In-der-Blog-sein

Cloudrider has been reading the Letter on Humanism and musing on that subject:

I think [Heidegger] accurately deduces that the whole problem of understanding, what existence is for instance, is corrupted with alot of mixed notions and historical fallacies, his need to avoid these is admirable but a wee bit confusing to the armchair philospher (me).

In my opinion his long-winded reply in Letter on Humanism, is less about what is wrong about Humanism and much more an appeal to the French philospohy movement at the time. It seems more of an attempt to move them away from Sartre, in short he was trying to make young philosophers know how smart he was.

The historical circumstances are that immediately after the war, Heidegger was traumatized and feared that his works would be forgotten. He was initially gratified that Sartre was alluding to Being and Time, but as he read more of Sartre writings he realized that he needed to voice his objections. As his confidence returned, he decided to use his reply to Beaufret's questions to spell the the differences between his work and Sartre's existentialism-as-a-humanism. One of these days I'll post a translation of his cover letter to Beaufret that accompanied the Letter on Humanism. I don't think it has appeared in English before.  ¶ 12:08 PM