There has been a tendency to read Heidegger’s philosophy politically, most notably in recent years by Emmanuel Faye, who has argued that Heidegger infected philosophy with Hitlerism and does not belong in the philosophical cannon. But this inverts the problem: Heidegger thought politics philosophically. In doing so he is not an aberration, indeed one of the strange tensions of this period – evident in the Rectoral Address – is the manner in which Heidegger employs a fundamentally Platonic understanding of philosophy’s relation to politics, while rejecting the Platonic understanding of the relation of time and eternity. Heidegger’s political engagement shows up in a radical form the danger of the relation of philosophy and politics. Crucial to understanding Heidegger’s political engagement is that we attempt to come to terms with the legacy of philosophy’s relation to politics. In this Hannah Arendt is a most acute reader of Heidegger, who is always in the background when she speaks of the philosophical hostility to politics and hence its attempt to replace the pluralism of political reality with a monological construction.
and Hohe Lufte interviews Peter Trawny. guys like me must resort to Google translate, but still it comes across as a pretty good conversation, Trawny seems to have a fairly balanced and nuanced view of things.
