Heidegger’s ‘political’ and philosophical enthusiasm seemed to carry him back to a point where his interrogation of the openness of being had not yet began. Being as such, more in particular the being of a whole people, was read as coinciding with one leader and his policy.
A specialist on Descartes and Renaissance humanism, and himself a staunch rationalist, Faye sees Heidegger's philosophical critique of Cartesianism and modern rationalism merely as an ideological mask for a perverted politics. Those who adopt elements of Heidegger's critique are dubbed politically naïve or, worse, suspect--a judgment Faye passes on Derrida and even Habermas without further ado.
Since the much dreaded "Americanism" under the guise of expanding the "market economy" has now gained the upper hand as we enter our millennium, the Eurocentric structures of globalization schematized in the course of SS 1935 and excoriated by the young Jürgen Habermas in 1953, in a career-defining moment, provide at least a notorious benchmark to measure the degree and kind of globalization that we have willy-nilly undergone across the century, and to assess the solutions offered to counteract the downside of technocratic capitalism, solutions like multicultural diversity and the Heideggerian quest for a poietically individuated ecology for dwelling on the earth.
To bring into nearness, to "bridge," is not to bring into presence-at-hand, granted. Yet, such calling ever remains an oblique invitation, a bidding to come, such that what is called thereby has bearing, i.e., bears upon us in our presence. In this bearing, a world is borne by the word; thus, the word "gathers a world," unfolds and discloses it in the manner of its bearing.
The only philosopher of the 20th century who in a consistent manner lived through the 'end of philosophy' could not see from his perspective a single manifestation of politics as a continuation of modern subjectivism in democratic games about power and rule.
For Heidegger, one essential manifestation of the spiritual decline of the West was that the concept of history, in the sense of historicity, had become meaningless. As Heidegger observes: nowadays one recounts the history of capitalism and of the peasant wars; one even discusses the history of the ice age and of mammals. But none of these conceptions allows room for history in the sense of historical Existenz.
To read Heidegger is not to read a philosophy of Nazism or anything else but it is to read philosophically. What we have to learn from Heidegger in the phenomenological tradition after Husserl is a dedication to thinking. To prepare for thinking in this way is no matter of mere reading but a task to be undertaken, a doing which must, as it is thought, undertake, or as Nietzsche taught in another sense, overtake us.
'In his philosophical works, especially Being and Time, Heidegger had a sharp and critical eye for the phenomenon of self-deception. But it seems his ability to recognize it in his personal life was another matter.'
'It is the purpose of this article to explain Heidegger's attraction to National Socialism through an analysis of his encounter with the thought of Aristotle. I will show that from 1919 to 1933, Heidegger developed a vision of praxis and politics on an Aristotelian foundation that he believed would reverse the domination of theory and technology in modern life and put in its place the rule of practical wisdom or phronesis that was rooted in a historical understanding of the world and that put human beings and human action ahead of values, ideological imperatives, and the process of production.'
'A quality synthesis of Being and Time could easily constitute a whole book. As such, the analysis of Heidegger contained herein will be limited to the Aristotelian foundation that serves in defense of Heidegger and will be analyzed in relation to Heidegger's politics. To understand where the controversy arises, it would be helpful to first analyze Heidegger's activities in Nazi Germany.'
and
examines why France's radical intelligentsia is apologising
for a German fascist.
From The Marxist Review of Books.
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