Recent posts have made (at least) three points about the relations between
Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche and Nazism (points which do not cancel
each other out):
1. Heidegger resists the autobiographical dimension which is explicitly
stressed by Nietzsche.
2. Heidegger criticizes the will to will as a metaphysical underpinning of
Enframing.
3. Heidegger reads Nietzsche's teaching in terms of a fundamnetal unity
rather than interpreting Nietzsche's empolyment of a mutiplicity of masks
as connoting an irreducible perspectivalism.
None of these three points can be definitvely localized on one side or the
other of the break that occurs within the Nietzsche lectures around 1939
(i.e. they are true of the first two as well as the last two lectures, if
the break may be provisionally located here). (To the first of the above
points one might object that Heidegger does not associate will-to-will with
the metaphysics of enframing before the third and fourth lectures
break--and this would be true--but he does make all the points about how
the essence of will demands continual self-overcoming from the very first
lecture course.) I would like to ask: How are we to understand the break
and *its* relation to Heidegger's relation/break with Nazism?
As to this break within the Nietzsche lectures, the most obvious
change seems to be much more visible in terms of attitude than content (and
the changes in content may sometimes be explained in terms of the changes
in attitude, perhaps). Thus in the first lecture especially, as in B&T,
Heidegger is very pro-Nietzsche: he frequently puts Nietzsche's points in
his own language and puts his own points in Nietzsche's language,
developing one by way of the other, thereby definitively blurring the line
between the two. The first lecture course stresses Eternal Recurrence over
Will to Power, and reads their 'unity' in terms of the Grand Style of Art
and Grand Politics, according to which the goal is to create an artwork
that will succeed in the metaphysical construction of a new reality, a
non-nihilistic understanding of being. Thus metaphysics is itself treated
very positively. How can we resist thinking that here Heidegger is
thinking of leading the Nazis toward a non-nihilistic understanding of
being through a Nietzschean-Heideggerian overcoming? And that the break
with Nietzsche reflects Heidegger's growing disillusionment toward the
possiblitiy (if not the desirability) of acheiving this goal?
For, once the break occurs, not only does metaphysics become more
and more the enemy, but the very idea of an 'overcoming' of nihilism is
seen to be impossible, as premised on an extremely 'subjectivist'
voluntarism of will (and its thinking in terms of 'values')--which is
itself a symptom of the problem. Other subtle inversions take place: ER
is now grounded in WP (whereas before precisely the reverse was true), and
Heidegger's reading of 'the Overman' and of ER metamorphosize several times
(several articules by Haar begin to trace the contours of Heidegger's
shifting reading).
But if the break shows itself most clearly in terms of Heidegger's
overall attitude toward Nietzsche, how are we to read the friendly return
to Nietzsche in the early fifties? Another break (with the break)? Or is
it that Heidegger feels himself to have successfully come to terms with
that which prompted the distantiation from Nietzsche? (i.e., that he has
transmusted his ambitious desire to lead the Fuhrer into a perhaps even
more ambitious desire to save the earth from nihilism through his recovery
of being), and is thus able to return to Nietzsche without falling into
either of the traps which he recognized from the beginning but fell into
anyway:
"The confrontation [Auseinandersetzung] with Nietzsche has still
not begun, nor have its preconditions yet been created. *For a long time
Nietzsche has been either celebrated and imitated or slandered and
exploited.* For us, Nietzsche's thought and speech are still too
contemporary [noch zu gegenw=E4rtig: could this be read as 'still to-come'
or as 'still coming toward the present'?]. He and we are not yet set-out
apart [auseinandergesetzt] with adequate historical breadth, because this
distance can itself be formed only out of a ripening appreciation of that
which is this thinker's power [St=E4rke].
Confrontation is genuine criticism. It is the highest and only way
to a true reckoning of a thinker." [N1 4/NI 13]
There is obviously a lot more to be said about this confrontation, and I
agree with those who have suggested the the first place to look, when
endeavoring to address the problems of Heidegger's Nazism, are his
Nietzsche lectures.
Iain
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"Und wer gut verfolgt, lernt leicht f o l g e n: --ist er doch
einmal--hinterher!"
"And whoever persecutes well, learns readily how _to follow_: for he is
used to going after somebody else!"
--Nietzsche, "The Ugliest [haesslichste] Man" [i.e., the
Socrates-in-Nietzsche], _Zarathustra_ IV.7.
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_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche and Nazism (points which do not cancel
each other out):
1. Heidegger resists the autobiographical dimension which is explicitly
stressed by Nietzsche.
2. Heidegger criticizes the will to will as a metaphysical underpinning of
Enframing.
3. Heidegger reads Nietzsche's teaching in terms of a fundamnetal unity
rather than interpreting Nietzsche's empolyment of a mutiplicity of masks
as connoting an irreducible perspectivalism.
None of these three points can be definitvely localized on one side or the
other of the break that occurs within the Nietzsche lectures around 1939
(i.e. they are true of the first two as well as the last two lectures, if
the break may be provisionally located here). (To the first of the above
points one might object that Heidegger does not associate will-to-will with
the metaphysics of enframing before the third and fourth lectures
break--and this would be true--but he does make all the points about how
the essence of will demands continual self-overcoming from the very first
lecture course.) I would like to ask: How are we to understand the break
and *its* relation to Heidegger's relation/break with Nazism?
As to this break within the Nietzsche lectures, the most obvious
change seems to be much more visible in terms of attitude than content (and
the changes in content may sometimes be explained in terms of the changes
in attitude, perhaps). Thus in the first lecture especially, as in B&T,
Heidegger is very pro-Nietzsche: he frequently puts Nietzsche's points in
his own language and puts his own points in Nietzsche's language,
developing one by way of the other, thereby definitively blurring the line
between the two. The first lecture course stresses Eternal Recurrence over
Will to Power, and reads their 'unity' in terms of the Grand Style of Art
and Grand Politics, according to which the goal is to create an artwork
that will succeed in the metaphysical construction of a new reality, a
non-nihilistic understanding of being. Thus metaphysics is itself treated
very positively. How can we resist thinking that here Heidegger is
thinking of leading the Nazis toward a non-nihilistic understanding of
being through a Nietzschean-Heideggerian overcoming? And that the break
with Nietzsche reflects Heidegger's growing disillusionment toward the
possiblitiy (if not the desirability) of acheiving this goal?
For, once the break occurs, not only does metaphysics become more
and more the enemy, but the very idea of an 'overcoming' of nihilism is
seen to be impossible, as premised on an extremely 'subjectivist'
voluntarism of will (and its thinking in terms of 'values')--which is
itself a symptom of the problem. Other subtle inversions take place: ER
is now grounded in WP (whereas before precisely the reverse was true), and
Heidegger's reading of 'the Overman' and of ER metamorphosize several times
(several articules by Haar begin to trace the contours of Heidegger's
shifting reading).
But if the break shows itself most clearly in terms of Heidegger's
overall attitude toward Nietzsche, how are we to read the friendly return
to Nietzsche in the early fifties? Another break (with the break)? Or is
it that Heidegger feels himself to have successfully come to terms with
that which prompted the distantiation from Nietzsche? (i.e., that he has
transmusted his ambitious desire to lead the Fuhrer into a perhaps even
more ambitious desire to save the earth from nihilism through his recovery
of being), and is thus able to return to Nietzsche without falling into
either of the traps which he recognized from the beginning but fell into
anyway:
"The confrontation [Auseinandersetzung] with Nietzsche has still
not begun, nor have its preconditions yet been created. *For a long time
Nietzsche has been either celebrated and imitated or slandered and
exploited.* For us, Nietzsche's thought and speech are still too
contemporary [noch zu gegenw=E4rtig: could this be read as 'still to-come'
or as 'still coming toward the present'?]. He and we are not yet set-out
apart [auseinandergesetzt] with adequate historical breadth, because this
distance can itself be formed only out of a ripening appreciation of that
which is this thinker's power [St=E4rke].
Confrontation is genuine criticism. It is the highest and only way
to a true reckoning of a thinker." [N1 4/NI 13]
There is obviously a lot more to be said about this confrontation, and I
agree with those who have suggested the the first place to look, when
endeavoring to address the problems of Heidegger's Nazism, are his
Nietzsche lectures.
Iain
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
"Und wer gut verfolgt, lernt leicht f o l g e n: --ist er doch
einmal--hinterher!"
"And whoever persecutes well, learns readily how _to follow_: for he is
used to going after somebody else!"
--Nietzsche, "The Ugliest [haesslichste] Man" [i.e., the
Socrates-in-Nietzsche], _Zarathustra_ IV.7.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---