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Hannah Arendt y Martin Heidegger
Hannah Arendt se encuentra por primera vez con Martin Heidegger en la Universidad de Marburgo en 1924, cuando esta joven judía alemana de dieciocho años pasa a ser su alumna y él, a sus treinta y cinco años, está casado, tiene dos hijos y está escribiendo una de sus obras cumbres, Ser y Tiempo. A1 poco tiempo ya son amantes. Martin se siente atraído por la vitalidad y la inteligencia de Hannah y halagado por la admiración que empieza a profesarle su alumna. Sus encuentros amorosos clandestinos duran cuatro años; luego se separan y se distancian durante veinte. En ese largo periodo Heidegger se adhiere al nazismo y Arendt emigra a Estados Unidos, donde escribirá libros hoy tan esenciales como Los orígenes del totalitarismo. Reanudan su relación en 1950 y, pese a sus divergencias, continúan siendo amigos íntimos hasta la muerte de Hannah en 1975, a la que siguió, unos meses después, la de Martin. En este libro Ettinger aporta detalles inéditos sobre esta extraña y atormentada historia de amor.
Elzbieta Ettinger es profesora de humanidades en el Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Estados Unidos. Es autora y editora de varios libros, entre los cuales destacan una novela, Kindergarten, y una biografía, Rosa Luxemburg, a Life. La profesora Elzbieta Ettinger ha sido hasta ahora la única persona en tener acceso a la correspondencia privada de Heidegger, que, por voluntad del filósofo, sólo podrá ver la luz bien avanzado el siglo XXI. Aun sin poder reproducirla directamente, la profesora Ettinger sí ha podido comprobar personalmente hasta qué punto Arendt y Heidegger estuvieron, pese a las diferencias y los distanciamientos, tan poderosamente unidos.
Publicado en otoño de 1995 en Estados Unidos, este documento biográfico acerca de la relación amorosa de dos grandes filósofos de nuestro siglo, ella judía y él adscrito al nacionalsocialismo, no sólo revela la verdadera naturaleza de esta dramática historia de amor entre dos gigantes del pensamiento universal, sino que fascina a cualquiera que se interese por la complejidad del alma humana.
Elzbieta Ettinger es profesora de humanidades en el Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Estados Unidos. Es autora y editora de varios libros, entre los cuales destacan una novela, Kindergarten, y una biografía, Rosa Luxemburg, a Life. La profesora Elzbieta Ettinger ha sido hasta ahora la única persona en tener acceso a la correspondencia privada de Heidegger, que, por voluntad del filósofo, sólo podrá ver la luz bien avanzado el siglo XXI. Aun sin poder reproducirla directamente, la profesora Ettinger sí ha podido comprobar personalmente hasta qué punto Arendt y Heidegger estuvieron, pese a las diferencias y los distanciamientos, tan poderosamente unidos.
Publicado en otoño de 1995 en Estados Unidos, este documento biográfico acerca de la relación amorosa de dos grandes filósofos de nuestro siglo, ella judía y él adscrito al nacionalsocialismo, no sólo revela la verdadera naturaleza de esta dramática historia de amor entre dos gigantes del pensamiento universal, sino que fascina a cualquiera que se interese por la complejidad del alma humana.
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
12 people are currently reading
206 people want to read
About the author
Elżbieta Ettinger
9 books2 followersA novelist, biographer and professor of writing who helped build the MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies.
A native of Warsaw, Poland, Ettinger survived the Holocaust, escaping the Warsaw ghetto shortly before its liquidation; she then worked for the Polish resistance while maintaining a false identity as a Catholic Pole (she was also known by her wartime pseudonym, Elzbieta Chodakowska).
Ettinger earned a Ph.D. in American literature from Warsaw University in 1966; she moved to Massachusetts the following year and served as a Senior Fellow at the Radcliffe (now Bunting) Institute until 1974.
From 1975 to 1996, Ettinger served as professor of writing at MIT, where she was named Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and Literature. A demanding and forceful teacher, she helped build the Institute's Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and was instrumental in bringing such writers as I. B. Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Elizabeth Bishop to the MIT community.
A native of Warsaw, Poland, Ettinger survived the Holocaust, escaping the Warsaw ghetto shortly before its liquidation; she then worked for the Polish resistance while maintaining a false identity as a Catholic Pole (she was also known by her wartime pseudonym, Elzbieta Chodakowska).
Ettinger earned a Ph.D. in American literature from Warsaw University in 1966; she moved to Massachusetts the following year and served as a Senior Fellow at the Radcliffe (now Bunting) Institute until 1974.
From 1975 to 1996, Ettinger served as professor of writing at MIT, where she was named Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and Literature. A demanding and forceful teacher, she helped build the Institute's Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and was instrumental in bringing such writers as I. B. Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Elizabeth Bishop to the MIT community.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 25, 2023
I found this yesterday at the large sale at Locust Grove, it was largely an afterthought. Most of the reviews here are dismissive, calling this gossip. Well, I have read Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World and Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil and what is related here corresponds to the conclusions of those three authors.
This book hopes to tackle the romance which occurred between Heidegger and Arendt and what effect it had on both of them through their lives. There isn't much space afforded to thinking or theory. It is a guessing game--about who did what and why. Heidegger's wife becomes a target of opportunity but she does appear to be an unrepentant antisemite.
This book hopes to tackle the romance which occurred between Heidegger and Arendt and what effect it had on both of them through their lives. There isn't much space afforded to thinking or theory. It is a guessing game--about who did what and why. Heidegger's wife becomes a target of opportunity but she does appear to be an unrepentant antisemite.
July 4, 2015
Hannah/Martin/Elfride
Hannah Arendt met Martin Heidegger in 1924, when she enrolled in his philosophy course.
She was 18, he was 35. He married his wife, Elfride, seven years before, in 1917. She was a student of political economy and came from a strict Prussian military family. She would later become and remain an enthusiastic National Socialist and a fan of Hitler. By 1924, they had had two sons.
This work gives Elfride fairly short shrift. She comes across as an insecure, jealous disciplinarian (even if the reasons are clear). The couple are described as like minds, but there is little sense of her having been a soul mate of Heidegger (to the extent that Arendt would become), even if they shared a belief that Hitler and the Nazi Party were the only hope Germany and Europe had in order to fend off Communism.
Whatever the external threats and challenges, the Heideggers never separated or divorced. Their marriage remained solid as a rock, until death (Heidegger's) did them part. Elfride stood by her man. She held her marriage together.
One to One Correspondence
At the time this short work was written, the private correspondence between Arendt and Heidegger hadn't been publicly released.
Mary McCarthy, a close friend and confidante of Arendt's (as well as her literary executor), alerted Elzbieta Ettinger (then a professor at M.I.T.) to its existence, in the hope that she might write a biography of Arendt. Ettinger wasn't able to complete it before her death. However, early in the process, she decided to publish a book based on what she had gleaned from the letters about the intimate relationship between the two.
Watch out, Hannah, you don't know what those cigarettes will do to your skin!
A Youthful Dalliance, No More
Heidegger fell in love with Arendt early in his lecture course. Within two months, he had invited her into his office, where they talked shyly for several hours. Unable to break her reserve, Heidegger wrote her a love letter and then another. Within two weeks they had become lovers.
Later it would become known within a limited circle that Arendt had had this youthful dalliance, which was first mentioned in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s biography, "Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World" in 1984.
No particular importance was given to the dalliance at the time. It did not immediately detract from Arendt's defence of Heidegger and his philosophy after the war, when he was ostracised for his support of the Nazi Party and his anti-Semitism.
What wasn't known up until this work was published was that their close relationship continued for the whole of their lives, although not necessarily on a physical level.
This account of the relationship creates a dilemma for a reader.
On the one hand, it caters to a prurient interest in the personal lives of two important philosophers (based, largely, on private correspondence). Do we really need to know this stuff?
On the other hand, there is no attempt to sensationalise the story. The words and acts of the protagonists speak for themselves, even though Ettinger wasn't able to quote directly from Heidegger's letters to which she had access (she had to paraphrase them). (Only after Elfride died in 1992 were there discussions about publishIng some of the correspondence, which did not occur until 2003.)
Poison in the Inkwell
When, after the war, it became known that Heidegger had been a Nazi supporter and anti-Semite, the issue became one of whether his philosophy could be divorced from his politics.
Ettinger addresses this issue here. However, her book also implicitly asks the question whether a philosophy can be divorced from the man who created it.
Does the true nature of the man poison his philosophy? What are we supposed to make of a philosophy that expounds on the nature of authenticity, if it seems that in his public and personal life the philosopher was duplicitous, manipulative, hypocritical and insincere?
This isn't meant to be a criticism of the morality of an extra-marital affair. It's more targeted at Heidegger's betrayal of his Jewish colleagues and friends (Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers), and his refusal to recant, explain or apologise for his Nazi beliefs under extreme public and personal pressure after the war.
Love in Truth
I approached the book on the basis that Arendt and Heidegger were genuinely in love. At least, initially, they did justice to the spiritual and sexual demands of that love.
If you would believe Heidegger, she taught him how to love. Until the relationship, he was "strict, rigid, hard-working, the son of devout Catholic peasants" (although it seems that he and Elfride chose not to baptise their children in the Church).
If Ettinger is to be faulted in any way, I think it's the lingering insinuation that Arendt was duped by Heidegger.
As it turned out, she wasn't the only female student he had a relationship with.
However, for all the suspicion Heidegger and his philosophy invoked in the eyes of the Gestapo, it seems he hid successfully behind the apparent solidity of his marriage, particularly insofar as they were perceived as fervent Nazi supporters.
Arendt and Heidegger remained lovers until 1930, when she left Marburg to study under Karl Jaspers in Freiburg.
When they parted company, Arendt, now 23, swore that she could, and would, never love another man. While she did have relationships and marry twice (once at least very happily), it's clear that she reserved a large part of her heart and mind for Heidegger.
At her age, you can't put this down to stupidity or naivete.
The Idol in the Twilight
Ultimately, it seems that Heidegger needed to be idolised more than loved. Love was almost a by-product.
I'm still finding my way around Heidegger's philosophy and trying to assess its significance. It's arguable that "Being and Time" is the greatest philosophical work of the twentieth century. However, I wonder whether Heidegger's greatness derives more from his writing than his philosophy. Much of his work simply revitalised Greek philosophical tradition. He used the etymology of words and concepts to bring fresh understanding and insight to old ideas. He wrote like a poet or novelist, even if readers are often hamstrung by his neologisms and novel use of old words.
Most importantly, he wrote like an orator speaks. He was a great rhetorician.
I Put a Spell on You
A year before she died, Arendt wrote to Heidegger, "No one can deliver a lecture the way you do, nor did anyone before you."
In a tribute to Heidegger on his eightieth birthday, Arendt spoke of his reputation, even before she took his course:
"Little more than a name was known, but the name made its way through all of Germany like the rumor of a secret king."
He was the most popular teacher at the university, because of his innovative philosophical thought and his mesmerising delivery. It seems he shared a charisma with Hitler, whose chief ideologue he sought to be.
Karl Loewith (a former pupil and later a harsh critic of Heidegger) wrote:
"He was a dark little man who knew how to cast a spell...The technique of his lectures consisted of building up a complex structure of ideas, which he then dismantled to confront the overstrung student with a puzzle and leave him in a void. This art of witchcraft entailed very risky results: it attracted more or less psychopathic minds, and one student took her own life after three years of puzzle-solving."
Ettinger adds:
"Aware of his allure to both male and female students and of his power over their minds, Heidegger purposely kept his distance, intensifying the mystique, the awe, the reverence."
Worship and Adulation
Later, Ettinger expresses the opinion, "Heidegger transferred the cult of worship from the lecture hall to his personal relationship with Arendt."
Even when he was 63, Ettinger describes him as "an avid sportsman,...in excellent shape, creative, popular, surrounded by disciples and acolytes, male and female."
From Heidegger's point of view, Arendt, a beautiful, intelligent, shy, sensual Jewess, was a "stimulating force" in his life. Whatever else, it's clear that the relationship and its longevity had an intellectual foundation, one of "spiritual kinship".
Ettinger denies that Heidegger was an aggressive man, but she says his behaviour revealed a "forceful, self-centred nature and a capacity for ruthlessness and cunning...he was an insecure man in constant need of worship and adulation...which Hannah provided in abundance."
Despite her strength of character, Heidegger treated Arendt as his apprentice and acolyte. He brought out in her an "obedience or even passivity". Even at age 46, she "could not resist his spell":
"Arendt vacillated between what reason told her and what she knew. She did not want to liberate herself from Heidegger's power, to put an end to the bondage but not to the bond; she wanted to retain his friendship, and perhaps his love."
The Compensation of Genius
Still, for the whole of her life, she continued to regard Heidegger as a genius. She was quite distressed when Alfred Kazin told her that the name Heidegger "had become sort of a cuss word in Germany". Equally, she was familiar with how "terribly hurt" Heidegger was when confronted by the apostasy of former pupils and acolytes (like Karl Loewith).
Heidegger drew comfort from the fact that she was "intellectually dependent on him".
In her words, she "remained faithful and unfaithful, and both in love."
Towards the end of her life, Arendt would tell Mary McCarthy that Heidegger was "the great love of my life", though in her eyes, "with men like that, talent overruled unreliability, or compensated for it."
Ettinger recognises that the heart sometimes rules the mind, even in the case of a philosopher:
"No person who knows about love and passion will consider Arendt's forgiveness of Heidegger unusual."
Thus, it seems that Ettinger finds Heidegger culpable, but forgiven, at least by one of the individuals who matter.
Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt: 24 April, 1925
"My Dearest!
When I gave you [back your manuscript 'Shadows'] today, your elementary joy overwhelmed me and made me helpless. I gave you a piece of my soul — little enough for your love — but your joyful gratitude towered over everything...
There are “shadows” only where there is sun. And that is the foundation of your soul...
You come straight from the center of your existence to be close to me, and you have become a force that will influence my life forever. Fragmentation and despair will never yield anything like your supportive love in my work...
“Shadows” were cast by your surroundings, by the age, by the forced maturity of a young life.
I would not love you if I were not convinced that those shadows are not you but distortions and illusions produced by an endless self-erosion that penetrated from outside.
Your startling admission will not undermine my belief in the genuine, rich impulses of your existence. On the contrary, for me it is proof that you have moved into the open — although the way out of such existential contortions, which are not really yours, will be long...
You were so happy today when you arrived, sparkling and free, just as I hoped you would be on your return to Marburg. I was dazed by the splendor of this human essence—whom I am allowed to be close to. And when you asked—as I apparently seemed absent—if you should go, then I was with you — entirely alone — free of worldly cares and doubt — in the clear joy that you exist.
I will be lecturing in room 11 again; do you know what that means?
Good night dearest Hannah!
Your
Martin."
Hannah Arendt met Martin Heidegger in 1924, when she enrolled in his philosophy course.
She was 18, he was 35. He married his wife, Elfride, seven years before, in 1917. She was a student of political economy and came from a strict Prussian military family. She would later become and remain an enthusiastic National Socialist and a fan of Hitler. By 1924, they had had two sons.
This work gives Elfride fairly short shrift. She comes across as an insecure, jealous disciplinarian (even if the reasons are clear). The couple are described as like minds, but there is little sense of her having been a soul mate of Heidegger (to the extent that Arendt would become), even if they shared a belief that Hitler and the Nazi Party were the only hope Germany and Europe had in order to fend off Communism.
Whatever the external threats and challenges, the Heideggers never separated or divorced. Their marriage remained solid as a rock, until death (Heidegger's) did them part. Elfride stood by her man. She held her marriage together.
One to One Correspondence
At the time this short work was written, the private correspondence between Arendt and Heidegger hadn't been publicly released.
Mary McCarthy, a close friend and confidante of Arendt's (as well as her literary executor), alerted Elzbieta Ettinger (then a professor at M.I.T.) to its existence, in the hope that she might write a biography of Arendt. Ettinger wasn't able to complete it before her death. However, early in the process, she decided to publish a book based on what she had gleaned from the letters about the intimate relationship between the two.
Watch out, Hannah, you don't know what those cigarettes will do to your skin!
A Youthful Dalliance, No More
Heidegger fell in love with Arendt early in his lecture course. Within two months, he had invited her into his office, where they talked shyly for several hours. Unable to break her reserve, Heidegger wrote her a love letter and then another. Within two weeks they had become lovers.
Later it would become known within a limited circle that Arendt had had this youthful dalliance, which was first mentioned in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s biography, "Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World" in 1984.
No particular importance was given to the dalliance at the time. It did not immediately detract from Arendt's defence of Heidegger and his philosophy after the war, when he was ostracised for his support of the Nazi Party and his anti-Semitism.
What wasn't known up until this work was published was that their close relationship continued for the whole of their lives, although not necessarily on a physical level.
This account of the relationship creates a dilemma for a reader.
On the one hand, it caters to a prurient interest in the personal lives of two important philosophers (based, largely, on private correspondence). Do we really need to know this stuff?
On the other hand, there is no attempt to sensationalise the story. The words and acts of the protagonists speak for themselves, even though Ettinger wasn't able to quote directly from Heidegger's letters to which she had access (she had to paraphrase them). (Only after Elfride died in 1992 were there discussions about publishIng some of the correspondence, which did not occur until 2003.)
Poison in the Inkwell
When, after the war, it became known that Heidegger had been a Nazi supporter and anti-Semite, the issue became one of whether his philosophy could be divorced from his politics.
Ettinger addresses this issue here. However, her book also implicitly asks the question whether a philosophy can be divorced from the man who created it.
Does the true nature of the man poison his philosophy? What are we supposed to make of a philosophy that expounds on the nature of authenticity, if it seems that in his public and personal life the philosopher was duplicitous, manipulative, hypocritical and insincere?
This isn't meant to be a criticism of the morality of an extra-marital affair. It's more targeted at Heidegger's betrayal of his Jewish colleagues and friends (Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers), and his refusal to recant, explain or apologise for his Nazi beliefs under extreme public and personal pressure after the war.
Love in Truth
I approached the book on the basis that Arendt and Heidegger were genuinely in love. At least, initially, they did justice to the spiritual and sexual demands of that love.
If you would believe Heidegger, she taught him how to love. Until the relationship, he was "strict, rigid, hard-working, the son of devout Catholic peasants" (although it seems that he and Elfride chose not to baptise their children in the Church).
If Ettinger is to be faulted in any way, I think it's the lingering insinuation that Arendt was duped by Heidegger.
As it turned out, she wasn't the only female student he had a relationship with.
However, for all the suspicion Heidegger and his philosophy invoked in the eyes of the Gestapo, it seems he hid successfully behind the apparent solidity of his marriage, particularly insofar as they were perceived as fervent Nazi supporters.
Arendt and Heidegger remained lovers until 1930, when she left Marburg to study under Karl Jaspers in Freiburg.
When they parted company, Arendt, now 23, swore that she could, and would, never love another man. While she did have relationships and marry twice (once at least very happily), it's clear that she reserved a large part of her heart and mind for Heidegger.
At her age, you can't put this down to stupidity or naivete.
The Idol in the Twilight
Ultimately, it seems that Heidegger needed to be idolised more than loved. Love was almost a by-product.
I'm still finding my way around Heidegger's philosophy and trying to assess its significance. It's arguable that "Being and Time" is the greatest philosophical work of the twentieth century. However, I wonder whether Heidegger's greatness derives more from his writing than his philosophy. Much of his work simply revitalised Greek philosophical tradition. He used the etymology of words and concepts to bring fresh understanding and insight to old ideas. He wrote like a poet or novelist, even if readers are often hamstrung by his neologisms and novel use of old words.
Most importantly, he wrote like an orator speaks. He was a great rhetorician.
I Put a Spell on You
A year before she died, Arendt wrote to Heidegger, "No one can deliver a lecture the way you do, nor did anyone before you."
In a tribute to Heidegger on his eightieth birthday, Arendt spoke of his reputation, even before she took his course:
"Little more than a name was known, but the name made its way through all of Germany like the rumor of a secret king."
He was the most popular teacher at the university, because of his innovative philosophical thought and his mesmerising delivery. It seems he shared a charisma with Hitler, whose chief ideologue he sought to be.
Karl Loewith (a former pupil and later a harsh critic of Heidegger) wrote:
"He was a dark little man who knew how to cast a spell...The technique of his lectures consisted of building up a complex structure of ideas, which he then dismantled to confront the overstrung student with a puzzle and leave him in a void. This art of witchcraft entailed very risky results: it attracted more or less psychopathic minds, and one student took her own life after three years of puzzle-solving."
Ettinger adds:
"Aware of his allure to both male and female students and of his power over their minds, Heidegger purposely kept his distance, intensifying the mystique, the awe, the reverence."
Worship and Adulation
Later, Ettinger expresses the opinion, "Heidegger transferred the cult of worship from the lecture hall to his personal relationship with Arendt."
Even when he was 63, Ettinger describes him as "an avid sportsman,...in excellent shape, creative, popular, surrounded by disciples and acolytes, male and female."
From Heidegger's point of view, Arendt, a beautiful, intelligent, shy, sensual Jewess, was a "stimulating force" in his life. Whatever else, it's clear that the relationship and its longevity had an intellectual foundation, one of "spiritual kinship".
Ettinger denies that Heidegger was an aggressive man, but she says his behaviour revealed a "forceful, self-centred nature and a capacity for ruthlessness and cunning...he was an insecure man in constant need of worship and adulation...which Hannah provided in abundance."
Despite her strength of character, Heidegger treated Arendt as his apprentice and acolyte. He brought out in her an "obedience or even passivity". Even at age 46, she "could not resist his spell":
"Arendt vacillated between what reason told her and what she knew. She did not want to liberate herself from Heidegger's power, to put an end to the bondage but not to the bond; she wanted to retain his friendship, and perhaps his love."
The Compensation of Genius
Still, for the whole of her life, she continued to regard Heidegger as a genius. She was quite distressed when Alfred Kazin told her that the name Heidegger "had become sort of a cuss word in Germany". Equally, she was familiar with how "terribly hurt" Heidegger was when confronted by the apostasy of former pupils and acolytes (like Karl Loewith).
Heidegger drew comfort from the fact that she was "intellectually dependent on him".
In her words, she "remained faithful and unfaithful, and both in love."
Towards the end of her life, Arendt would tell Mary McCarthy that Heidegger was "the great love of my life", though in her eyes, "with men like that, talent overruled unreliability, or compensated for it."
Ettinger recognises that the heart sometimes rules the mind, even in the case of a philosopher:
"No person who knows about love and passion will consider Arendt's forgiveness of Heidegger unusual."
Thus, it seems that Ettinger finds Heidegger culpable, but forgiven, at least by one of the individuals who matter.
Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt: 24 April, 1925
"My Dearest!
When I gave you [back your manuscript 'Shadows'] today, your elementary joy overwhelmed me and made me helpless. I gave you a piece of my soul — little enough for your love — but your joyful gratitude towered over everything...
There are “shadows” only where there is sun. And that is the foundation of your soul...
You come straight from the center of your existence to be close to me, and you have become a force that will influence my life forever. Fragmentation and despair will never yield anything like your supportive love in my work...
“Shadows” were cast by your surroundings, by the age, by the forced maturity of a young life.
I would not love you if I were not convinced that those shadows are not you but distortions and illusions produced by an endless self-erosion that penetrated from outside.
Your startling admission will not undermine my belief in the genuine, rich impulses of your existence. On the contrary, for me it is proof that you have moved into the open — although the way out of such existential contortions, which are not really yours, will be long...
You were so happy today when you arrived, sparkling and free, just as I hoped you would be on your return to Marburg. I was dazed by the splendor of this human essence—whom I am allowed to be close to. And when you asked—as I apparently seemed absent—if you should go, then I was with you — entirely alone — free of worldly cares and doubt — in the clear joy that you exist.
I will be lecturing in room 11 again; do you know what that means?
Good night dearest Hannah!
Your
Martin."
January 10, 2022
Wyjątkowo słaba pozycja. Źle napisana (lub przetłumaczona), trudne do zrozumienia zdania „potworki”, dziwaczne i niegramatyczne. Do tego pełna ocen i opinii autorki, być może trafnych, ale rzadko popartych faktami, które pomogłyby zrozumieć i ocenić słuszność sformułowanych przez Ettinger konkluzji. Natomiast przyjaźń Arendt i Heideggera (oraz Karla Jaspersa) jest fascynująca nie mniej niż ich dzieła, więc tym bardziej żal zmarnowanego przez autorkę potencjału.
January 2, 2008
More gossip and innuendo than history or argument -- trash masquerading as serious history/philosophy.
December 13, 2016
"دوست مورد اعتماد من
كسى كه به او وفادار و بىوفا ماندم
هر دو با عشق"
هانا آرنت به هايدگر
كسى كه به او وفادار و بىوفا ماندم
هر دو با عشق"
هانا آرنت به هايدگر
November 3, 2022
Heidegger byl svině, sebestředný nácek využívající okolí jen pro své úspěchy, ale byl nepopiratelně geniální ve svém myšlení!
Při psaní diplomky, která se týká především jeho filosofie, musím jeho myšlenky deindividualizovat proto, jak nesympatický to byl člověk.
“Byla to základní myšlenka knihy Původ totalitarismu, která byla Heideggerovi z hloubi duše proti mysli. A co bylo ještě horší - ta kniha byla dílem jeho věrné žákyně a ženy, o níž si namlouval, že je pouhým nástrojem v jeho rukou. Arendtová zdůrazňovala shodné rysy mezi nacionálním socialismem, který Heidegger obdivoval, a komunismem, který nenáviděl.”
Milovali se, nenáviděli se, soupeřili spolu, ona jej vždycky obhajovala a milovala, i když on ji zavrhnul pro její židovský původ. A ke konci života přišel za Hannah s prosíkem, protože jeho vlastní žena byla neurotická nacionalistka a řídila mu veškerý život.
Při psaní diplomky, která se týká především jeho filosofie, musím jeho myšlenky deindividualizovat proto, jak nesympatický to byl člověk.
“Byla to základní myšlenka knihy Původ totalitarismu, která byla Heideggerovi z hloubi duše proti mysli. A co bylo ještě horší - ta kniha byla dílem jeho věrné žákyně a ženy, o níž si namlouval, že je pouhým nástrojem v jeho rukou. Arendtová zdůrazňovala shodné rysy mezi nacionálním socialismem, který Heidegger obdivoval, a komunismem, který nenáviděl.”
Milovali se, nenáviděli se, soupeřili spolu, ona jej vždycky obhajovala a milovala, i když on ji zavrhnul pro její židovský původ. A ke konci života přišel za Hannah s prosíkem, protože jeho vlastní žena byla neurotická nacionalistka a řídila mu veškerý život.
January 16, 2012
This is not a great book, but it is sometimes entertaining. Ettinger begins with very firm conclusions and then goes through a lot of mental gymnastics to make everything fit into those conclusions, but I am not convinced.
What I am convinced about, however, is that Heidegger was a horrible person who lied constantly and treated his friends very poorly (most notably Husserl). He was also an unrepentant National Socialist from the 1930s until he died, something both Arendt and Jaspers knew, even if they would not say so publicly.
Ettinger does not even consider what I think is the most plausible explanation for Arendt's behavior re: Heidegger after WW2: that Arendt felt Heidegger's philosophy was so important that she must white-wash his past to make sure he could keep publishing and teaching.
What I am convinced about, however, is that Heidegger was a horrible person who lied constantly and treated his friends very poorly (most notably Husserl). He was also an unrepentant National Socialist from the 1930s until he died, something both Arendt and Jaspers knew, even if they would not say so publicly.
Ettinger does not even consider what I think is the most plausible explanation for Arendt's behavior re: Heidegger after WW2: that Arendt felt Heidegger's philosophy was so important that she must white-wash his past to make sure he could keep publishing and teaching.
March 12, 2015
Appetite for deconstruction!
132 vackra sidor satta i Monotype Perpetua kastar ljus på Arendts och Heideggers långa vänskap-cum-kärleksaffär. I den nya filmen om Arendt var detta kraftigt nedtonat. Ändå upplever jag att jag främst följer deras respektive akademiska karriärer. Så vad återstår; hur kan man komma närmare? Läsa originalbreven, kanske, men så brinnande är inte mitt intresse.
Nedslående för övrigt att det rör sig om en ganska klassisk professor-studentska-relation, där hon, musan, mest lyssnar på hans monologer. I boktiteln kommer åtminstone Hannahs namn före hans, till skillnad från alla 'Sartre och De Beauvoir'-skildringar t.ex.
132 vackra sidor satta i Monotype Perpetua kastar ljus på Arendts och Heideggers långa vänskap-cum-kärleksaffär. I den nya filmen om Arendt var detta kraftigt nedtonat. Ändå upplever jag att jag främst följer deras respektive akademiska karriärer. Så vad återstår; hur kan man komma närmare? Läsa originalbreven, kanske, men så brinnande är inte mitt intresse.
Nedslående för övrigt att det rör sig om en ganska klassisk professor-studentska-relation, där hon, musan, mest lyssnar på hans monologer. I boktiteln kommer åtminstone Hannahs namn före hans, till skillnad från alla 'Sartre och De Beauvoir'-skildringar t.ex.
July 22, 2015
I am very much at fault when it comes to thinking of historical figures as fictional characters (though I suppose looking at the world and the people around me as if they were in a book is an overarching problem) so I understand the author's error here. Heidegger is human to the point of fictionality. But treating his and Arendt like a cheap romance novel is dismissive of both of them. This was like a Jacqueline Susann novel except without the humor and self awareness. I missed opportunity through and through.
May 16, 2023
This book is quite compelling. Ettinger doesn't hold back from her own interpretations which clearly lean toward sympathy for Arendt and even toward Hiedegger's wife, even though the sympathy is not without nuance. I can see why it is controversial - but it is not wholly due to Ettinger's bias, which we might rather not want in an academic work or a biography of sorts. It is because Heidegger is painted (revealed?) as a narcissist. Arendt's own words share that, as she grew in consciousness and her success, she thought Heidegger a perpetual liar and someone who would punish her with his silence and distance when her books were published and started to become celebrated. She says that while she didn't mind being the worshipful student who hid her own intellect, listening while Heidegger spoke when she was younger, that it was becoming increasingly difficult to do. Jaspers never could forgive him for various conduct, and commented as well unfavorably on Heid's character. I will have to continue to read the Letters, collection of correspondence that I have in order to make a further assessment without Ettinger's bias. But I felt if anything it was a fun, albeit sensational, read.
February 25, 2020
This was a useful read to get further background on this relationship. I know it was shocking when it first came out. Unfortunately I do think the book takes a pro-Martin/Elfride stance. We’re supposed to feel bad for Heidegger’s Nazi wife....? Yeah, no, sorry.
November 2, 2021
Very little discussion of ideas here, but an absolutely fascinating look at the long affair between two of 20th century Germany's most influential thinkers, one notably a National Socialist at one time, the other a Jew.
December 16, 2020
篇幅多著墨於哲學家的私人事件與醜聞。強烈建議拜讀過海德格及漢娜鄂蘭的著作、仍好奇他們的私人面相者再計劃閱讀。
December 3, 2025
lots of speculation.
November 2, 2014
Having already read Daniel Maier-Katkin's Stranger From Abroad , I found Ettinger's version of the relationship between Arendt and Heidegger to be mostly repeat. Ettinger published her review in 1997, thirteen years before Maier-Katkin, so it is a bit unfair to say that Ettinger's version isn't comparable, however if you are choosing between the two, I'd choose Maier-Katkin's version. Both authors left me yearning to know more about Heidegger; neither biographer painted him in a very favorable light.
July 8, 2014
se indistinguirmos a obra do autor (ou a arte do artista) só nos restaria mandar Heidegger às favas com seu oportunismo e suas contradições. Uma pessoa terrível para se apaixonar por, IMHO. Ainda que (conforme o relato, óbvio) o nazismo não faça sentido nem dentro do pensamento do próprio heidegger, nada muda o fato de que ele vendeu seus amigos pra tirar o seu da reta. Tô com o Jaspers até o final. E me é um mistério como um ser iluminado como a Hannah pode ter se sujeitado a esse relacionamento opressor do começo ao fim.
December 4, 2017
Uno de los romances más controvertidos del siglo XX que se dio entre estos dos filósofos alemanes: una historia de amor y una crónica de la desdicha de la razón.
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May 16, 2018The exchanges of Arendt with Jaspers along with Jaspers with Heidegger need to be read alongside for a complete picture.
August 13, 2018
Author makes assumptions that don't appear to be based on anything but her own point of view. Unfortunate because it presents Arendt and Heidegger in a distorted light. She is judgemental and angry; this clouds her thinking. Her footnotes are sketchy. She had great access to these papers and blew it.
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