enowning
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
 
In The Guardian, Domenico Losurdo comments on the black notebooks and the crimes of universalism.
Secondly, as the black notebooks confirm, although Heidegger was a Nazi to the end this does not mean that nothing can be learned from him. Germany is the country that perhaps more than any other has had to struggle with imperial universalism, often the synonym of universal interventionism: leaving aside the ancient Romans and the expeditions of the Emperor Augustus, we ought to bear in mind that first Napoleon III in 1870-1 and then the entente powers in 1914-18 waged war in the name of the expansion of "civilisation" or "democracy", in each case in the name of "universal" values. This explains the aggressive, reactionary anti-universalism in Germany that found its first expression in Nietzsche and then, above all, in Heidegger and Schmitt, both of whom supported the Third Reich. This is a tragedy and an infamy that certainly leaves aggressive, reactionary anti-universalism with much to answer; but it does not in any way absolve western imperial universalism of its own responsibility and crimes.
As a nomad who grew up on the move, I've always found this obsession with location found in some, especially German, philosophers to be completely contingent. It might appeal to compatriots from the same location, but it's really psuedo-philosophy; of scholarly interest only to biographers explaining a philosopher's psychology and social historians. Any philosopher who's not working on a footnote to Aristotle has probably gone down the wrong path in the forest.
 
Comments:
Here is what appears to be a rather balanced review based on an actual reading of the first volume of the notebooks… http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/03/heideggers-black-notebooks/
 
Cave canem. Counter-currents has an agenda of their own. I don't link to them.
 
aahhh… i didn't even look at the rest of the site.
 
despite Counter-currents own agenda they are the only ones to have now posted actual excerpts with translation.
 
Alternative translations circulate. Let me get permission to use them.
 
now that would be fascinating: to compare various translations of the those passages. i suspect that they will differ in significant ways. unfortunately i however can't read German to compare to the original, so the more English interpretations the merrier.

but i'm surprised that there is such a big hullaballoo if there are only those 5 passages among some 1200 pages of the notebooks. if so Trawny has done some excellent marketing for his own book on the topic.
 
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