Post by rmarks1 on Mar 10, 2014 14:07:36 GMT -5
Heidegger's "black notebooks" are finally being published.
Bob
For decades, controversy has marred the legacy of Martin Heidegger, whose theories and complicity with the Nazi regime led many to brand him an anti-Semite.
Yet there was never a smoking gun in the late German philosopher’s expansive work, an explicit pejorative reference to Jews or Judaism as such. Heidegger admirers and critics battled over certain passages, concepts, and personal anecdotes. But neither side could issue unequivocal evidence to put to rest the long-running feud.
This, however, may change with the publication in March of Heidegger’s "black notebooks," a kind of intellectual diary he kept during the 1930s and 40s. Officially the new material is under embargo until publication, but leaked excerpts, as well as statements by Peter Trawny, the collection’s editor, seem to illustrate beyond a doubt that Heidegger harbored anti-Semitic convictions during the Nazi dictatorship.
The excerpts have also triggered their own acrimonious debate. In recent interviews and commentary, the German editor has faced withering criticism from philosophers in France, where Heidegger’s philosophy has long found favor, over his interpretation of the notebooks and of the true nature of one of the 20th century’s philosophical giants....
The new material "is something very surprising, something we’ve never seen before," says Mr. Trawny, director of the Martin Heidegger Institute at the University of Wuppertal. The scholar was chosen by the Heidegger family to edit the three volumes of the leather-covered black notebooks.
"In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Heidegger was very angry," says Mr. Trawny. By then, he says, the philosopher realized that both Nazi ideology and his own philosophical mission, which was predicated on a national revolution and Germany’s dominance in Europe, were going to fail. "In this anger, he makes reference to Jews, including some passages that are extremely hostile. We knew that he had expressed anti-Semitism as private insights, but this shows anti-Semitism tied in to his philosophy," says Mr. Trawny.
The editor says Heidegger’s references to a controlling "world Jewry" and to a collusion of "rootless" Jews in both international capitalism and communism are essentially the logic that informs the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous, early 20th-century, anti-Semitic forgery that claims to show a Jewish conspiracy for global domination. "He doesn’t say he’s read The Protocols," says Mr. Trawny, "but that’s not necessary to share a certain kind of anti-Semitism with the Protocols. Nazi propaganda was full of exactly this kind of anti-Semitism."...
Ironically, it was not in Germany but rather in postwar France where his work was popularized in academic circles, as well as defended against its largely German detractors. While Heidegger’s thought was viewed as implicitly political in Germany, in France intellectuals ran with a distinctly apolitical rendering of his phenomenology.
Major French thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida proudly claimed Heidegger as their own—and defended the turf. In the Heidegger camp, his acolytes argued that the private life of philosophers can—and must—be separated from their theoretical ideas. Furthermore, Heidegger, they claimed, subscribed to a metaphysical rather than an ethnic, blood-based concept of Volk and nation.
"The French philosophers have a lot at stake here," says Matthias Flatscher, a philosopher at the University of Vienna, explaining the French reaction. "Heidegger is much more central to the French schools of thought, like deconstructionism and discourse analysis, than he is to German philosophy."
chronicle.com/article/Release-of-Heidegger-s/144897/
Yet there was never a smoking gun in the late German philosopher’s expansive work, an explicit pejorative reference to Jews or Judaism as such. Heidegger admirers and critics battled over certain passages, concepts, and personal anecdotes. But neither side could issue unequivocal evidence to put to rest the long-running feud.
This, however, may change with the publication in March of Heidegger’s "black notebooks," a kind of intellectual diary he kept during the 1930s and 40s. Officially the new material is under embargo until publication, but leaked excerpts, as well as statements by Peter Trawny, the collection’s editor, seem to illustrate beyond a doubt that Heidegger harbored anti-Semitic convictions during the Nazi dictatorship.
The excerpts have also triggered their own acrimonious debate. In recent interviews and commentary, the German editor has faced withering criticism from philosophers in France, where Heidegger’s philosophy has long found favor, over his interpretation of the notebooks and of the true nature of one of the 20th century’s philosophical giants....
The new material "is something very surprising, something we’ve never seen before," says Mr. Trawny, director of the Martin Heidegger Institute at the University of Wuppertal. The scholar was chosen by the Heidegger family to edit the three volumes of the leather-covered black notebooks.
"In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Heidegger was very angry," says Mr. Trawny. By then, he says, the philosopher realized that both Nazi ideology and his own philosophical mission, which was predicated on a national revolution and Germany’s dominance in Europe, were going to fail. "In this anger, he makes reference to Jews, including some passages that are extremely hostile. We knew that he had expressed anti-Semitism as private insights, but this shows anti-Semitism tied in to his philosophy," says Mr. Trawny.
The editor says Heidegger’s references to a controlling "world Jewry" and to a collusion of "rootless" Jews in both international capitalism and communism are essentially the logic that informs the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous, early 20th-century, anti-Semitic forgery that claims to show a Jewish conspiracy for global domination. "He doesn’t say he’s read The Protocols," says Mr. Trawny, "but that’s not necessary to share a certain kind of anti-Semitism with the Protocols. Nazi propaganda was full of exactly this kind of anti-Semitism."...
Ironically, it was not in Germany but rather in postwar France where his work was popularized in academic circles, as well as defended against its largely German detractors. While Heidegger’s thought was viewed as implicitly political in Germany, in France intellectuals ran with a distinctly apolitical rendering of his phenomenology.
Major French thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida proudly claimed Heidegger as their own—and defended the turf. In the Heidegger camp, his acolytes argued that the private life of philosophers can—and must—be separated from their theoretical ideas. Furthermore, Heidegger, they claimed, subscribed to a metaphysical rather than an ethnic, blood-based concept of Volk and nation.
"The French philosophers have a lot at stake here," says Matthias Flatscher, a philosopher at the University of Vienna, explaining the French reaction. "Heidegger is much more central to the French schools of thought, like deconstructionism and discourse analysis, than he is to German philosophy."
chronicle.com/article/Release-of-Heidegger-s/144897/
Bob
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