Heidegger and Nazism - The Heidegger Controversy

The Heidegger Controversy

Since the book Heidegger and Nazism (1987) by Victor Farias, who had access to many documents, in particular some preserved in the STASI archives, Heidegger's historical affiliation with Nazism has provoked huge controversy. Farias's book, which tries to show that Heidegger supported Hitler's racial policies and person, and even denounced or demoted colleagues, was highly acclaimed but also starkly criticised. Richard Rorty declared that "Farias' book includes more concrete information relevant to Heidegger's relations with the Nazis than anything else available". "Mercilessly well-informed, this book is a bomb", told French philosopher Roger-Pol Droit. But Farias was attacked on the grounds of poor scholarship and for the sensationalism of his approach. In Germany Heidegger's student Hans-Georg Gadamer denounced his "grotesque superficiality", and historian Hugo Ott remarked that Farias' methodology is quite unacceptable in historical research. In France, philosopher Jacques Derrida told Farias's work was "sometimes so rough one wonders if the investigator is reading Heidegger since more than an hour", Paul Celan's translator Pierre Joris described it as "a savage attempt to demolish Heidegger's thought" and François Fédier, a French Heidegger's friend and translator, simply claimed to refute point by point all Farias allegations.

The debate is still not closed, as philosophers disagree as well on the consequences of this historical engagement on Heidegger's philosophy. His critics, such as Günther Anders, Jürgen Habermas, Theodor Adorno, Hans Jonas, Karl Löwith, Pierre Bourdieu, Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Richard Rorty, Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut claim that his affiliation with the Nazi party derived from his philosophical conceptions, that it revealed flaws inherent in his thought. His supporters, on the contrary, such as Hannah Arendt, Otto Pöggeler, Jan Patocka, Silvio Vietta, Jacques Derrida, Jean Beaufret, Jean-Michel Palmier, Marcel Conche, Julian Young and François Fédier, see this support as arguably a personal "'error'" (a word which Arendt placed in quotation marks when referring to Heidegger's Nazi-era politics), and that this error was irrelevant to Heidegger's philosophy.

In 2005 the controversy started again in France, as heated as ever, this time between François Fédier and Emmanuel Faye, who had just published a book provocatively titled Heidegger: The introduction of Nazism into Philosophy. Faye claims that Heidegger's philosophy inspired the Final Solution and that fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of his thought that they do not deserve to be called philosophy - his works, according to Faye, therefore should be classified in libraries not under philosophy but the history of Nazism. A debate was organised on French television. Faye was heavily criticized for his lack of competence in German and for faking or falsifying quotations by a group of specialists gathered by Fédier (Heidegger, all the more reason). Numerous other Heidegger scholars, themselves critical of Heidegger's relation to Nazism, have taken issue with Faye's claims. For example, Richard Wolin, a close reader of the Heidegger controversy since Farias's book, has said that he is not convinced by Faye's position. And Peter Gordon, in a long review of Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, raises a handful of objections, including the accusation that Faye lets his own philosophical leanings prevent him from treating Heidegger fairly.

Medard Boss writes in his preface to Heidegger's Zollikon Seminars : "I made inquiries and Heidegger very clearly seemed to be the most slandered man I had ever encountered. He had become entangled in a network of lies by his colleagues. Most of the people, who were unable to do serious harm to the substance of Heidegger's thinking, tried to get at Heidegger the man with personal attacks. The only remaining puzzle was why Heidegger did not defend himself against these slanders publicly." Fédier comments it with Nietzsche's remark that "the philosopher has to be the bad conscience of his age."

Read more about this topic:  Heidegger And Nazism

Famous quotes containing the word controversy:

    And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.
    Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)