>Ted Vaggalis responds
>Assuming that you are
>right to claim that Heidegger had other aims, what exactly were those aims?
>One
>could speculate (but it would be no more than that) that Heidegger's
>critique of Nietzsche becomes more prominent at this time in his life
>because Heidegger is most distressed at N's claim that philosophical views
>are merely expressions of self-interest.
Biographically speaking, in the context of Nazi Germany in the thirties and
forties, after the failure of his foray into university politics (like
Plato 'back from Syracuse'), and what appears to be the gradual eclipsing
of any culturally disseminated possibility of a German openness towards
Being, Heidegger the card carrying Nazi launches into a critique of
Nietzsche's will to power.
And for Heidegger (in 'Overcoming metaphysics'), the "being of the will to
power can only be understood in terms of the will to will". He goes on to
interpret this fundamental relation of metaphysics to beings as an
obliteration of the truth of Being, in terms of "the unconditional
objectification of everything present which is active in the will to will".
For the 'self-interested' "correctness of the will to will is the
unconditional and complete guaranteeing of itself. What is in accordance
with its will is correct and in order, because the will to will itself is
the only order".
Will to will is essentially 'justice' as self-justifying will to power. And
this ontological-ethical interpretation of Nietzsche is also a critique of
Hitlerism where the will to will becomes the "anarchy of catastrophes"
which invents "talk about 'mission'... as the goal which is assigned from
the standpoint of 'fate', thus justifying the will to will".
Speculatively speaking, the critique of Nazism also seems to be a critique
of the subjectivism of will to will as the completion of modern metaphysics
in technology. In a sense, Heidegger offers a radical critique of fascism
as nihilism, as the uttermost obliteration of being. Surely there can be no
simple equation of Heidegger with Nazism without an engagement with his
thinking on Nietzsche? And here, to what degree does will to power approach
the threshold of H's question of being, at the same time as obliterating it
completely? How close was Nazism to H's saving power and to his rethinking
of justice as 'salvation'?
************************************************
The signs of the ultimate abandonment of Being are the cries about 'ideas'
and 'values', the indiscriminate back and forth of the proclamation of
'deeds', and the inispensability of 'spirit'. All of this is already
hitched into the armament mechanism of the plan (Heidegger, 'Overcoming
Metaphysics').
************************************************
Malcolm Riddoch
Murdoch University
Western Australia
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>Assuming that you are
>right to claim that Heidegger had other aims, what exactly were those aims?
>One
>could speculate (but it would be no more than that) that Heidegger's
>critique of Nietzsche becomes more prominent at this time in his life
>because Heidegger is most distressed at N's claim that philosophical views
>are merely expressions of self-interest.
Biographically speaking, in the context of Nazi Germany in the thirties and
forties, after the failure of his foray into university politics (like
Plato 'back from Syracuse'), and what appears to be the gradual eclipsing
of any culturally disseminated possibility of a German openness towards
Being, Heidegger the card carrying Nazi launches into a critique of
Nietzsche's will to power.
And for Heidegger (in 'Overcoming metaphysics'), the "being of the will to
power can only be understood in terms of the will to will". He goes on to
interpret this fundamental relation of metaphysics to beings as an
obliteration of the truth of Being, in terms of "the unconditional
objectification of everything present which is active in the will to will".
For the 'self-interested' "correctness of the will to will is the
unconditional and complete guaranteeing of itself. What is in accordance
with its will is correct and in order, because the will to will itself is
the only order".
Will to will is essentially 'justice' as self-justifying will to power. And
this ontological-ethical interpretation of Nietzsche is also a critique of
Hitlerism where the will to will becomes the "anarchy of catastrophes"
which invents "talk about 'mission'... as the goal which is assigned from
the standpoint of 'fate', thus justifying the will to will".
Speculatively speaking, the critique of Nazism also seems to be a critique
of the subjectivism of will to will as the completion of modern metaphysics
in technology. In a sense, Heidegger offers a radical critique of fascism
as nihilism, as the uttermost obliteration of being. Surely there can be no
simple equation of Heidegger with Nazism without an engagement with his
thinking on Nietzsche? And here, to what degree does will to power approach
the threshold of H's question of being, at the same time as obliterating it
completely? How close was Nazism to H's saving power and to his rethinking
of justice as 'salvation'?
************************************************
The signs of the ultimate abandonment of Being are the cries about 'ideas'
and 'values', the indiscriminate back and forth of the proclamation of
'deeds', and the inispensability of 'spirit'. All of this is already
hitched into the armament mechanism of the plan (Heidegger, 'Overcoming
Metaphysics').
************************************************
Malcolm Riddoch
Murdoch University
Western Australia
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---