> But then he links the 'inner truth and greatness' of National Socialism to
> the problem concerning technology (in the disputed 1950's editorial
> addition to the 'Intro to metaphysics'). Finally, in the Spiegel interview
> he doubts whether democracy is capable of coming to terms with
> technological nihilism and goes on to say that the Nazi's, although 'too
> limited in their thinking', at least went in the right direction...?
>
> Given this version of textual events how close is the 'saving power' to the
> inner truth and greatness of Heidegger's ontologically informed 'private
> doctrine' of Nazism? What kind of ethical-ontologial abyss are we
> approaching here?
The saving power is exactly what Heidegger took to be the inner truth and
greatness of the National Socialist movement. The real question is
determining in what way the Nazis went in the right direction but were
nonetheless too limited. This can also be frame equivalently as: what is
the relationship between Heidegger's "private" national socialism and
Hitler's public one, such that Heidegger's version can still be a
national socialism, indeed, the one most in accordance with the inner
truth and greatness of it, while simultaneously criticizing the noisy
public version? This is a more complicated question than "Was Heidegger
a Nazi?" one necessitated by the case itself because the answer to the
simple question is a paradoxical-seeming yes and no. The yes and no
paradox cannot be resolved chronologically (a break around 1934, 1938,
1946, or 1955 depending on who you read) because the sentence about a
step in the right direction comes from 1966, and also cannot be resolved
by distinguishing between the man and the philosophy because Heidegger
himself ties the right direction to an adequate relationship with the
essence of technology, which is the task of thinking.
I'm not certain what ethical/ontological abyss we jumped into, or even if
it is an abyss.
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
> the problem concerning technology (in the disputed 1950's editorial
> addition to the 'Intro to metaphysics'). Finally, in the Spiegel interview
> he doubts whether democracy is capable of coming to terms with
> technological nihilism and goes on to say that the Nazi's, although 'too
> limited in their thinking', at least went in the right direction...?
>
> Given this version of textual events how close is the 'saving power' to the
> inner truth and greatness of Heidegger's ontologically informed 'private
> doctrine' of Nazism? What kind of ethical-ontologial abyss are we
> approaching here?
The saving power is exactly what Heidegger took to be the inner truth and
greatness of the National Socialist movement. The real question is
determining in what way the Nazis went in the right direction but were
nonetheless too limited. This can also be frame equivalently as: what is
the relationship between Heidegger's "private" national socialism and
Hitler's public one, such that Heidegger's version can still be a
national socialism, indeed, the one most in accordance with the inner
truth and greatness of it, while simultaneously criticizing the noisy
public version? This is a more complicated question than "Was Heidegger
a Nazi?" one necessitated by the case itself because the answer to the
simple question is a paradoxical-seeming yes and no. The yes and no
paradox cannot be resolved chronologically (a break around 1934, 1938,
1946, or 1955 depending on who you read) because the sentence about a
step in the right direction comes from 1966, and also cannot be resolved
by distinguishing between the man and the philosophy because Heidegger
himself ties the right direction to an adequate relationship with the
essence of technology, which is the task of thinking.
I'm not certain what ethical/ontological abyss we jumped into, or even if
it is an abyss.
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---