Ted wrote:
>Heidegger's complicity cannot
>be ennobled by appeal to such claims as he was trying to steer the party in
>a more philosophical direction because of some vision of the whole.This is
>the worst form of romanticism.
True that Heidegger's 'complicity' (is this word strong enough for one who
wanted to lead the party? And I take it that it was this very desire to
lead the leadership of the party that you refer to as) = a very dangerous
'form of romanticism,' and true that it cannot be ennobled by this desire.
But can Heidegger's Nazism be understood outside of this context? I don't
think so.
>Heidegger may not have ever abandoned the question of Being, but his
>formulation of it made it possible for him to compromise his conduct. The
>ontological project was always divorced from reality and he could still
>insist on his intellectual integrity, while committing himself to following
>one of the worst regimes in human history.
Again, is this strong enough? The point that Lacoue-Labarthe makes so
forcefully is that when Heidegger threw the weight of his 'thinking of
Being' behind the Nazis, that move constituted a fundamental 'betrayal' of
his own thought; i.e., it is precsiely in this moment that he *did*
'abandon' the Question of Being (precisely by answering it definitively, as
though it could be so answered, as though historicity could be overcome,
Being reinstated). Here the thought exceeds the man (though in a
problematic sense which ust be carefully elaborated, for there is no
absolute line between thinker and thought, even when the thinker stops
thinking...).
Iain
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>Heidegger's complicity cannot
>be ennobled by appeal to such claims as he was trying to steer the party in
>a more philosophical direction because of some vision of the whole.This is
>the worst form of romanticism.
True that Heidegger's 'complicity' (is this word strong enough for one who
wanted to lead the party? And I take it that it was this very desire to
lead the leadership of the party that you refer to as) = a very dangerous
'form of romanticism,' and true that it cannot be ennobled by this desire.
But can Heidegger's Nazism be understood outside of this context? I don't
think so.
>Heidegger may not have ever abandoned the question of Being, but his
>formulation of it made it possible for him to compromise his conduct. The
>ontological project was always divorced from reality and he could still
>insist on his intellectual integrity, while committing himself to following
>one of the worst regimes in human history.
Again, is this strong enough? The point that Lacoue-Labarthe makes so
forcefully is that when Heidegger threw the weight of his 'thinking of
Being' behind the Nazis, that move constituted a fundamental 'betrayal' of
his own thought; i.e., it is precsiely in this moment that he *did*
'abandon' the Question of Being (precisely by answering it definitively, as
though it could be so answered, as though historicity could be overcome,
Being reinstated). Here the thought exceeds the man (though in a
problematic sense which ust be carefully elaborated, for there is no
absolute line between thinker and thought, even when the thinker stops
thinking...).
Iain
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---