is not so lapsed a Catholic. He is trying to save himself from “the fall”, and though himself all of us.

But Wolin’s Heidegger has no desire for any kind of communication with the “they” of Das Man who are beneath contempt. Exactly because of their inauthentic use of speech, particularly parliamentary speech, all appeals to rationality have become absurd. (At this point, Wolin appeals to his readers that anyone with a democratic mind-set must find Heidegger distasteful on this point. As I have already discussed, why is a “democratic mindset” simply assumed as the “correct” mind-set?)

All that remains for Wolin’s Heidegger in its quest for authenticity is the sheer imposition of the will. Wolin finds even in Heidegger’s idiosyncratic, sometimes more aphoristic than argumentative writing style a “deliberate infatuation with the forces of unreason”. But how is this will to define itself? To become authentic, Wolin’s Heidegger must accept and embrace its throwness- its contingent inheritance of a cultural tradition it did not choose. It is this cultural imbededness that must serve as the guide to Wolin’s Heidegger’s actions. And it is through such action, not discourse or reason, that Wolin’s Heidegger can exist in relation to others.

Here I believe Wolin stumbles on an important point. In “Being and Time” Heidegger does indeed call upon his readers to strive for authenticity in relation to death, guilt and throwness. Authenticity is achieved, as Wolin writes, on consciously accepting the culturally determined nature of one’s being. (It should be noted, however, that the ultimate way Heidegger suggests doing so is the authentic use of one’s own LANGUAGE, the purest example of such imbededness. The central role of language for Heidegger does not directly imply an appeal to reason, but it makes Wolin’s claims about an explicit rejection of reason less convincing.) Does this not, indeed, imply that authentic being is that which asserts its own cultural practice, even to the point of imposition? Might this line of thought have made National Socialism appealing to Heidegger? It strikes me as at least possible, but I do not think one can thereby reduce “Being and Time” to a work of “fascistic thinking.”

As problematic as the early parts of this book are, it's all down hill after the discussion of “Being and Time”, which at least raised an interesting point or two. Wolin’s interpretations of Heidegger’s later works become increasingly less persuasive. One consistent problem is that Wolin insists on projecting his (unconvincing) insistence on reading “Being and Time” as social commentary on the rest of Heidegger’s writings and biography, which Wolin seems unwilling or unable to differentiate.

Wolin declares, without evidence, that Heidegger became particularly concerned with the “fate of the west” with the stock market crash of 1929. As is well known, Heidegger planned for a time to write a second volume of “Being and Time” but started to move away from the project at the end of the 1920s. Because of Heidegger’s supposed concern over the world-economic situation, Wolin proposes that Heidegger rejected “Being and Time” for being too metaphysical and not adequately social-political.

In 1929’s “Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics” Heidegger discusses boredom as a fundamental characteristic of contemporary society. The discussion of boredom is often understood as looking at boredom opportunistically. Boredom is something we generally wish to drive away with diversion, but Heidegger thinks that being attuned to boredom as such can allow us to be reawakened to the novelty of existence.

Wolin understands Heidegger’s discussion of boredom in a very different way. At one point in “Fundamental” Heidegger writes that in contemporary society “we forget to be strong”. Wolin grabs onto this sentence fragment to understand the discussion of boredom as a lament of the vapid comforts of modernity. (Why Heidegger would express this in response to the economic collapse of ’29, which threatened to undo all of those comforts, remains unexplained.) We need to understand boredom as an aspect of our way of life, but this only to shake off both it and our lifestyle. According to Wolin, Heidegger’s discussion of boredom is implicitly a call to be bad-ass and hard-core.

If we (generously) grant Wolin’s interpretation of “Fundamental” any possible validity, then the call to “be strong” could be interpreted as a way of re-energizing contemporary life by taking responsibility for the national culture in which one is embedded, a more socially active take on authenticity as described in “Being and Time”. As Wolin himself strikingly writes at this point, such an active social responsibility could take any form as written, indeed it could be a call for (Wolin’s language) a “Bolshevik” type activism for a leftist transformation of society. But Wolin again hedges his entire argument on his reading of “Being and Time” as a right-wing critique of Weimar democracy. Since Heidegger has already expressed (according to Wolin) a right-wing view-point in “Being” then his call for greater social activism in (Wolin’s strange interpretation of) “Fundamental” must also be a radical right-wing rejection of democracy. Heidegger thinks we can only stop being bored by becoming Nazis!

I must say at this point that one arguable merit of this book is its long discussion of Heidegger’s undeniable Nazi-period. Many commentators on Heidegger’s philosophy (as opposed to biography) conveniently marginalize or even ignore the works written during Heidegger’s brief assent within the Nazi Party bureaucracy. The motivation for this neglect are numerous- embarrassment for Heidegger-as-subject, the philosophical paucity of the works themselves, clearly the weakest of Heidegger’s entire output, and what many see as the disconnect between these works and Heidegger’s output before and after this period.

By now, we can predict that Wolin most certainly does not see a disconnect between the “Nazi” works and the rest of Heidegger’s output. Indeed, for Wolin, the Nazi era writings might be the star around which the works before and after revolve. In 1933, at the beginning of his rectorship, Heidegger delivered “The Self-Affirmation of the German University”, a lecture that briefly made him a darling of the Nazi Party. In it, Heidegger declared that the destiny of the German people, especially as it pertained to university life, was to recreate the Greek polis, that is a society of thinker-actors that would reinvigorate the “thinking of being” as it “began” in Classical Greece. Like the ancient thinkers who began the quest of philosophy (and western civilization, according to Heidegger’s historiography) the German Volk would have to dare to ask radically new questions in radically new ways, and being willing, even eager to expose itself to adventure and danger.

[graceofgod · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's certainly an interesting book! But if I'm going to be honest... I don't think I've read enough Heidegger to actually have a coherent and informed 'position' on it, except that I feel like the author's critique of Heidegger vacillates between an uncritical liberal (and triumphalist pro-modern) perspective and a critical theorist/Hegelian-Marxist perspective (which I am more partial to.)

[AC · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up.... Haven't the stomach now to wade through pages on Heidegger.... Maybe when I'm older.... The articles below (especially the one on E. Nolte), which are biographical and historical, are enough.


For an excellent brief and clear overview of the topic of Heidegger and his Nazi connections, see
Th. Sheehan, NYRB, vol. 35, no. 10 (1988): http://www.nybooks.com/articles/4397; also vol. 40, nos. 1&2 (1993) on Ernst Nolte: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2701. For Wolin, who is an expert also on the Frankfurt School and on writers such as W. Benjamin, see The Seduction of Unreason:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34...

The current book is a rich analysis of the philosophical basis, in Sein und Zeit, of Heidegger's political commitments and entanglements.

[Peter Owens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Draws strong parallels between Heidegger's thought and National Socialism, but his opinions often write checks his research can't cash.

[Hanna Mae]

(Y)