enowning
Friday, May 21, 2010
 
In-der-Blog-sein

Object-Oriented Philosophy on the Faye book.
But it’s hard to have much sympathy for Heidegger as “a poor misunderstood figure.” He brought much of this on himself. So, let’s not spare any pity on him as a person when reading this book. Let’s just hope Faye’s impact is limited, because philosophy will not be helped if several key Heideggerian breakthroughs are misread as nothing but codes for Nazi propaganda. What would happen if someone said that Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is just code for the irrational decisionism of the Third Reich overlords for whom Heisenberg labored to build an atomic bomb, and should be removed from physics?

As for Heidegger, it remains unclear to me how either the question of the meaning of being or the tool-analysis are contaminated with Nazi ideology. It’s such a strange interpretation.
Sympathy is wasted on the dead, but there are certainly those alive deserving in opprobrium.
 
Comments:
While not in agreement with Faye, I'm tempted to agree with some thinkers (Gadamer?) who insist that you can't separate Heidegger's politics from his philosophy, or his obsession with Being.

When those nasty marxists from Frankfurt grilled Herr Hei. after WWII, Hei. insisted he wanted to preserve "Occidental DASEIN," and thought joining the nazis would be a means to that end--sort of the "beware germans quoting ancient greek philosophy" meme. And ...if you will allow a speculation--I believe Heidegger's opposition to christianity (at least of traditional form) bears some relation to a few nazis who turned pagan (allegedly)--like Himmler. The nazis made use of Nietzsche and the Will to Power as well (misused him, but there are...nationalist hints in FN's work as well).

Not sure if Himm. knew Hei. but in ways they were somewhat similar--both grew up as catholics, from Bavaria. I suspect, however, that MH did know the big nazi leaders....
 
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