Martin Heidegger's Aristotelian National Socialism Author(S): Michael Allen Gillespie Source: Political Theory, Vol

Martin Heidegger's Aristotelian National Socialism Author(s): Michael Allen Gillespie Source: Political Theory, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 140-166 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192232 . Accessed: 06/02/2011 13:50

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory.

http://www.jstor.org MARTIN HEIDEGGER'S ARISTOTELIAN NATIONAL SOCIALISM

MICHAELALLEN GILLESPIE Duke University

SINCE THE PUBLICATIONof Farias's Heidegger et le Nazisme, the question of Heidegger's commitmentto National Socialism has assumed a central position in the debate about the significance and meaning of his thought.' We now know that Heidegger's Nazism began earlier and lasted longer than he and his supportershad previously led us to believe and that Heideggerhimself hadno doubtsthat his earlierthought was compatiblewith at least some idealized version of Nazism.2There are also clear indications thatHeidegger never abandoned his supportfor the ideals of NationalSocial- ism. The referenceto "theinner truth and greatness"of the NationalSocialist movementin the 1953 publicationof An Introductionto Metaphysicsis one clear example of this, and Heidegger's mendacious attemptto conceal the meaningof this phrasewith his lateraddition of an "explanatory"parenthesis only confirms suspicions about his real intentions.3Moreover, even in his 1966 Spiegel interview,he still claimedthat the Nazis hadfailed only because the leaders of the partywere too limited in their thinking(i.e., because they were not radical enough).4Coupled with his unremittingcriticism of other contemporarypolitical possibilities, thereis little doubtthat Heidegger con- tinuedto regardthe Nazi movementas the most promisingpolitical development of his time. It is the purposeof this articleto explainHeidegger's attraction to National Socialism throughan analysisof his encounterwith the thoughtof Aristotle.I will show thatfrom 1919 to 1933, Heideggerdeveloped a vision of praxisand politics on an Aristotelian foundation that he believed would reverse the dominationof theory and technology in moder life and put in its place the rule of practicalwisdom or phronesis that was rooted in a historicalunder- standingof the world and thatput humanbeings and humanaction ahead of values, ideological imperatives,and the process of production.I will show

POLITICALTHEORY, Vol. 28 No. 2, April 2000 140-166 ? 2000 Sage Publications,Inc.

140 Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 141 furtherthat Heidegger believed the Nazi movementwas bringingsuch a politics into being andthat even when he recognizedthis was not the case, he con- tinuedto believe such a politics was both necessaryand desirable, modifying only his conception of the means by which such an end could be attained.I will thenindicate in conclusionhow andwhy Heidegger'svision ofphronesis is fundamentallyflawed.

HEIDEGGER'SVISION OF THE CRISISOF THE WEST

Heidegger was attractedto Nazism because he believed it offered a solution to the crisis of Westerncivilization. He saw this crisis as resultof the for- getfulness or withdrawalof the questionof Being. In Heidegger'sview, existence at its core is mysterious.Being as such in the most fundamentalsense is always only as a question.We become humanto the extent thatwe are struck by this question and thereby come to think and dwell in language. Our encounterwith the question of Being, however,produces anxiety and pain, for it involves an encounter with not being, with nothingness and death. Being itself thusrepels us from the questiontoward answers, toward an interpretationof Being as something,as some being. In ourflight from the pain of Being, we fall into a realmof beings, into what Heideggerin Being and Time called everydayness. Such fallenness takes two different forms. In the first instance, it is a fallenness into the everydayworld of ourconcerns, the daily business of life, what Heidegger in Being and Timecalls the ready-to-hand.The other and deeper form of fallenness is a fallenness into theory,into presence-at-hand. Heideggerbelieved that such a falling away fromBeing had characterizedthe West since Plato. Being itself therebycame to be experiencednot as a question but only in and throughbeings, as the Being of beings. Westernthought is nothingother than a continuingelaboration of this answerand thus an ever more distant flight from Being itself as a question. The steps in this process are relatively straightforward.The West began with the pre-Socraticexperience of the questionof Being. Plato, by contrast, interpretedBeing as eternalpresence, accessible only by means of a long and difficult dialectical ascent. Being was projectedeven furtherinto the unat- tainable transcendenceof eternity by Christianity.Human beings could no longer experience Being immediately or even reach it througha dialectical ascent. Being was attainableonly through grace. The final withdrawalof Being thatcharacterizes the Westernmetaphysics produces the deathof God thatlies at the heartof modernity,a withdrawalof Being thatleaves man him- 142 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

self as the foundationon which to establish the world. Man in this sense becomes the groundor subiectumthat makes possible the transformationof natureinto a universalobject. The modern world for Heidegger is thus the ever more encompassing attempt to objectify nature,to convert it into an object that can be mastered and controlled. This process Heidegger calls technology.It culminatesin a will to converteverything, including humanity itself, into a raw materialthat can be exploited and used up in the production of the means of production(i.e., in the service of technology).5 Heidegger argued that the most dangerous forms of this technological impulse were Americanism and Marxism.6Europe, he felt, was being crushedbetween these two forces thataimed at the universalorganization of everydayman for the unlimitedexploitation of the earthand all otherhuman beings. In Heidegger'sview, neitherprovides man with the means to come to termswith technology because both are underthe illusion thattechnology is merely a tool. This notionmakes it impossiblefor humanbeings to recognize or amelioratetheir own degradation.The salvationof the West thus depends on raisinganew the questionof Being as the questionof technology.This was the task thatHeidegger set for himself andthat he believed,at least for a time, was also vouchsafedto National Socialism. What,then, did Heideggersee in NationalSocialism thatseemed to afford an answerto this problem?He told KarlLowith in 1936 thathis partisanship for National Socialism lay in the essence of his philosophy, asserting that "'historicity'was the basis for his political 'engagement.'"7In a letterto Mar- cuse afterWorld War II, he suggestedthat he "expectedfrom National Social- ism a spiritualrenewal of life in its entirety,a reconciliationof social antago- nism anda deliveranceof WesternDasein fromthe dangersof communism."8 Heideggerclearly felt thatresolute action was needed to deal with the social and spiritualcrisis and was attractedto the Nazis because of theirdetermination for action. This fact has led critics such as Karl Lowith and Richard Wolin to arguethat Heidegger's political thoughtwas decisionistic and thus indifferentto the content of the Nazis' political program.9While this factor certainlyplays an importantrole in explainingHeidegger's attraction to radi- calism, it cannot accountfor his attractionto National Socialism ratherthan Bolshevism or anarchism. A second and more importantattraction of Nazism was the centralityof the idea of Heimat and Gemeinschaft.As CatherineZuckert has shown, Hei- degger believed that Germancommunal life could only be reconstitutedon the basis of a new aestheticreligion. Heideggersaw in the early Nazi movement the seeds of such a community,reflected in the notion of Blut und Boden. While Heideggeruses this phraseat least once, he more typicallyuses only the term Boden, which reflects his clear and longstandingrejection of Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 143 racistor biological NationalSocialism. The nationalfocus of his Nazism was thus centered on the idea of the German tradition, focused and filtered throughthe transformativelens of H6lderlin'spoetry."' While there is much to be said for this explanation,it still does not explain Heidegger'sattraction to Nazism ratherthan any of the other nationalisticmovements. I want to suggest that what distinguished Nazism and particularly attractedHeidegger was its rejectionof theory in favor of leadership.As we will see in what follows, Heideggersaw in the Nazi idea of leadershipan idea of knowledge and action that was akin to what Aristotle called phronesis or practicalwisdom. Moreover,it was precisely this form of knowing that his earlier work on Aristotle had led him to believe would alone make possible the humanizationof technology. To understandHeidegger's attractionto Nazism, we thus must examine the interpretationof Aristotle he developed duringthe early 1920s.

THEOLOGY,HISTORY, AND PHENOMENOLOGY: THEBACKGROUND OF HEIDEGGER'S RECEPTIONOF ARISTOTLE

Heidegger's reception of Aristotle was shaped by his earlier encounters with medieval theology, Dilthey's historicism, and Husserl's phenomenological investigations.Heidegger grew up in a deeply religiouslower-middle- class Catholic family. His educationwas supportedby the Churchwith the understandingthat he would become a defenderof Catholic orthodoxy,and in the period before WorldWar I, Heideggerwas seen as a promisingyoung Catholic academic. His brief experience at the front and a crisis of faith in 1918, however, propelled him away from the system of Catholicism. He came to believe that the conceptualframework of scholastic theology jeop- ardizedthe immediacyand intensity of life thatwere essential to truephiloso- phy and religion.1 Heideggerhad neverbeen a simple neo-scholastic.The young Heidegger, for example, had never accepted the imposition of Thomism as official Church dogma.12 His choice of the protonominalistDuns Scotus for his Habilitationreflected his desire to cut throughconceptualism to the concrete realityof ordinaryexperience. His crisis of faiththus did not lead him to athe- ism but towarda more immediateconception of religiosity that grew out of his reading of Schleiermacher,Scotus, Eckhardt, and Luther.13 He had alreadypointed out in his Habilitationthat in comparisonto medieval man, modernman faced the dangerof a growing uncertaintyand complete disori- 144 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000 entationbecause he lackedan immediatetie to an ultimateground.14 Because scholastic theology destroyedthe immediacyof such feeling, religion as the contemplationof the universumthus had to give way to a quasi-mystical meditationon the infinite.15 While Heideggerwas movedby theologicalquestions from the beginning, he soon developeda more secularvoice. He beganto look for the intensityhe believed medieval man had found in religious experience in the concrete experienceof contemporarylife. Drawingon Eckhardtand Luther, he sought a relationshipto his own life thatwas akinto the relationshipthe mystic hadto God.16 In this effort, he drew heavily on Dilthey and Husserl. Dilthey believed thatthe ultimatelyreal was to be foundnot in transcendencebut in concrete historicalexperience. Husserl too was convincedthat philosophy had to come to termswith concreteexperience, but he thoughtthat the real was to be discoveredin the process of consciousness,the fundamentalintentionality of all experience.The aim of phenomenologythus was to breakthrough to a true reality, to "the things themselves." In his phenomenology, Husserl thus sought to set aside theory and mere perceptionin pursuitof the underlying intentionalreality of life itself.17 Whatwas particularlyattractive to Heideggerin both Dilthey andHusserl was the possibility they held out for coming to terms with the immediate experience. Heidegger attemptedto conceptualizethis "life" in which one found oneself and which one "had"under a series of names from "primal something"to "life in and for itself,""factic life," the "historicalI," the "situ- ated I," "facticallife experience,""facticity," "Dasein" and "Being."18Until 1922, this undertakinghad an explicitly religious significance, but at that time Heidegger decided that there could be no theological philosophy and thereafterconsidered himself a philosophical(although not a personal)athe- ist.'9 Heidegger's philosophicalatheism, however,was not the result of his determinationthat philosophy was at odds with religion.Far from it. Philoso- phy had to separateitself from religion to break throughto an immediate experience of primallife because it was only on the basis of such an experience thatthe realmfor truereligiosity, the realmof the holy, could be opened * 2( up again.2 In contrast to Husserl, Heidegger believed that this primal something could not be understoodthrough consciousness, but only throughan understandingof the I in its historicaland social context.21Here Dilthey's thought was of cardinalimportance. The concernwith the historical,however, meant a concern with praxis. Heidegger hoped to find the concrete immediacy he found missing in currentphilosophy and theology in praxis. On this point, however, neither Dilthey nor Husserl were of much help.22In pursuitof a solution to this problem,Heidegger turned to Aristotle. Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 145

HEIDEGGER'SARISTOTLE: HUMAN BEING AS THEPLACE OF TRUTH

Aristotle played a decisive role in the development of Heidegger's thought.Heidegger first became interested in Aristotlewhen his Gymnasium teacher gave him a copy of Franz Brentano'sOn the Manifold Meaning of Being in Aristotle (1862). Heidegger himself indicates that the question of Being thatthis book firstraised remained central to his thinkingfor the rest of his life. Between 1915 and 1930, he taught or lectured on Aristotle fifteen times.23In the mid- 1920s, he beganpreparing a comprehensivebook on Aris- totle as the culminationof his previouswork, and as TheodoreKisiel and others have shown, in the processof revision,this book becameBeing and Time. What distinguishes his interpretationof Aristotle in the 1920s is his approach to the question of Being through an examination of Aristotle's account of humanBeing, or Dasein. Dasein for Heidegger is the place, the there (Da-) at which Being (Sein) comes to be, the place at which Being is opened up or uncovered.The Greekword for 'uncovering'is aletheia, which we translateas 'truth.'The principalactivity that constitutes us as human Being is thus aletheuein, 'uncovering.'24This is the topic of book VI of Aris- totle's Nichomachean Ethics. Uncovering beings in their Being means revealing them as somethingin and throughlanguage or logos. As the place of the uncoveringof beings, man is thus the zoon logon echon, 'life having speech,' or, as we typically translateit, the 'rationalanimal.' Accordingto Heidegger,the Greeksbelieved thatbefore the naturalworld was opened up, it was merely the realmof naturalneeds.25 Human beings and the world bothare, butthey arenot yet there.It is in andthrough logos thatthe world is opened up, thathuman beings and the world are therein theirBeing, that they are Da-sein. Thus, Being from the beginningfor the Greeks is Da- sein, and the real question is aboutthe characterof the Da-, the there.26Ani- mals orientthemselves through perception (aisthesis) andthus seem to have a kind of practicalwisdom (phronesis),but it is a wisdom that has no part in intellectual intuition (nous) and is thereforenot authentic.27It does not par- ticipate in nous because while nous transcendsspeech, it is only accessible through speech. Animals make sounds (phone) that coordinateaction, but they do not speak or have a notion of the whole. Animals such as bees may even in some sense be political, butif this is the case, then man is more political because he has logos.28Man's Being-in-the-world is fundamentallydeter- mined by logos.29 Speaking as uncovering or revealing, according to Heidegger, always means for Aristotle speaking and revealing the world to other human beings.3"As the rationalanimal, man is thus the political animal.According 146 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000 to Heidegger,the Being of those having logos, for Aristotle,is a Being-with- one-another,a communionor fellowship (koinonia).3'For Aristotle, Being- with-one-anotheris thus equiprimordialwith Being-speakingin Dasein.32In and throughlogos, we make the world our own as a therethat we have (Da- Habe).33Heidegger thus argues that for Aristotle, the beginning is not the Cartesian"I am"but "I am one (das Man)"of many,a memberof the polis.34 To say that the world is opened up in and throughlanguage is to say that it is revealed in its fundamentallytemporal characteras a from-which and a toward-which.Human Being is thus a stretchingfrom birthto death and is fundamentallycharacterized not by its ultimategoal butby the way it moves towardor with respectto thatgoal. The end of life is thusnot a whatbut a how, the 'well' (eu-) of living well (euzoia) or being happyor well spirited(eudaimonia).35 In andthrough logos, humanbeings aregathered into a community in which they can have the good (agathon)together.36 Because man'sBeing is Being-with-one-another,the good is not relatedsimply to the individualand is thus not primarily intended for solitary philosophers. Indeed, Dasein includes the Being of one's parents,children, wife, friends, and fellow citizens.37The community'sestablishment and pursuitof the good life are thus primarilypractical and only derivativelytheoretical activities.38 They depend decisively on conversationand discussion and thus, Heidegger argues, on rhetoric.39 The very mentionof rhetoric,of course,reminds us thatwhile the world is openedup in responseto naturalneeds in andthrough logos, it is also covered over immediatelyby speech. All revealingis also concealing.Indeed, as Hei- degger following Aristotle argues, concealment (lethe) is more primordial thanrevealing (a-le^theia). We are always falling back into concealmentand thus constantlyneed to struggle against concealment.4"The preservationof our humanityas the place or thereof Being thus dependson our capacityfor what Aristotle calls aletheuein, 'revealing,'or 'uncovering.'41 According to Aristotle, there are five modes of revealingin and through which we open up the world: techne, 'knowing one's way about' (Sich- Auskennen); episteme, 'science' (Wissenschaft); phrone^sis, 'practical wisdom' or 'circumspectiveinsight' (Umsicht-Einsicht);sophia, 'wisdom' or 'understanding'(Verstehen); and nous, 'intellectualintuition' or 'perceptual thinking' (vernehmendes Vermeinen).42Sophia and episteme^are theoretical modes of revealing concerned with those things that do not change, with ever-being (aei on). Techneand phronesis are concerned with those things that can be other than what they are and are thus practical forms of revealing.43Nous is presentin all four because all are forms of noein, 'seeing with the mind,' as forms of dianoein, 'thinking.'44 Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 147

The question for Aristotle that becomes central for Heidegger's understanding of Dasein is which of these modes of revealing is superior.In the theoreticalrealm, sophia is superiorto episteme because episteme is really only a higher form of techne that seeks to determineexactly the principle (arche^)that guides the productionof the technicianor artist.Without nous, however, it cannot attain this arch.45 In the realm of praxis, phronesis is superiorto techne because techne aims at and is thus always for the sake of something beyond itself, while phronesis aims only at Dasein.46The real question then for Aristotle in Heidegger's view is whether phronesis or sophia more fully reveals Being. Heidegger recognizes that for Aristotle, sophia is higherthan phronesis, but he himself is convincedof the reverseand strives to make the strongestcase possible on an Aristotelianfoundation for the superiorityof phronesis.47Moreover, he attemptsto show that it was the one-sided Platonic interpretationof Being as presence that led Aristotle to nominallydevalue phrone^sis, even thoughhe recognizedthat it was centralto ethical and political life. For Aristotle, according to Heidegger, phrone^sisis characteristicnot merely of humanbeings butof all living things.It is the organism'sinnate orientationtoward preserving, or abilityto preserve,itself.48 Phronesis differs in animalsand men, however,because for animalsit dependsmerely on instinct andperception, while in men it is boundup with logos andthus with nous. As an orientationtoward the good life (euzoia) and happiness(eudaimonia), it determinesthe how of ourdoing well (eupraxia).49It achieves this as circum- spection (Umsicht)and care (Sorge) or care-fullcircumspection (Sorgenum- sicht).50As such, it is always practicaland nevertheoretical.5 As Heidegger puts it,

Phronesisbrings the that-with-respect-to-whichof the dealings of humanlife (and dealings with humanlife itself) andthe "How"of these dealings in theirown Being into truth- ful safe-keeping.These dealings are praxis:the conductingof one's own self in the how of dealings which are not productive,but are rathersimply actional. Phronesis is the illumination-of-dealingswhich cotemporalizeslife in its Being.52

The revelation of action that characterizesphronesis is constantly con- frontedby the intrinsictendency to concealmentand forgettingthat charac- terizes Dasein.53What is seen in and throughphronesis cannot be forgotten because what one sees in this momentof vision is not a particulargoal or end buta way or how of Being thatguides action.54The difficultythat stands in the way of such phroneticinsight is thatthinking is dominatedby everydayness. Phroneticinsight thus is only possible on the basis ofproairesis, 'precommit- ment' or 'resolve'(Entschlossenheit), that holds one open for thatwhich shat- ters the everyday appearanceof things.55 148 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

Sophia is the perfection of techn.56 Techne,like phronesis, is a form of humandoing. It is a knowing one's way aboutthat aims at production,thus a form of knowingthat is dependenton its end or telos. Sophiagrasps the end in its utmost generality,without reference to particulars.57It is a way of revealing thatopens up the basic principlesthat govern techne, but its goal is a kind of quiescence that is fundamentallydivorced from care or concern. It thus leads to no action.5 Sophiain one sense is a phroneticactivity, but it is a pecu- liarphronesis that aims at a good but at a good thatis not aprakton.59Instead, sophia longs for a purenoein. However,such a mode of Being is not possible for humans.It is thereforein man always only as dianoeinthat is noein on the groundof logos in which somethingis addressedas something.6 Sophia is a continual Being-by-the-eternal,and its object is thus not Dasein or nonhu- man beings in the world but the theion, ever-being(aei on).61Sophia is thus concernedwith divine, not human,things.62 Because such a theorizingtran- scends the way in which human Being is its time (zeitigt), humans cannot really endurethis state and thereforeneed recreationfrom it.63 Both sophia andphronesis aim at the good, but the goods at which they aim are not identical. Sophia and theoreingenerally aim at the good per se, while phronesis aims at the good for man.64For Aristotle in contrastto Plato, thereis no good thathovers above being. The highest good is a purenoein that has itself as its object, but this is unavailableto human beings because the ultimatearche cannotbe addressedas something,through logos.65 It is available only to purenous. The humangood, by contrast,is always based on this here andnow andis tied to the moment.66Phronesis reveals not the archai, the firstprinciples, but the eschata, the particulars.67In consideringthe possibilities of action,Dasein finally runsinto the given facts, the circumstancesof its particulartime andplace. Inphronesis, these facts are graspedpurely, as they show themselves. All deliberationthus ends in an aisthesis, and this perception withinphronesis is nous.8 Phrone^sistherefore is a pureknowing that no longer falls into the realmof logos. Ourultimate decision aboutaction is thus based not on logos or reasonbut on phroneticintuition. While phronesishas the same structureas sophia in being beyondlogos, it is on the oppositeside- nous in most extreme concretenessversus nous in its greatestgenerality.69 Heidegger recognizes that Aristotle thinks that sophia is higher than phrone^sis,but he tries to show thatthis conclusion is at odds with Aristotle's deeper insights. Heidegger develops three argumentsto drive home this importantpoint. First,the fundamentalexperience of Dasein for Aristotle is not theoreticalbut lies in the interactionof life with the world.7"Therefore, the theoreticallife cannotbe the authenticpossibility of Being for man.71It is a possible life only for a being thattranscends the world (i.e., for the demiur- gos). Plato attemptsto bridgethis divide between Being andbeings with dia- Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 149 lectic. In Heidegger'sview, however,there is no such dialecticalpath because there is an unbridgeableontological differencebetween Being and beings.72 In a similarfashion, Aristotletries to pass beyond logos to a noein thatis free from legein throughsophia, but the idea of the arche thatis centralto sophia can only be achievedfinally throughlogos.73 This is the result of the fact that Being itself is interpretedas presence, and logos is the means by which we make things present to ourselves.74Aristotle's account of human Being undermines the possibility of sophia. Living an active human life thus depends on recognizingthe differencebetween Being and beings, what Hei- degger was laterto call the ontological difference.Second, sophia cannotbe superiorto phronesis in Heidegger'sview because it is incommunicableand thus incompatiblewith Dasein's fundamentalBeing-with-others. Aristotle's conclusion thatsophia is superiorthus contradictshis deeperinsight into the political characterof Dasein.75Third, Heidegger arguesthat Aristotle bases his argumentfor the superiorityof sophia on a mistaken understandingof Being, as ever-Being or the unchanging.76As Volpi has argued,Aristotle in Heidegger's view was unable to see the basic ontological constitution of human life because he remained captive to the horizon of a naturalistic, chronological, and thus nonkairologicalunderstanding of time that denied him insight into originaltemporality as the ontological groundof the human psyche.77In this respect, Aristotle, in Heidegger's view, was unable to free himself from the ontological errorhe inheritedfrom Plato.78 Aristotle's misunderstandingof the truerelation of sophia andphronesis leads him to anothererror, the notion thatthere is a techne akin to sophia that can guide political life, a realpolitike techne.79This conclusion treatsDasein as if it werejust anotherbeing and our Being-with-one-anotheras if it were a thing thatcould be producedand brought to perfection.There is, however,no perfectionto our communallives because living togetheris a historicalphe- nomenonthat does not have a naturalend, a "what"that can be producedin a betteror worse fashion. Whatis needed is always dependenton the idiosyn- craticcircumstances of the moment.Dasein has a history-indeed, Dasein is history-and as such it cannotbe treatedlike otherbeings thatmerely exist in time. There is thus no authenticart or technical organizationof politics and no authenticscience of politics guided by theory,whether it be a theory of values, an ideology, or a worldview.In short,there is no authenticpolitics that is based on eithersophia or techne. An authenticpolitics always depends on phronesis,on circumspectionand insight into what is necessaryat this moment. It is on this point that Heideggerdeparts most radicallyfrom a traditional Aristotelianethics and embarkson a path that leads to Hitler and National Socialism.8"For Aristotle,phronesis is principallyconcerned with the affairs of everyday life and particularlythe life of politics. Heidegger, however, 150 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000 interpretsphronesis historically. Here Dilthey's historicism exercised an importantinfluence on his reading of Aristotle. Heidegger argues that the NichomacheanEthics is anythingother than the ethics of a moderateevery- dayness and conventionalism.81Everydayness for Heideggeris the epitome of fallenness andinauthenticity. He thus concludesin Diltheyianfashion that we see humanbeings (Da-seiendes) authenticallyonly when we see them in their history.82When placed in the context of history, however, phronesis is fundamentallytransformed, deciding, as Kisiel has noted,"not by the light of reasonbut by the light of time! Thus,Lichtung replaces nous within an other- wise Aristotelianfabric of dianetic virtues."83Decision by practicalhuman reason becomes decision by something approachingmystical inspiration.84 Phronesis cruciallydepends on intuitioninto the moment. Indeed, when understoodwithin the metaphysicsof historicityrather than within the metaphysics of presence, phronesis is the moment of vision and decision. As Safranskihas pointed out, this focus on the moment was hardlyoriginal to Heidegger, who was well acquaintedwith similar notions in Kierkegaard, Ernst Bloch, Schmitt, Jiinger, and Tillich. For all of these thinkers, the moment forces a decision and holds open the possibility of breakingout of the mundanepresent into a differentand truer reality.85 All long for the advent of something new, but what that something is remains indeterminate.The same could easily be said of Heidegger,for in his view, "themoment (Augen- blick) is nothingother than the gaze (Blick)of resolve, in which the full situation of action opens itself up and holds itself open."86It is this phronetic moment that opens up the possibility of the authenticexistence of Dasein. This moment of vision is always unique. Each decision occurs in a par- ticularcontext and is determinednot by a series of antecedentcauses but by an evaluationof the futurepossibilities opened up in this moment.87What is seen is not what has been and on that basis must be, but how the world "worlds"(i.e., how we are projectedtoward the futureby the particularchar- acter of the question of Being that strikesus here and now) in this concrete situation.88As Heidegger puts it, "Phronesismakes the location of the one who performsthe action accessible: in securingthe ou eneka (the 'Why'), in making availablethe particularTowards-what-end [Wozu], in apprehending the 'Now,'and in stretchingout the How."89Put in phenomenologicalterms, it is the intuitionof the fundamentalintentionality of life itself. This momentof vision thus providesthe answerto the questionof how one ought to live and what one ought to do. In this respect,this phroneticmoment of vision looks more like a conver- sion experiencethan a deliberativejudgment. Heidegger here readsAristotle more throughPaul, Augustine, Eckhardt, and Luther than through the Aristo- telian ethical tradition.The moment of vision is identifiedas the kairos, but Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 151 this kairosis understoodin a fundamentallytheological fashion. Drawingon Augustine's account of the birthof Christas the moment in which the world comes into being, stretchingitself backwardto creation and forwardto the apocalypse,Heidegger sees each momentof vision as revealinga new world, both forwardand backward in time. This is not to say thatthe worldis thereby re-createdex nihilo, but ratherthat in such moments the world is there in a new sense, thatthe "as"that determines the characterof beings in theirBeing is new in each case and causes us to reevaluatethe past and reconfigurethe future accordingly. This phroneticmoment of vision bringsabout not merely a transformation of the world but first and foremosta transformationor conversionof Dasein itself.9"Following Paul and Luther,Heidegger sees the experience of this moment as an absolute affliction in which one faces the possibility of one's own deathand thus the possibilityof the nothing.9'This is also the momentof personalcommitment.92 Phronesis in this sense is conscience, the call to face this decision and the destiny it entails.93The content of the revelationin the moment of vision, however, is not set in advance because the good varies accordingto the kairos.94Therefore, it is necessary to hold oneself open to this moment.Given the humantendency to flee the anguishof this openness, the moment can only be successfully traversedif one precommitsoneself to endure it. Aristotle's term for such a holding-oneself-readyis hexis, which we typically translateas 'habit.'95Training is thus necessaryto enduresuch a transformation.This training,as Heideggerunderstands it, however,is more an Augustiniancommitment to continenceversus the dissipationof everyday life ratherthan an Aristotelianhabituation in the moral virtues.96 In establishingphronesis in this way as a world-historicalforce, Heideg- ger was seeking a solution to the dehumanizinghegemony of science and technology. In his interpretationof phronesis, however, Heidegger departs from Aristotlein a decisive way, convertingpractical reason and deliberation into a confrontationwith nothingnessand a revelationof destiny.Heidegger seeks to solve the problemof technologyby establishingthe rule ofphronesis but foundsphronesis not on practicalreason but on sheer insight. It remains for us to see how this projectworks itself out, first very briefly in Being and Timeand then in Heidegger'sencounter with Nazism.

THE ARISTOTELIAN CORE OF BEING AND TIME

Being and Time,in a very real sense, was the final draft of Heidegger's phenomenologicalinterpretation of Aristotle.Division One of PartOne is an 152 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

analysis of Dasein as Being-in-the-worldthat seeks to expose the practical realityof humanexistence as techneor whatHeidegger there calls equipment (Zeug).As objects of ourconcern, the things in the worldare thus not primarily objectsfor theoreticalknowing but entities to be producedand used.97 The world in this sense is revealedas ready-to-hand.The theoreticalor scientific encounterwith this existence is understoodas derivative,revealing the world as merely present-at-hand.The first part of the work is thus an attemptto present a purifiedAristotelianism against the Platonic metaphysicsof presence. It presentsthe case for the superiorityof humandoing or praxisthrough the argumentfor the superiorityof techne over episteme and sophia. This reversal is made possible by the rejection of the Platonic understandingof Being as ever-Beingor presencein favorof a historicistview thatrecognizes that Being is not presence but time itself. It is this insight thatis decisive to Division Two of PartOne thatexamines Dasein not as techne or theoria but as phronesis.Seen in this light, the focus of the discussion of human existence in terms of possibility delimited by deathbecomes clear as the fundamentalstructure of phronesis, or what Hei- degger there calls historicity.Similarly, the focus on conscience, resolute- ness, and the moment of vision as the decisive characteristicsof authentic Being-as-a-wholedefine the characterof the phronimos,the practicallywise man who is able to understandand affirmhis destiny (i.e., what is necessary at this particulartime in and with his people or generation). Division Three of Part One, which was never published, was to have moved fromthis improvedAristotelian anthropology to a correctunderstand- ing of Being itself as time. This partwould thenhave corrected the fundamen- tal Platonic errorand providedthe foundationfor a complete reversalof the Westernunderstanding of Being as presence.On the basis of such a reversal, Heideggercould then have produceda new firstphilosophy as the foundation for the phroneticmastery and political rule of technology.A demonstrationof the way in which the West had consistently embodied this mistake would then have been necessary,but more as an addendumthan as an essential part of its phenomenologicalprogram. Much has been written about why the rest of this work was never published, and I will not speculateon that here. Suffice it to say that the crucial foundations had been laid for Heidegger's philosophy of praxis and his phroneticpolitics. The enormoussuccess of the book also convincedHeideg- ger that he himself had arrivedand that he lacked only the moment that his kairologicalimagination longed for. Unfortunately,that moment was about to arrive. Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 153

HEIDEGGER'SVISION OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM:THE RULE OF PHRONESIS

In the crisis of the early 1930s, Heidegger believed he saw the decisive momentfor the transformationof Germanyand the West:"Everywhere there are convulsions, crises, catastrophes,misery: daily anguish,political chaos, the impotence of science, the underminingof art,the groundlessnessof philosophy, the powerlessnessof religion."98In contrastto many of his contem- poraries,Heidegger saw this crisis not as a disasterbut as a valuable shock thathe hoped would stimulatea communalconfrontation with the questionof Being. However,he was generallydisappointed by the responseto this crisis: the question that dominatedpublic concern was not how to humanizetech- nology buthow to repairit andmake it workbetter (i.e., moreproductively). In this context, Americanismand communismseemed to seep in everywhere. Heideggerdid believe, however,that he discernedthe possibility for renewal and salvationin the social andpolitical program of Hitlerand the Nazi movement. They seemed to offer the possibility of a confrontationwith the problem of technology and the chance of subordinatingit to the rule ofphronesis, in shortof establishingwhat Heideggerwas laterto call a free relationshipto technology.Heidegger never believed thatevery Nazi hadthis goal in mind or even that the Nazi movement would inevitably bring this about, but he was convinced thatthe possibility for such a revolutionexisted within this movement andwithin this movementalone. Whatwas necessaryto bringthis revolution aboutwas a commitmentby the positiveintellectual forces in Germany to join this movementand spiritualizeit from within.He saw himself playing a leading role in this effort.99 Despite his grave concerns about the role that technology played in the modern world, Heidegger was never simply an opponentof technology and never sought its abolition or destruction.The problem,as he saw it, was not technology per se but the hegemony that technology had come to exercise over human action. Techneas a form of uncoveringreveals the world as a process of production.Everything within the worldis thus merely the equipment with which this productiveenterprise is carriedout. Modernman imag- ines thattechnology producesgoods to satisfy his wants and desires, provid- ing what Hobbes called commodious living. Technology,however, can only serve human beings if they act untechnologically-that is, only if they live according to something other than technical (and that includes economic) imperatives.Only if distinctivelyhuman action is placed at the center of our concern will technology serve our ends. We thus can only become active (as opposed to productive) beings if we are guided by phronesis. Phronetic 154 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000 insight, however,is only possible if we resolutelyface the possibility of our own death and accept the destiny that is revealed in the moment of vision. Thus, we must resolve ourselves to face the dangerousquestion of Being. Withoutsuch resolve, we will lose the capacityfor action and become mere cogs in the equipmentthat constitutes the world uncoveredby techne.It was such a resolve that Heidegger saw in the Nazi movement. Heidegger's understandingof the relationshipof technology and politics was certainly influenced by Jtinger'snotion of total mobilization and his vision of the workeras the coming superman,but it would be easy to exagger- ate Jtinger's impact on Heidegger.1x"Jiinger believed at the time that the futurebelonged to technology.As WorldWar I in his view made evident,vic- tory comes to those who are best able to mobilize all materialand human resourcesin the process of production.Politically thatmeans producingthe kinds of human beings who are most productive.Jiinger himself holds up America as the politicalmodel for the regime of the futurebecause in Amer- ica, mobilizationis not constrainedby class differences,cultural traditions, or any other factors. Heidegger carefully studied Jinger's work, but he did not endorseJiinger's political conclusions because he realizedit meantgiving up the possibility for authentichuman action. On the other hand, he recognized as well thatthe destiny of our times was essentially technological.The problemwas thus not to eliminatetechnology but to establisha free relation- ship to it (i.e., a relationshipthat put the machine itself in service of human action). It was this transformationof technologyby phronesisthat Heidegger believed the Nazi movementmight bring about. The Nazis, Heideggerbelieved, were resolutely opposed to both Ameri- canism and communism.They also despised high theory,experts, and intel- lectuals, trustinginstead to the feelings and sensibilities of the Volk.They accepted the need for and value of technology and technical expertise but insisted it be subordinatedto the good of the Volk.They were also resolutein theirdetermination to formthe GermanVolk into a Germanstate. And finally, they recognizedthe necessity of leaderswho posed the deepest questionsand acted resolutely on their insight into the necessities of the moment. Centralto Heidegger'ssupport of the Nazis was his belief that theirradi- calism madepossible a courageousconfrontation with the questionof Being. This experience in his view would

shatterthe encapsulationof the variousfields of knowledge into separatedisciplines ... and groundscience once again directlyin the fruitfulnessand blessing of all the world- shapingforces of man's historicalexistence, such as nature,history, language, the Volk, custom, the state; poetry, thought, belief; sickness, madness, death; law, economy, technology.11 Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 155

In short, it would make possible a truly human, or what Heidegger in this periodcalls a trulyspiritual, world. If spiritualleaders pose this questionradi- cally enough, a common questioning will pervade the community.l02 Thereby,the Volkcan play "anactive role in shapingits fate by placing its history into the openness of the overpoweringmight of all the world-shaping forces of humanexistence and by strugglingever anew to secure its spiritual world."103This, however,cannot be achievedby a merely theoreticalengage- ment. "Whatthe real gravityof the new situationcalls for is the experienceof affliction, is the active engagementwith real conditions.Only that activity is justified that is performedwith full inner commitmentto the future."'04Stu- dents thus need to be "forcedout into the uncertaintyof all things, in which the necessity of engagementis grounded."'05Such a profoundquestioning is essential to the foundationof a Volkish science. To achieve it, the courage either to grow or be destroyedin a confrontationwith Being is needed.'1 Facing the question of Being requirescourage and resolution because it means facing the possibility of one's own death. The young Schlageterwho was executedby the Frenchfor sabotagein 1923 (andheld by the Nazis to be a nationalhero) exemplifies in Heidegger's view the kind of courage that is necessary.He praises Schlageter'sclarity of heart,which in the face of death won him a view of "what was greatest and most remote."'17 Heidegger believed such couragecharacterized many members of the Nazi movement." We know from letters and personalaccounts how much Heidegger admired Hitler. Hitler, he believed, was committed to facing the deepest and most troublingquestions, and his inspirationalexample, Heideggerhoped, would evoke a communalreflection on the questionof Being. In effect, Hitlerwould engineera communalescape fromthe Platoniccave into the light of reality.()9 Heideggerbelieved thatthis process had alreadybegun, but he was also convinced that his own assistance was necessary to bring it to fruition. In Heidegger'sview, the Nazis understoodthat knowledge was fundamen- tally rooted in praxis and thus were reconstitutingthe unity of life in a way unknown since the time of the pre-Socratics.For the Greeks before Plato, there was no theory apart from (let alone above) practice. Theory, as the Greeksunderstood it, was the highest mode of humanactivity (energeia), but they understoodit as the supremerealization of genuine practice,the inner- most determiningcenter of theirentire existence as a people."0The new way of knowing that Heidegger believed was being awakenedin the Nazi movement and that was exemplified in his own thinking could similarly root humanbeings in practice."'

'Wissenschaft'[science] is not the possession of a privilegedclass of citizens, to be used as a weapon in the exploitationof the workingpeople. Rather,Wissenschaft is merely the 156 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

morerigorous and hence moreresponsible form of thatknowledge which the entireGer- man Volkmust seek and demandfor its own historicalexistence as a state if it still wants to secure its continuedexistence and greatnessand to preservethem in the future.In its essence, the knowledgeof true Wissenschaftdoes not differat all fromthe knowledge of the farmer,woodcutter, the miner,the artisan.For knowledge means:to knowone's way aroundin the worldinto which we areplaced, as acommunity and as individuals.Knowl- edge means in our decisions and actions to be up to the task that is assigned us.112

What is decisive is thus not the quantity of knowledge that one has but whetherknowledge springs out of one's own concreteexistence.113 If it does, it is genuine knowledge; if not, it is merely pseudo-knowledge.Thus, in thinking about the future of universityeducation in the National Socialist state, Heideggerbelieves thatit will be necessaryto trainstudents not merely in intellectualdisciplines but in practicalways as well. He thus recommends trainingin labor service, military service, and knowledge service to further perfect this growing unity of acting and knowing.114The reestablishmentof praxis as the centralmoment of humanlife and of phronesis as the principal form of humanknowing dethronestechnology and subordinatesit to human ends. This is particularlyevident in the Nazi transformationof the role of labor.Labor under the hegemony of technology is merely a means to further means, what Heidegger in the later 1930s came to call the will to will that turns everything into standing reserve. Technology under the rule of phronesis roots productionin humanpurposes. Thus, Heideggerargues that "everyworker of ourpeople must know why andto what end he standsthere, where he stands,"for it is only in this way thatthe individualis rooted in the people as a whole and their fate."l

Laboris also not simply the productionof goods for others.Nor is laborsimply the occa- sion and the means to earn a living. Rather:For us, "work"is the title of every well- orderedaction that is borne by the responsibilityof the individual,the group, and the State and which is thus of service to the Volk.116

It is just such an experienceof laborthat National Socialism offers. Heideg- ger clearly has in mind the workcamps of the laborservice and a similarsci- ence camp he ran for faculty and students.Here, he believes, the distinction between theory and practice, between thinkingand doing, is eliminated as individualscome to think of themselves not as self-interestedactors but as membersof the workgroup and the people. Whatcounts in the camp, according to Heidegger,is exemplaryacting and workingtogether, not standingby and supervising.'17Such service providesthe basic experienceof hardness,of closeness to the soil and to the implementsof labor,of the rigorouslaw that Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 157

governs the simplest physical laborin a group."8As a result, the differences between intellectual work and handworkdisappear. While all of these are hopeful developments,they cruciallydepend on the self-assertionof the people in an act of foundingin which it wills itself as the end of its activity.This is the supremephronetic act, andit was an act thatHei- degger was convincedthe Nazi movementwas in the process of carryingout. A people or Volk,as Heideggerunderstands it, is not based on blood but on a common feeling or mood (Stimmung).19 In this respect,he distanceshimself from the explicitly racistelements in the NationalSocialist movement.In his view, moods or feelings are not expressions of individualsouls but a funda- mental occurrenceof temporalityin which ourDasein primordiallyis.120 We thus wronglydenigrate feelings because we do not see how they connectus to beings as a whole. 12They arethe way thatwe as a people arein the worldand have our determination(Bestimmung).'22 The I-centeredworld of liberalism is thus overcome and disappearswhen we immerseourselves in the feelings or mood of the people.123The self-assertionor self-creationof a people thus cruciallydepends on the emotionalimmersion and indeed submersionof the individualin the people as a whole. To submitto this mood is the highestform of self-responsibility.Indeed, it is only in this way that one becomes an authenticself. Heidegger arguesthat this will to self-responsibilityis not only the basic law of the existence of the people; it is also the fundamentalevent thatbrings about the Nazi state.T24Appealing to his fellow Germansto vote for Ger- many's withdrawalfrom the League of Nations, Heideggerargues that Hitler is "givingthe people the possibility of making,directly, the highest free decision of all: whetherit-the entirepeople-wants its own existence [Dasein] or whetherit does not wantit."125 This withdrawal,according to Heidegger,is necessary for the internalself-constitution of the people and is not the result of ambitionor a desire for glory or a hungerfor power.126This is not merely a decision thatGermany has to make but one thatall peoples must make to find and preservethe greatnessand truthof theirdestiny.127 The dissolutionof the League of Nations is thus the prerequisitefor a lasting and manly peace among autonomouspeoples. A people can maintainitself, Heidegger argues,only by self-governance that aims not at maximizing technical or economic efficiency but in deter- mining "whatwe ourselves ought to be."128Self-governance depends not on abstracttheory but on self-examinationand is thus the groundof a new freedom. Heideggerhere understandsfreedom in an essentially Greekfashion as the freedom of the people that arises from giving themselves their own laws (i.e., from constitutingthemselves as a people).129 Such freedom thus is not 158 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000 individual freedom. Indeed, it imposes new duties on individuals.13"The duties and social roles that fall to individualswill vary,but they will not be determinedby theoreticalor technicalnecessities. Indeed,social differences based on economic or technicaldistinctions will be swept away andreplaced by the humandistinctions that arise out of the needs of the people. Heidegger believed that the Nazis were alreadybeginning this transformation.Village and city were being reunifiedand bound to ruralareas."3 National Socialism was eroding class differences,bringing together people from differentparts of society throughtheir cooperation in the joint enterprise.132Individuals thereby ceased to be members of a class and became fellow countrymen (Volksgenossen).As countrymen,they were membersnot of an abstractand anomic society but of a community(Volksgemeinschaft). The successful establishmentof the Volk,its self-government,the freedom it affords,and the eliminationof previousclass differencesall dependon the preeminence of phrone^sis.Phronesis, however, is not present in all humanbeings. Indeed,for the most part,human beings arelost in theirevery- day concerns.Only those rareindividuals who are resolutein theirquestion- ing and courageousenough to face deathand nothingnesshave phronesis. It is thesephronimoi who mustlead the people.133Indeed, without such leaders,a free communitycannot come into being or sustainitself. Successful leadership, however,depends on othersbeing able and willing to follow. "Alllead- ership must allow following to have its own strength.In each instance,however, to follow carriesresistance within it. This essential oppositionbetween leading and following must neitherbe covered over nor, indeed, obliterated altogether."'34Struggle is thus necessary to preserve this opposition and secure trueself-governance, but at the same time it is necessarythat "loyalty and the will to follow be daily and hourly strengthened."'35Heidegger thus believed that "theFiihrer alone is the presentand futureGerman reality and its law,"but he also thata leadercould only lead with the willing recognized36 complianceof his followers. Both the leaderand the people must sharethe same fundamentalfeeling or mood, for it is only the basis of such a funda- mental feeling or mood that greatthings are possible.137An authenticleader thus cannotmerely commandor work his will; he must convince and inspire by directingthe people accordingto the fundamentalmood throughwhich they are a people. We can gain some more concrete idea of this notion of leadershipfrom Heidegger's own activities when he became rector at the University of Freiburg.He first attemptedto reorganizethe university according to the Fiihrerprinzipto refound it on the basis of a philosophical questioning of Being. He sought to push individualdisciplines and departmentsto consider Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 159 fundamentalquestions. He also enthusiasticallyattempted to insertlabor and military trainingexercises into the curriculumto counteractwhat he saw as the hyperintellectualismof students and faculty. Finally, he organized science camps (retreatsfor selected membersof the faculty and a few students) accordingto the Fiihrerprinzipto try to integratethe practicaland theoretical sides of education. He wrote to one potential participantin one of these camps that

the success of the camp dependsupon the extent of new courage,on the clarityand alert- ness for what is coming, on the greatestpossible casting off the burdenof what has been, on the determinationof the will to fidelity, to sacrifice and service. Out of these forces 138 truefollowership arises. And these firstbear and protect genuine Germancommunity.

All of Heidegger's efforts failed. In part, this was because the party was suspicious of his intellectualismand his Jesuit and Jewish connections. A more importantreason for his failure, however,was resistance from within the university and especially from the naturalscientists who did not want theirresearch programs derailed by philosophicalquestioning. The facultyas a whole was also bitterly opposed to requiredlabor and military exercises. Faced with this failureand unwilling to compromisewith eitherthe partyor the faculty, Heidegger resigned. He remainedconvinced, however, that he was right about what needed to be done. Heidegger clearly recognized the difficulty of such a projectin a university system thatwas alreadythoroughly dominated by theoryand technology. To counteractthis dominationand providea more practicalorientation, Hei- deggerlaid out plans for a new academyin Berlin to trainall futureuniversity instructors.His plans give us some concrete indicationsof what he thought might be done on a NationalSocialist foundationto transformGermany. This academy was to be a philosophic cloister, akin to a holy order.Teachers and students would live togetherand performtheir academic work in common. They would also labor together at differentjobs. In their free time, there would be communal recreational activities, including martial exercises, marching,and celebrations.Not all of their activities, however,would be in common. There would also be time for solitude and gatheringtogether in small groups for conversation.Moreover, each person would have his own cell.'39The vision of NationalSocialism thatis embodiedin these institutions is reminiscent of monasticism. Indeed, the Nazi movement as Heidegger understoodit was a cross between the Greekpolis and the Christianmonas- tery. What is missing, however,are the gods and any establishedrituals and traditions.Moreover, at its head standsnot the man of God who has retreated 160 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000 from the world but the phronimoswho seeks an engagementwith it in the most concrete way to lead his people and help them fulfill their common destiny.

CONCLUSION:THE FAILURE OF PHRONESIS AND THEPURSUIT OF POETICPROPHECY

National Socialism failed to realize Heidegger's millenarian dreams. Indeed, Heidegger came to recognize that Nazism, like Americanism and Marxism, was dominatedby technology. However, he did not believe that this was the necessary or inevitable conclusion of the Nazi revolution. In reflectingon the period,he asks, "Whatwould havehappened and what could have been avertedif in 1933 all availablepowers had arisen,gradually and in secret unity,in orderto purifyand moderate the 'movement'that had come to power?"'14 The failure of National Socialism to achieve the kind of transformation Heidegger desired demonstratedto him that the forgetfulnessof Being and the hegemony of technology were much more profoundthan he had imag- ined.141He concludedthat the West was not on the verge of a new dawn as he had believed but at the "world-midnight."No immediaterelief was possible, and as he later put it, "Only a God can save us." This does not mean that humanbeings can do nothing.He remainedconvinced that the possibility for revolutionarychange had existed in the Nazi movementbut that the Germans hadnot been preparedto takeadvantage of it. At this time, the taskof thinking is thus not revolutionarytransformation but a preparationfor the coming returnof the gods. This preparationrequires a criticalphilosophy that decon- structs the philosophic traditionto open up the question of Being. Such deconstructionreveals the currentdomination of technology and makes it possible for us to understandthe essence of technologyin poiesis. In this way, we may be able to establish a free relationshipto technology. Such a freedom, however, will be useless unless we have some idea of where we need to go. This was what Heidegger imaginedphronesis would reveal for us. In his laterthought, however, he came to believe thatphronesis arises not in a moment of vision in the face of death (i.e., not out of facing directlythe questionof Being) but in listening to the poetic voices thatspeak out of the midnighthours of coming gods. Heideggerbelieved thatthe herald of this futurefor Germanywas Holderlin.Phronesis, in this sense, depends on harkeningto the poet-prophetswho have peered into the abyss of Being and markedout our way and destination. Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 161

Heidegger's turn from phronesis to poiesis is important in too many ways to discuss fully here. However, it makes little difference politically since in either case political life remains dependent on a mystical insight into the abyss of Being. Heidegger's later thought is thus no less susceptible to something like National Socialism than his thought of the 1920s. To employ an analogy, the young Heidegger believed that a new Oedipus could solve the riddle of the technological Sphinx and establish the rule of phronesis. The result was a monstrosity. In the aftermath of that failure, an older Heidegger concluded that we must listen not to Oedipus but to Teiresias. Such blind wisdom, however, can provide no better ground for human praxis. What is sur- prising is that it never occurred to him to attend to the prayer of the ordinary people of Thebes that the hubristic adventurer who confronts the nothing in search of world transformation never frequents their hearth. This was a truth that Aristotle recognized and embodied in his own ethics and politics. It was a truth lamentably and disastrously absent in Heidegger's thought. Its absence constitutes the un-Aristotelian core of Heidegger's Aristotelian National Socialism.

NOTES

1. These questionswere firstraised immediately after World War II in Sartre'sjournal Les Tempsmoderne. They arose again with the 1953 publicationof Heidegger'sAn Introductionto Metaphysics,with its referenceto "theinner truth and greatness" of the NationalSocialist movement. An Introductionto Metaphysics,trans. R. Manheim (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), 199. The currentdebate has perhapsless to do with Heideggerthan with the Hei- deggerianismof postmodernism.See Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut,Heidegger and Modernity, trans.Franklin Philip (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1990), 77. To deflect the charge that their thought was implicitly fascistic, postmodernthinkers mounted a defense especially of Heidegger's later thought. Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. G. Bennington and R. Bowlby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Jean-Francois Lyotard,Heidegger and the Jews, trans.Andreas Michel and MarkRoberts (Minneapolis: Uni- versity of MinnesotaPress, 1990); and PhilippeLacoue-Labarthe, Heidegger, Art and Politics, trans. C. Turner(Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1990). In their view, Nazism is humanism,and they believe that Heidegger fell into Nazism because he still retainedelements of humanismin his earlier thought. On this debate, see RichardWolin, "FrenchHeidegger Wars,"The Heidegger Controversy,ed. R. Wolin (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1993), 272-300. 2. See Hugo Ott,Martin Heidegger: Unterwegszu seiner Biographie(Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1988) and RiidigerSafranski, Ein Meisteraus Deutschland:Heidegger und seine Zeit (Munich: Hanser, 1994). 3. An Introductionto Metaphysics, 199. 4. Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,6. 5. RichardBernstein has pointedout thatHeidegger, Marx, Weber, and Lukacs all develop similar analyses of technology. The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of 162 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

Modernityand Postmodernity(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 100. Accordingto Otto Poggeler, Heideggerbelieved this crisis could be "tracedback to the alienatedcivilization of the big cities in which the Westwas dying.""Heidegger's Political Self-Understanding," in Wolin,Heidegger Controversy,210. 6. In 1942, Heideggersuggested that Bolshevism was a variantof Americanism.Martin Heidegger,Holderlins Hymne "Der Ister" (Frankfurtam Main: Klostermann,1984), 86. See also Hans Sluga, Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany(Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1993), 236. 7. KarlLowith, "My Last Meeting with Heideggerin Rome, 1936,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,142. 8. "AnExchange of Letters:Herbert Marcuse and Martin Heidegger," in Wolin,Heidegger Controversy,162. 9. KarlLowith, "ThePolitical Implications of Heidegger'sExistentialism," in Wolin, Hei- degger Controversy,172. Lowith claimed this remainedhidden undera veneer that suggested religious devotion. The argumentpresented here suggests that the religious element was more importantin Heidegger'sthought than Lowith maintains.See also Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland,297. 10. "In 1933 I had indeed steppedin to say yes to the nationaland the social, butnot at all to the nationalism-nor the intellectualand metaphysical foundations that underlay biologism and the party doctrine."Quoted in Maurice Blanchot, "Thinkingthe Apocalypse: A Letter from MauriceBlanchot to CatherineDavid," trans. PaulaWissing, Critical Inquiry 15 (1989): 478. 11. Kisiel, Genesis,74. He wroteto ElizabethBlochmann that "the new life thatwe want,or that wants to be in us, has given up the desire to be universal,i.e., inauthenticand flat (super- ficial)." Cited in Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland, 111. 12. Kisiel, Genesis, 72-73. 13. Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland, 14. 14. Ott, MartinHeidegger, 111. 15. Ibid., 112. 16. Kisiel, Genesis, 107. 17. Ibid., 84. See also ibid., 17. The tyrannyof the theoreticalwas at heartof problem,as Lask recognized. Ibid., 57. 18. Kisiel, Genesis, 16-17. 19. Ibid., 113. 20. Afterreading the workof Nietzsche's friendFranz Overbeck, Heidegger concluded that it was the truetask of theology to seek the wordthat could call men backto faith.Gadamer, "Mar- tin Heidegger und die MarburgerTheologie," 169. See also Safranski, Ein Meister aus Deutschland,70. 21. Kisiel, Genesis, 66-67. 22. Gadamer,"Heidegger's Phenomenology" 19. 23. The impact of these lectures and their importancefor twentieth-centurypolitical philosophy can hardly be overrated.Heidegger's students during this period included Lowith, Gadamer,Arendt, Leo Strauss,Hans Jonas, Horkheimer,Marcuse, Helene Weiss, Jacob Klein, FriedrichNeumann, Eugen Fink, and others.That nearly all of them moved in a directiondiffer- ent than that of Heidegger is importantfor understandingboth their work and the possibilities inherentin the thoughtof the young Heideggerthat the later Heideggerdid not pursue. 24. Heideggerinterprets Aristotle's psyche as aletheuein.Franco Volpi, "Being and Time: A 'Translation'of the NichomacheanEthics?" Reading Heidegger from the Start:Essays in His Earliest Thought,ed. T. Kisiel and J. van Buren (Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress, Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 163

1994), 199. Scholarshave often deridedwhat they take to be Heidegger'sidiosyncratic translation of altheia, but in translatingit as 'uncovering,'he merely employs the standardtranslation from earlier Germanlexicons. 25. MartinHeidegger, Platon: Sophistes (Frankfurtam Main: Klostermann,1992), 16. 26. Heidegger, Grundbegriffeder aristotelischen Philosophie (manuscriptin Marcuse Archive), 8. 27. Ibid., 94. 28. Ibid., 18. 29. Ibid., 6. 30. Ibid., 6, 7, 18, 22. 31. Ibid., 16. 32. Ibid., 23. 33. Ibid., 19. 34. Ibid., 23. 35. Ibid., 37. 36. Ibid., 18. 37. Ibid., 37. However,this fellow feeling of the koininia cannotbe extendedto include all humanitybecause then thereis no limit (peras) in this case, and such a limit is essential to establish the community as a community.Ibid. 38. Ibid., 6, 38. 39. Ibid., 48. Contraryto Plato, it is thus not dialectic butrhetoric that is essential to praxis. Ibid., 49. Rhetoricis the way in which phronesis appearsin the public sphere. 40. Kisiel, Genesis, 302-3. 41. Platon: Sophistes, 19. 42. Ibid., 21-22; Kisiel, Genesis, 273. 43. Platon: Sophistes, 28. 44. Brogran,"Heidegger's Aristotelian Reading of Plato: The Discovery of the Philoso- pher,"Research in Phenomenology25 (1995): 278. 45. Platon: Sophistes, 37. 46. Ibid., 38, 48. Kisiel, Genesis, 305. 47. Platon: Sophistes, 61. 48. Ibid., 71. 49. Kisiel, Genesis, 304. 50. Brogran,"The Place of Aristotlein the Developmentof Heidegger'sPhenomenology," ReadingHeideggerfrom the Start:Essays in His Earliest Thought,ed. T. Kisiel andJ. van Buren (Albany:State Universityof New YorkPress, 1994), 218. These terms,of course,play an important role in Being and Time. All of them at one time or another are employed to translate phronesis. 51. Platon: Sophistes, 53. 52. Heidegger,"Phenomenological Interpretations with Respectto Aristotle:Indications of the HermeneuticSituation," Mind and World25 (1992): 381. 53. Platon: Sophistes, 51-52. 54. Heideggerconcludes thatAristotle may not have recognizedthe significanceof his discovery here of the phenomenonof conscience. 55. Platon: Sophistes,56. Safranski,Ein Meisteraus Deutschland,260-70; Kisiel, Genesis, 305. 56. Platon: Sophistes, 56. 57. Ibid., 95. 164 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

58. Brogran,"Heidegger's Aristotelian Reading of Plato,"280. 59. Platon: Sophistes, 124. Or,to putit in otherterms, the theoreticallife is only a particular form of praxis. 60. Ibid., 59. 61. Ibid., 132. 62. Brogran,"The Place of Aristotlein the Developmentof Heidegger'sPhenomenology," 218-19. 63. Platon: Sophistes, 135. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid., 145. 66. Heidegger, Grundbegriffeder aristotelischenPhilosophie, 125. 67. Platon: Sophistes, 156. 68. Brogran,"Heidegger's Aristotelian Reading of Plato,"278. 69. Platon: Sophistes, 163. 70. Heidegger,Grundbegriffe der aristotelischenPhilosophie, 4. 71. Ibid., 15. 72. Platon: Sophistes,214. Brogran,"Heidegger's Aristotelian Reading of Plato,"275. The pathto Being passes not throughbeings butthrough the nothingas Heideggerwas to make clear in his inaugurallecture in Freiburg,Was ist Metaphysik?(Bonn: F. Cohen, 1929). 73. Platon: Sophistes, 224. 74. Ibid., 225. 75. Ibid., 140. 76. Ibid., 178. 77. Volpi, "Being and Time: A 'Translation'of the NichomacheanEthics?" 210. 78. Kisiel, Genesis, 161. StanleyRosen arguesthat what Heidegger calls Platonismis more properlytitled Aristotelianism.The Questionof Being: A Reversal of Heidegger (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), xxii-xxiii. 79. Heidegger,Grundbegriffe der aristotelischenPhilosophie, 25. 80. Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland, 198. 81. Heidegger, Grundbegriffeder aristotelischenPhilosophie, 70-71. Heidegger sees the norms of everyday life "bogged down in inauthentictradition and habituation."Heidegger, "PhenomenologicalInterpretations with Respect to Aristotle,"365. 82. Heidegger,Grundbegriffe der aristotelischenPhilosophie, 12. 83. Kisiel, Genesis, 347. 84. While this equationofphronesis with mystical insight may be troublingto those who want to read Heidegger hermeneutically,Heidegger himself would have had no such qualms aboutthis interpretation.Indeed, his goal since at least 1918 had been to attainan understanding equivalentto the mystical insight of thinkerssuch as Eckhardt. 85. Safranski,Ein Meisteraus Deutschland,207-10. See also MartinHeidegger, Logik als die Frage nach dem Wesender Sprache (Frankfurtam Main: Klostermann,1998), 113. 86. MartinHeidegger, Die Grundbegriffeder Metaphysik:Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit (Frankfurtam Main: Klostermann,1983), 224. 87. It would thus be a mistaketo believe thathuman action is determinedin any way by our ordinaryhistorical experience. Historyitself is rewrittenon the basis of this momentof insight into Being itself. As Heidegger argues in his 1934 lectures on logic, that which we determine ourselves for is ourtask, andthis taskcomes to us out of the futureas ourdestiny. Logik, 127. The revelationof historyis thus not like a weatherprediction but is availableonly to those who stand resolutely in the revelationof the question of Being. Ibid., 161. Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANNATIONAL SOCIALISM 165

88. Theodore Kisiel, "Genealogical Supplements:A Reply of Sorts,"Research in Phe- nomenology 25 (1995): 245. 89. Heidegger, "PhenomenologicalInterpretations with Respect to Aristotle,"381. 90. Heidegger,Logik, 120, 160. 91. Kisiel, Genesis, 184. 92. Ibid., 437. 93. Ibid., 306; Brogran,"Heidegger's Aristotelian Reading of Plato,"278. 94. Kisiel, Genesis, 299. 95. Heidegger, Grundbegriffeder aristotelischenPhilosophie, 71. 96. Kisiel, Genesis, 438. 97. Sein und Zeit, 14th ed. (Tiibingen:Niemeyer, 1977), 67. 98. Die Grundbegriffeder Metaphysik,243. 99. Heidegger to Jaspers,3 April 1933: "As darkand questionableas everything is, so I sense ever more,that we aregrowing into a new actualityand that a time is becoming old. Every- thing dependsupon whetherwe preparethe rightpoint of attackfor philosophyand help it come to its task."Cited in Ott, MartinHeidegger, 139. 100. As Tom Rockmoredoes in his "Heideggeron Technology,Nazism, and the Thoughtof Being," Research in Philosophy and Technology13 (1993): 267. 101. "TheSelf-Assertion of the GermanUniversity," in Wolin,Heidegger Controversy, 33. 102. Ibid., 34. 103. Ibid., 35. 104. "The Universityin the New Reich,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,45. 105. Ibid. 106. "Declarationof Supportfor Adolph Hitler and the National Socialist State,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,51. 107. "Schlageter,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,41. 108. Ibid., "TheUniversity in the New Reich,"45; "Declarationof Supportfor Adolph Hit- ler,"51. 109. Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland,266. This Platonic imagery is not ad hoc but correspondsto Heidegger's readingof and reflection on Plato's Republic at the time. 110. "The Self-Assertion of the GermanUniversity," 31-32. 111. "NationalSocialist Education,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,58. 112. Ibid., 57-58. 113. Ibid., 58. 114. "The Self-Assertion of the GermanUniversity," 37. Heidegger's knowledge service was consciously in oppositionto Junger'sfocus on a laborfront and a war front.Otto Poggeler, "Heidegger'sPolitical Self-Understanding,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,212. 115. Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland, 305. 116. "NationalSocialist Education,"59. See also Logik,57. Heideggerdescribes the impor- tance of laborat considerablelength in this lecturecourse. Labor,he argues,is an authenticcon- cretizationof the task of the Volk,and it is only throughsuch laborin the context of the Volkthat man is able to be Dasein. Ibid., 129, 154. Laboris thus the fundamentalconnection of man to man,the foundationof ourpossibility of being with andfor others.Ibid., 156. To be withoutwork is to be alienatedfrom things and the world as such; unemploymentis thus spiritualdestruction. Ibid., 154. 117. "LaborService and the University,"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,42. 118. "The Call to LaborService," in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,53. 119. Heidegger,Logik, 153. 166 POLITICALTHEORY / April 2000

120. Ibid., 130. 121. Ibid., 150. 122. Ibid., 163. 123. Ibid., 151, 155. 124. "Declarationof Supportfor Adolph Hitler,"50. 125. "GermanMen and Women!"in Wolin,Heidegger Controversy,47. See also "Declara- tion of Supportfor Adolph Hitler,"49, and Logik, 165. 126. "GermanMen and Women!"in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,48. 127. Ibid. 128. "The Self-Assertion of the GermanUniversity," 29. 129. Die Grundbegriffeder Metaphysik,243. Heideggerremarked in 1934 thatthe question of the world war was not who won but which Volkwas able to answerthe question of "who we are."Logik, 46. This, in Heidegger'sview, is the crucialquestion, the questionof the self, and it points to the Volkand not to the I. Ibid., 52. 130. "The Self-Assertion of the GermanUniversity," 34-35. Heidegger suggests that freedom is not merelydoing what one wantsbut taking over the historicaltask thatBeing sets out for a Volkthrough the appropriateorganization of the people in a state. Logik, 164. 131. "The Call to LaborService," 53. 132. "NationalSocialist Education,"59. 133. Heideggerremarked in 1934 that the "we" of the authenticcommunity does not have unconditionalprecedence because there are many decisive thingsthat come fromthe rulingforce and solitudeof a single man.Logik, 51. He apparentlyis thinkinghere not merelyof Hitlerbut of the violent Greek creatorsand founderswho as creatorsand foundersbecame apolis. An Intro- duction to Metaphysics, 152-53. 134. "The Self-Assertionof the GermanUniversity," 38. 135. "GermanStudents," in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,47. 136. Ibid. 137. Heidegger,Logik, 130. 138. Cited in Ott, MartinHeidegger, 218. 139. Safranski,Ein Meister aus Deutschland,325-26. 140. "Das Rektorat,1933-1934," Martin Heidegger and National Socialism: Questionsand Answers,ed. GiintherNeske andEmil Kettering(New York:Paragon, 1990), 25. On the surface, this remarkseems to be overtly political. Seen in the best possible light, Heidegger may only have meantthat therewas the necessity for a continuingopenness to the question of Being, the question of who we are, in oppositionto the ideological closedness that he found in the work of the partyideologues. Logik, 76-77, 121. 141. "Letterto the Rector of FreiburgUniversity," in Wolin, Heidegger Controversy,63.

MichaelAllen Gillespie is a professorofpolitical science and philosophyand directorof the Gerst Programin Political, Economic,and HumanisticStudies at Duke University. He is the author of Hegel, Heidegger,and the Groundof History and Nihilism before Nietzsche. He is the coeditor of Nietzsche's New Seas and Ratifying the Constitution and is the author of many articles and essays on topics in continentalphilosophy.