POSITIVE SOLICITUDE AS A DANGEROUS ELEMENT IN MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S RECTORAL ADDRESS
A Thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University a . In partial fulfillment of the requirements for 3G the Degree 2olG
P W L Master of Arts
• K3£>5 In
Philosophy
by
Delicia Antoinette Kamins
San Francisco, California
May 2016 Copyright Delicia Antoinette Kamins 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL
I certify that I have read Positive Solicitude as a Dangerous Element in Martin Heidegger’s Rectoral Address by Delicia Antoinette Kamins, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at San Francisco State University.
Mohammad Azadpur, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy
Asta Sveinsdottir, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy POSITIVE SOLICITUDE AS A DANGEROUS ELEMENT IN MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S RECTORAL ADDRESS
Deh'cia Antoinette Kamins San Francisco, California 2016
In the following paper, I argue that Martin Heidegger’s Rectoral intentions (as laid out in his Rectoral Address) can be explicated by his account of Solicitude in Being and Time. Further, I discuss modes of Solicitude entailed in Heidegger’s speech and their relevance to his vision of himself as Rector, and more importantly, to his embracement of Nazi ideology and methods for-the-sake-of his spiritual mission.
What is at stake in my argument is that that Heidegger embraced Nazism for philosophical reasons, and that he intended to use the Nazi movement to impose his philosophical understanding of the German-Dasein on cases of German-Dasein. I believe it is important to have a clear understanding of Heidegger’s account of Being and Solicitude in order to understand ourselves as Being-in-the-world, for without it we are prone- perhaps unintentionally, and maybe even with the best intentions - to misuse one another for-the- sake-of our own insistence on the meaning of Being.
I certify that this abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis.
\b > Chair, Thesis Committee Date ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr. Mohammad Azadpur for being the very embodiment of patience and professorial guidance. Thank you for Leaping Ahead for me - guiding me to the correct track and freeing me for my ownmost authentic possibilities. And thank you for introducing me to Heidegger.
Tremendous thanks as well to Dr. Asta Sveinsdottir, for her support and help as I struggled through this process. I very much appreciate your straightforward feedback, which helped me stay focused.
Additionally, I am grateful to Dr. Anita Silvers, Joy Viveros, my “Ho'opono Pono Ke Ala”, fellow SFSU MA colleagues for their feedback, and my friends and family - whom I neglected terribly to get this done. Most of all, and with bottomless gratitude, I thank my mother, Johnetta Hegwood - whose strength, survival skills and insistence on my ownmost authentic possibilities is the foundation and inspiration for all of my accomplishments, particularly this one. Thank you for first introducing me to the subject of metaphysics in your own way - you planted in me the seeds of curiosity, education and seeking deeper truths, and they have never stopped growing. TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction...... 1
II. Dasein...... 2 The Constitutive Structures of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world...... 3 Being-in and Concern...... 4 Being-with and Solicitude...... 6 Authenticity & Thrownness...... 10 Sein und Z eit...... 12
III. Solicitude in the Rectoral A ddress...... 17 Negative Solicitude: Dasein’s Deficient Mode of Being...... 18 Dasein’s Call to Itself...... 18 Positive Solicitude: Leaping Ahead to Free Dasein for its Ownmost Authentic Possibilities...... 21
IV. Politician, Administrator or Philosopher?...... 22 Heidegger, Nazi...... 23 Heidegger, Defender of Academic Autonomy...... 27 Heidegger, Philosopher...... 28 Knowledge Corps...... 29
V. Leaping In ...... 33 Positive Solicitude: Leaping In to Assume Dasein’s Care for Itself...... 33
VI. Summary...... 37
References...... 41 1
People who have lost their past, have lost themselves
I. Introduction As a recent member of the Nazi party, Martin Heidegger officially assumed the office of
Rector of Freiburg University in May, 1933. In his famed speech, “The Self-
Determination of the German University” (“Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen
Universitat”, here forward referred to as Heidegger’s Rectoral Address), Heidegger presented his vision for aligning the University of Freiburg with the political goals of the
Nazi party, as well as - and, in fact more so, aligning the University and his Rectorship with his own philosophy.
In his analysis of human beings as ‘cases of Dasein’, the being for whom its own being is an issue,1 Heidegger describes ‘Being-with’ as one of the constitutive elements of the structural totality of Dasein. As a being for whom being-with is a structural feature,
Dasein engages - that is, ‘Cares for’ - other Dasein in the particular mode of conduct called ‘Solicitude’ (Fiirsorge), which can be negative (defizient) or positive (aktiv).
‘Negative Solicitude’ is Dasein’s “deficient mode-of-being-with others”, in which Dasein is “indifferent” towards other Dasein. ‘Positive Solicitude’ is of two sorts: ‘Leaping In’ and ‘Leaping Ahead’’, in which Dasein either takes over another Dasein’s ‘Care’ (Sorge) for its being (that is, Dasein assumes the Other’s work to understanding its own being);
1 Being and Time, p.236/H191 2
or, frees another Dasein for its potential ‘authenticity’ with respect to its work of understand its being.
Given the language in Heidegger’s Rectoral Address - specifically, his references to
Dasein, spiritual leadership, and linking the “mission” of Germany owning the fate o f its beginnings, on my reading, Heidegger’s Rectoral Address is a philosophical declaration given on a political occasion. In this paper, I argue that Heidegger’s Rectoral intentions
(as laid out in his Rectoral Address) can be explicated by his account of Solicitude in
Being and Time on the ground that in his speech he speaks o/Dasein, as well as, to
Dasein. Following this, I discuss modes of Solicitude entailed in Heidegger’s speech and their relevance to his vision of himself as Rector, and more importantly, to his embracement of Nazi ideology and methods for-the-sake-of realizing his particular philosophic understanding of the essence of the German-Dasein within Nazi politics.
II. Dasein Dasein can be loosely defined as the ‘being’ of a human. More accurately, human beings are cases of Dasein. A case of Dasein does not have a fixed essence. Rather, its meaning gets sorted out through existing - that is, Dasein’s essence is its existence. Heidegger’s primary task in Being and Time is to explicate the structural totality of Dasein as Being- in-the-world, without compromising the commitment to the primacy of existence. 3
The Constitutive Structures o f Dasein’s Being-in-the-world
If we want to analyze cases of Dasein, we must first “lay bare a fundamental structure in
Dasein - Being-in-the-world”, says Heidegger. The three constitutive items of Dasein’s
Being-in-the-world are: Being-in-the-world as heing-in\ Being-in-the-world as Being- with; and, Being-in-the-world as being-oneself Because Dasein is a being whose essence is existence, the task of interpreting its structural whole (Care) must be accomplished from within Dasein’s existence”. “In the interpretation of Dasein, this structure is something ‘a priori ’; it is not pieced together, but is primordially and constantly a whole.
It affords us, however, various ways of looking at the items, which are constitutive for it.
The whole of this structure always comes first; but if we keep this constantly in view, these items, will be made to stand out”.2
Heidegger distinguishes between Aristotle’s apophantic mode of interpretation and a hermeneutic mode of interpretation. The apophantic interpretation is a pointing from outside - that is, an assertion about Dasein’s existence that does not disclose anything about Dasein’s essence (and, may even obscure it). The hermeneutic interpretation is the laying bare of structures from within, meaning that Dasein understands its essence - its being — by interpreting the meaning of its existence. Heidegger thinks that Dasein’s understanding of itself is hermeneutic - and thus, more authentic. Further, the ontological structures of Dasein’s existence that are articulated are not necessary and sufficient but
2 Being and Time, p. 65/H41. 4
“proximally and for the most part”, Dasein in its average, everyday mode of being.
The equipoised structures of Dasein as Being-in-the-world (i.e., being-oneself, being-in and being-with) are understood by analogous modes of conduct that are captured in the totality of the term Care (Sorge), Concern (Besorgen) and Solicitude (Fursorge). The primary constitutive structure of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world that is at issue in this investigation is being-with (mitsein), which is understood by the mode of Care that is
Solicitude. As parts of an a priori whole, to understand Being-with and Solicitude, we need to also understand the structure Being-in and its mode of Care, namely Concern because while there are helpful parallels between these two structures and modes-of- being, it is crucial to Heidegger’s philosophy to understand the differences.
Being-in and Concern
Heidegger refers to being-in as the mode Dasein’s Being-in-the-world that articulates
Dasein’s relational structure with non-Dasein entities in the world that are not concerned with a hermeneutic understanding of their being in the way that Dasein is (e.g., books, trees, paper, typewriters, ink, etc.). The way in which Dasein engages, or comports itself, with things in the world is Concern {Besorgen), which is one the three forms of Care
{Sorge). Consider the case of Dasein as a writer. To do what he is (be a writer), he needs a typewriter, paper and a room in which to work. The writer engages these sorts of entities in the manner of Besorgen, meaning that he concerns himself with such entities as what Heidegger refers to as “ready-to-hand” (zuhanden) - that is, ‘tools’ he uses as 5
part of his attempt to understand his own being. Ready-to-hand evokes the structure of
Besorgen in that Dasein engages things as a means to achieve something, such as using a hammer as a means to fasten pieces of wood together. Tools that no longer are able to serve as means to achieve something for Dasein come into view when our Concern for them as tools has been interrupted - for example, the broken hammer that is no longer useful interrupts my Concemful dealing with it as a tool; and now, I see it as a ‘thing’ with properties, (i.e., a piece of wood with jagged edges).3
Dasein (e.g., our writer) is also concerned with entities with whom Dasein does not directly engage or consider in light of being a tool4 for use in its work to understand its being; for example, the forest and mountainside that exist alongside our writer-Dasein.
On this view, Dasein is alongside the world with the forest and the mountain, which are also alongside the world. Heidegger calls the being of these latter sorts of entities
“present-at-hand” (vorhanden).
The two forms of Concern (i.e., conduct that Dasein can have towards non-Dasein entities in the world) relate to one of the existentiales (i.e., structures) of Dasein’s being -
3 See Dreyfus, pp. 60-87; and, Heidegger, H61: I’m not going to explore this topic further in this paper, but there is a more positive way to talk about present-at-hand that does not evoke this negative use of present-at-hand. 4 Per Heidegger, ready-to-hand “tools” exist as systems, such that a pen, for example, is useless without something on which to write (e.g., paper) - that is, the pen is purposeless (it cannot fulfill its primordially assigned role as ‘that which writes’) without the rest of what Heidegger calls ‘equipmentality’, namely paper. Thus, pen-and-paper exists as a single equipmentality, which references an even wider system of equipmentality. This issue will arise again as I discuss whether Heidegger considers humans, as cases of Dasein, to also be primordially assigned particularly roles as part of a broader picture of human history in the development of humanity. 6
namely the structure of being-in. Heidegger dedicates much of Being and Time exploring the relation between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand insofar as the latter involves an interruption in the flow of Concern about the ready-to-hand.
Being-with and Solicitude
The other structure that defines Dasein’s Being-in-the-world is Dasein as being-with. A case of Dasein shares the world with other cases of Dasein. “Being-with (mitsein)”, says
Heidegger, “is in every case a characteristic of one’s own Dasein”5, because being-with is the structure that underlies Dasein’s conduct with other beings that are similar to itself.
Each case of Dasein is unique, and thus seeks to understand its own being. Thus, all cases of Dasein must be treated in a mode of conduct that acknowledges this common feature.
Solicitude (Fursorge) describes the mode of conduct that relates to Dasein’s Being-in- the-world as being-with, and is further articulated by the forms of ‘Negative (defizient or indifferenz) Solicitude’ and ‘Positive (aktiv) Solicitude’.
Negative Solicitude is Dasein’s “deficient mode-of-being-with others”, in which Dasein is “indifferent” towards others. Cases of Dasein in the form of Negative Solicitude behave towards other cases of Dasein as if these cases of Dasein “don’t matter” (nicht wichtig), that is, Dasein is “against, or without one another, passing one another by, not
‘mattering’ to one another. “And”, says Heidegger, “it is precisely these ... deficient and
5 p. 157/H121 7
indifferent modes that characterize [Dasein’s] everyday, average Being-with-one- another”.6 Not mattering could occasion one to treat other cases of Dasein as if they were equipment - that is, to use cases of Dasein as means to one’s end, rather than as ends unto themselves.
Positive (aktiv) Solicitude manifests in two additional possible forms: ‘Leaping In’
(einspringen) and ‘‘Leaping Ahead’’ (vorausspringen). In the form of Leaping In, Dasein takes away Care from another, assuming for “the Other that with which he is to Concern himself’ - that is, Dasein throws “the Other out of his own position” of caring for his own being, however, with the intention o f eventually relinquishing such control o f the
Other “so that afterwards, when the matter has been attended to, [the Other] can either take over [his own Care] as something finished and at his disposal, or disburden himself of it completely”.7 Parents Leap In for their children, for example - taking the child’s
Care for himself over until childhood is completed and the now-adult Dasein is able to assume his own Care. Another example is if the child is sick and needs his parent to take control until he is well and can re-assume his own self-Care. However, there have been rare situations where parents will abuse this position, and either deform the nature of
Leaping In such that the sick child remains perpetually in need of its parent to assume control of his self-Care (e.g., Munchausen by proxy); or, a refusal to release an adult child to control its own life (e.g., emotional or financial manipulation). I will eventually
6 p. 158/H121 7 p. 158/H122 8
return to the issue of possible dangers of Leaping In. However, relevant to the next section of this paper is an understanding of Leaping Ahead, because it pertains immediately to Heidegger’s ostensible intentions - as laid out in his Rectoral Address - regarding the reasons that ground his commitment (or, insistence) to the University’s return to its original essence and purpose.
On the other extreme of positive (aktiv) Solicitude, when Dasein Leaps Ahead for another, she is giving back to the Other his “existentiell potentiality-for-Being” that has been obscured by being lost in what Heidegger calls the ‘They’, wherein Dasein exists in its most inauthentic mode of being. When Dasein Leaps Ahead for another Dasein, she is helping “the Other ... become transparent to himself in his Care and to become free for it” authentically.8 Professors Leap Ahead of their students by developing students’ skills and confidence to become aware of, and able to achieve their potential-for-Being, for example, their potential for being future philosophers. This type of “existentiell” understanding of itself is not analytic, but is rather Dasein’s personal understanding of its being, as Heidegger explains in HI 2 of Being and Time: “Only the particular Dasein decides its existence ... the question of existence never gets straightened out except through existing itself. The understanding of oneself which leads along this way we call
‘existentiell’ (existenzial).” Thus, when Dasein engages in philosophical (or, as
Heidegger uses in the Rectoral Address, “spiritual ”) self-examination in an existentiell
8 Being and Time, p. 159/H122. 9
manner as the possibility of its being, it comes to understand its existence in such a way as to understand its essence.9 In fact, explains Heidegger, “Unless we have an existentiell understanding, all analysis of existentiality will remain groundless”.10 This is a crucial distinction between Heidegger’s motivation and approach to the German people bearing their stamp on history, and Hitler’s. I will return to this later in this analysis. The analogy of the teacher Leaping Ahead for her student is paramount to understanding Heidegger’s
Rectoral intentions as laid out in the Rectoral Address. On his view, the student’s (or, in the Rectoral Address, the German citizen as student) ability to learn about it’s true essence, and this its potentiality-for-Being is hidden from it because its everyday, average existence is defined by its being in the ‘They’. German citizens cannot know what their ownmost possibilities are because they do not properly (i.e., existentielly) understand their being, and with that, their possibilities as handed down to them by their thrownness as Germans. Disclosing these truths to them - and thus, Leaping Ahead for them - is
Heidegger’s intended spiritual mission; or, at least the one implicated in his Rectoral
Address'. To guide German self-understanding such that the revelation frees German citizens from a destiny dulled by the ‘They’, thus enables them to take a stand for their ownmost authentic possibilities - that is, for-the-sake-of rightfully bearing their stamp on history.
9 Being and Time, p. 358/H310. 10 Being and Time, p. 360/ H312. 10
Authenticity & Thrownness
In Being and Time, Heidegger describes the two modes of Dasein’s existence as either
‘authentic’ (eigentlich) or ‘inauthentic’ (uneigentlich). In its inauthentic mode, Dasein’s understanding of itself is lost in the ambiguity of the ‘They’ (das Man), meaning that
Dasein has fallen away from its own hermeneutic understanding of its being. Its
‘interpretation’ of itself is supplied by the average, everyday understanding of Being-in- the-world in the mode of the ‘They’. In this mode, Dasein’s ownmost authentic possibilities is obscured and it exists, as Heidegger describes, in the mode of “Not-being- its-self (Das Nicht-es-selbst-sein).,,n
In contrast, Heidegger describes Dasein’s “authentic Self ’ as “the Self which has been taken hold of in its own way (eigens ergriffeneny’’ - that is, Dasein’s authenticity emerges from it discovering “the world in its own way (eigens) and brings [the world] close.”12 As
Mohammed Azadpur explains in Reason Unbound,
As already in the world, Dasein is in truth, it knows how to be itself; yet this primordial truth is obfuscated by Dasein’s falling away from its primordial for-the-sake-of-which. ... Dasein is either authentic [eigentlich], understanding itself in terms of its primordial for- the-sake-of-which, or inauthentic. An authentic Dasein casts its being in terms of its own self as the “for-the-sake-of-which.” Dasein’s “uncritical” projection of its being in terms of an unowned “for-the-sake-of-which” accounts for Dasein in the inauthentic mode. ... Authenticity, as the process of taking over (owning) one’s roles critically, implies that one is not in the grip of this or that “public” or idiosyncratic ideal. Rather the authentic individual adjusts himself to the demands of the particular situation...13
11 Being and Time, p. 220/H176. 12 Being and Time, In p. 167/H129. 13 Mohammed Azadpur, Reason Unbound, pp. 26-28. 11
On Heidegger’s philosophy, being towards one’s utmost potential-for-Being is given by the possibilities created by its beginning - that is, by its thrownness (Geworfenheit), which is a fundamental feature of Dasein that “is meant to suggest the facticity o f its
being delivered over.”14 Dasein is thrown into its ‘there’ (factical existence); its possibilities given its beginnings. Authentic Dasein takes a stance towards its factical possibilities. Dasein is authentic when it “seizes” as its own the possibilities that have been handed over (Uberantwortung) to it by its beginning and adopting an appropriate possibility given the situation in which it finds itself.
In its inauthentic mode though, Dasein’s possibilities - set up by its beginnings - are
obscured, and thus in danger of being ‘unseizable’, like smoke dissipating mid-trail.
Although Dasein’s possibilities are given by its thrownness, however, Heidegger makes
clear that these possibilities are .. neither a ‘fact that is finished’ nor a Fact [sic] that is
settled.”15 Authenticity is an existentiell modification of Dasein, and has to do with
Dasein’s ability to seize the appropriate possibility in a particular moment and situation
without being bound to any of the possibilities handed down to it in its thrownness.16 On
Heidegger’s philosophic and political view, 1933-German-Dasein’s ‘thrownness’ -
specifically, the momentum of the German people towards claiming their place of
“greatness” (defined by blood ties to German heritage and soil) as their utmost potential-
14 Being and Time, p. 135/H174. 15 Being and Time, p. 223/H179. 16 Personal interview with Mohammed Azadpur. 12
for-Being - was ripe for its assumption of its greatness, and was exemplified by the fervor of Hitler’s Nazi movement towards ontic world-leadership.
This brief analysis of Dasein as Being-in-the-world matters because Heidegger’s most famed speech, draws on ‘Dasein language’ to describe his intentions as Rector of the
University of Freiburg. It was thus essential to understand Heidegger’s account of Dasein in order to appreciate the presence of ‘Dasein’ in the Rectoral Address.
Sein und Zeit
Much is made of the fact that the Rectoral Address was Heidegger’s first official speech as a member of the Nazi party, and the question arises time and again, concerning what are readers to take away from Heidegger’s Rectoral Address'? Prior to Heidegger joining the National Socialist party, the faction had initiated a movement in the German people towards what Heidegger would call ‘ontic’’X1 world leadership. Heidegger saw in this movement the possibility for the German citizen to move towards its ‘ontological ’ destiny of greatness. He explained this in his essay, “The Rectorate, Facts and Thoughts”
(written sometime in 1945, but published posthumous in 1983):
“At the time I saw in the movement that had gained power the possibility of an inner recollection and renewal of the people and a path that would allow it to discover its historical vocation in the Western world. ... For this reason I saw in the rectorate an opportunity to lead all capable forces-regardless of party membership and party doctrine- back to this process of reflection and renewal and to strengthen and to secure the
17 Being and Time, pp. 3I-35/H11-15. 13
influence of these forces”.18
In evoking Dasein-specific language, Heidegger established that his pronouncements and intentions in the Rectoral Address are grounded on his philosophy of Dasein, described in
Being and Time, which was published just six years prior to his assumption of the
Rectorate. Considering first, the absence of any direct mention of National Socialism, the
Nazi party, or Nazi-language in the Rectoral Address', and secondly, the abundance of
Heidegger’s own metaphysical language (i.e., ‘Dasein’, ‘spiritual’, etc.), Heidegger seems to be addressing listeners fluent in his philosophy - else, he is addressing himself in the event that he alone is able to understand the language and imperativeness of his declarations. In my analysis, it will become clear that the latter is not only likely, but crucially speaks to Heidegger’s true intentions as Rector of the University of Freiburg.
Jean-Franq:ois Lyotard claims in his book, Heidegger and “the jews ”, that “it is sufficient to read the ‘political’ texts of the militant year (1933-34) to ascertain that Sein und Zeit gives to the Heideggerian rereading the permission or possibility to inscribe itself in the
‘movement” according to its ‘truth’ and its ‘greatness’”.19 What ‘truth’ does Being and
Time hold about this movement’s ‘greatness’? Philosopher Fred Dallmayr provides a view in his article, “Heidegger and Politics” (from the anthology The Heidegger Case), in which he stresses the need to recognize the theme of Geist (i.e., spirit) that runs through
18 Heidegger, “Facts and Thoughts”, pp. 483-84. 19 Jean-Francois Lyotard, p. 68. 14
the Rectoral Address, and that it is under this thesis of a ‘spiritual mission’ that the
speech must be evaluated. Dallmayr claims that ‘spirit’
“asserts itself as an integral part of the ‘self-assertion of the German university’, [sic] ... self-assertion in Heidegger’s usage involves a geistig [spiritual] order supported by a leadership (Fiihrung) that itself is guided by a geistig mission or commission”.20
Dallmayr’s understanding of ‘geistig mission’ and ‘commission’ are central to my view that for Heidegger, Germany’s mission is not merely an ontic “goal” or “objective” to be achieved by military might, but was more strongly, that the accomplishment of the mission is a command, or call, from Germany’s own essence; It is a spiritual dictate from
Germany’s beginnings, desiring to take a stand for its ownmost authentic possibilities.
Heidegger’s opening declarations of the Rectoral Address inform us that he interprets his
new role to be the leader of a spiritual imperative:
Assumption of the rectorate is the commitment to the spiritual leadership o f this institution of higher learning. The following of teachers and students awakens and grows strong only from a true and joint rootedness in the essence of the German University. This essence, however, gains clarity, rank, and power only when first o f all and at all times the leaders are themselves led — led by that unyielding spiritual mission that forces the fate o f the German people to bear the stamp o f its history, [emphasis mine]21
The spiritual imperative evident in this opening paragraph, and throughout his speech,
was fully dependent on the German-University assuming its rightful and original role of
gaining and imparting understanding for the sake of transcendence and transformation -
specifically, German understanding of the German people for-the-sake-of Germany’s
20 Dallmayr, Fred, The Heidegger Case, p. 298. 21 Richard Wolin, The Heidegger Controversy, p. 29. 15
rightful claim to greatness. On his view, 1933-Germany was on the precipice of being
able to realize its primordial ownmost potential - if rightly managed; that is, on the
condition that the movement was understood as a spiritual mission powered by the
unyielding will of the German people that uniquely comes from existentiell understanding. Throughout his speech, Heidegger often returns to claims of self-
examination; the origins of and true essence o f ‘science’; and, references time and again
to Germany’s beginnings providing the possibilities of its place in the world and history.
His view of his place in the Nazi party (keeping in mind that this was his acceptance
speech of a leadership position within the Nazi party), as well as his role in the
achievement of what the Nazis had begun (i.e., world-leadership) was to be at the helm of
disclosing German essence to Germans as “...led by that unyielding spiritual mission”:
Germany’s ownmost potential.
For the sake of Germans claiming the utmost possible fate of their historicality, the
German-University’s re-assumption of its own origins was particularly important to
Heidegger. However, at the time of Heidegger’s assumption of the Rectorship, this true
essence and role (and thus, capability) of the University was hidden by ineffective
disparate academic specialties. His intention to awaken and strengthen “teachers and
students” to the imperativeness of their part in this mission was for the purpose o f (i.e.,
for-the-sake-of-which) enlightening the average, everyday German citizen to their own
essence, and that such disclosure would be so compelling as to both ground and force 16
Germans to bear their stamp on history - that is, that Germans assume their ownmost authentic possibilities that have been handed down to it in their thrownness as part of the
German-volkisch with historic ties to German ‘blood and soil.”
If the goal, as I have stated, was to disclose German essence to German citizens for the purpose of compelling them to yield to Germany’s historically grounded, spiritual edict, then why does he address the University? Who is the “Dasein” that Heidegger addresses in his speech? Heidegger speaks o/German-Dasein’s destiny in the Rectoral Address, which on his account is an ontological mission (in contrast to the Nazi ontic mission) of
German greatness. Germany’s stamp on history is a spiritual (that is, philosophical) task, which can only be accomplished if philosophically structured and guided. Heidegger’s mission to establish that right guidance, is specifically that “the activity of the [reformed] university should no longer be regarded as a self-justifying phenomenon, an end in itself: science has no unconditional right to exist but must justify itself in terms o f its contributions to the ‘ Volksgemeinschaft ’ (community of the people)” [emphasis mine].22
Rightly focused - that is, rooted in the joint essence of German-Dasein (i.e., German citizens) - renders Germany, in the words of philosopher Julian Young, “fit to assume its historical mission of spiritual world-leadership” 23 [emphasis mine] by being able to advance the well-being and authenticity of its citizens. It is, thus, o f and to cases of
German-Dasein (i.e., the physical embodiments of German-Dasein, that is, the German
22 Wolin, pp. 34 (as cited in Julian Young (1997), p. 18). 23 Julian Young, p. 17. 17
citizen, including members of the German-University) that Heidegger addresses the
Rectoral Address (despite the speech being nearly - if not entirely - unintelligible to its addresses. Nevertheless, Nazi Gleichschaltung (i.e., the Nazi effort to bring all aspects of
German life, institutions, behavior and society into accordance with Nazi ideology and rule) provided Heidegger the opportunity to restructure the University for just this purpose.
III. Solicitude in the Rectoral Address
I now consider Solicitude as the mode of being by which Heidegger envisions students’ and teachers’ joint rootedness in the essence of the University to be translated to German citizens’ joint rootedness in the potentiality-for-Being of 1933-Germany to bear its stamp on history.
By evoking Dasein in his acceptance speech (on the occasion a political appointment into the Nazi party), Heidegger must have concluded that there could be a successful relation between his philosophy of Being and Dasein (which engages with other Dasein in the mode of Solicitude), and his political position as Rector (wherein he would need to engage the University membership as a leader within the Nazi party). In this section, I explain Negative and Positive modes of Solicitude that Heidegger’s speech reveals. I will also discuss that the urgency of Heidegger’s mission necessitates misuse of the form of
Positive Solicitude (Leaping In), of which Heidegger warns, in Being and Time, has the 18
dangerous potential to develop into domination when misused - the type of domination employed by Nazism.
Negative Solicitude: Dasein’s Deficient Mode of Being
Recall that Negative Solicitude includes not caring about Dasein’s welfare. This includes being against Dasein’s self-Care to understand its being, as well as dismissing Dasein’s welfare, and even mistreating Dasein by engaging with Dasein as if it were equipment, or as if Dasein’s welfare did not matter. This is a mode of non-engagement between Dasein, and on one hand, does not fit with Heidegger’s need of engagement for-the-sake-of ‘the mission’. However, it is from the mode of Negative Solicitude, wherein Dasein is its least authentic self and deeply lost in the indistinguishable ‘They’, that Heidegger wants to alert Dasein of its conscience as the same ‘call to itself referred to in the last section.
Rather than engage German-Dasein via Negative Solicitude, Heidegger engages Dasein via Positive Solicitude, yet appeals to the anxiety Dasein experiences (and, in the case of
German citizens, the anxiety experienced following WWI and Hitler’s rise to power) when it is in the mode of Negative Solicitude.
Dasein’s Call to Itself
In the mode of Negative Solicitude, Dasein calls to itself to emerge from being lost in the ambiguity and inauthenticity of the ‘They’, and respond to its utmost potential-for-Being
- that is, to seize the utmost of the possibilities that has been handed down to it from its 19
beginnings. Heidegger describes this urgency to authenticity in Being and Time as conscience (Gewisseri) manifesting “itself as the call of Care”24, because Care gives meaning to Dasein’s existence25. It is Dasein’s summons to its historical distinction, in the sense of ontological rightness to be yielded to. “The caller is Dasein continues
Heidegger, “The one to whom the appeal is made is the very same Dasein, summoned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being (ahead of itself...). Dasein’s call to itself is Self-Care and Solicitude at once”26, says Heidegger: “In its thrownness (in its Being-already-in)”,
Dasein appeals to its authentic self to engage its destiny. In its everyday, deficient mode of being, average cases of German-Dasein may recognize this call in the sense of its experience of Dasein as “mineness”, but cannot grasp its urgency or historicality. The mode of ‘They’ obscures that the average German citizen’s historicality is calling to itself, and that this call is at once the calling of each German citizen’s historicality to the same potentiality in the embodiment of German thrownness:
“This “whence” - the uncanniness (eeriness/supernatural) of thrown individualization - gets called too [mitgerufen - called with] in the calling; that is, it too gets disclosed [mitterschlossen - meaning “join the conclusion”]. In calling forth to something, the “whence” of the calling is the “whither” to which we are called back. When the call gives us the potentiality-for-Being to understand, it does not give us one which is ideal and universal; it discloses it as that which has been currently individualized and which belongs to that particular Dasein”.27 [emphasis mine]
The call, however, remains “uncanny” (to both Germany and its citizens) absent an
24 Being and Time, pp. 322-323/H278. 25 Being and Time, p. 65/H41. 26 Being and Time, pp. 322-323/H278. 27 Being and Time, p. 325/H280. 20
existentiell understanding of self that makes clear that the caller (e.g., Germany calling for its destiny) - and the one being called (e.g., German citizens being called as individualizations of that destiny) are one and the same:
We have not fully determined the character of the call as disclosure until we understand it as one which calls us back in calling us forth (what was before) [als vorrufender Ruckruf\.n When the call is understood with an existentiell kind of hearing, such understanding is more authentic the more non-relationally Dasein hears and understand its own Being-appealed-to, and the less meaning of the call gets perverted by what one says or by what is fitting and accepted [was sich gehort und gilt - what belongs to and applies].29
On Heidegger’s account, Dasein’s ownmost authentic possibilities have already been determined by the basic attributes of Care that has produced its distinct thrownness.30 As the culmination of its history, 1933-Germany is the aggregation of possibilities specific to the whole that it has always and already been its 5eing. This existentiell understanding of 1933-German citizens’ thrownness - that is, their already-is possibility of its greatness as their most authentic self (its ownmost potentiality) - is the understanding of themselves, its call and destiny that Heidegger insists must ground (or, give measure) to the movement of the German begun by the Nazis. As Rector, Heidegger’s mode of
Solicitude towards German-Dasein (and its cases) is anything but ‘deficient’. He is very much concerned about individual Dasein’s welfare (i.e., the German citizen). German citizens’ realization of their true essence is, in fact, of great urgency for Heidegger - he is
28 Being and Time, pp. 325-326/H280. 29 Being and Time, p. 325/H280. 30 Being and Time, pp. 435-436/H384. 21
ecstatic about German citizens’ ownmost authentic possibilities.
Positive Solicitude: Leaping Ahead to Free Dasein for its Ownmost Authentic
Possibilities
Bound by obscurity, Dasein is unable to move towards its ownmost authentic possibilities
while its truth is hidden from it in its Negative mode of being. If Dasein is to move from
inauthenticity towards its authentic self, it must first be able to perceive the possibilities it
is alerted to by its call. On Heidegger’s account in Being and Time, when Dasein is
helped to understand itself - that is, when it is Leapt Ahead for, its ownmost authentic
possibilities are made clear to it such that this disclosure enables - and makes ecstatic -
Dasein for its ownmost authentic possibilities. To this end, Heidegger’s Rectoral Address
promotes the spirit of Heidegger Leaping Ahead for the University - that is, freeing it for
its authentic possibility to reclaim its true - its right - purpose of leadership, such that the
University would then be able to Leap Ahead for German citizens’ ownmost authentic
possibilities. In his retrospective essay, "The Rectorate 1933/34 - Facts and Thoughts",
Heidegger explains that among the driving influences on him to assume the rectorate and
to establish “the university in a primordial manner.. was that he “.. .believed that,
renewing itself, the university might also be called to contribute to this inner self-
collection o f the people, providing it with a measure” ?x [emphasis mine]
31 “Facts and Thoughts”, p. 483-484. 22
IV. Politician, Administrator or Philosopher?
Based on my analysis thus far, a question arises that requires further discussion: What exactly establishes “German greatness” that ground both Heidegger’s and Hitler’s visions? Hitler and Heidegger were bom the same year, 1889. They shared the same
German thrownness: both influenced by the longstanding German anxiety to unite the many German confederates (Deutscher Bund) “into one great nation, ruled by one common head as a national unit”32; resentment from their lost in WWI; and, threats from anarchist, communist and Bolshevist movements to German identity. The two men both felt that German volkisch-ness33 was expressed by way of generational linkage to blood to German soil, culture and history. Hitler voiced his distress over the loss (or, at a minimum, the dilution) of German volkisch-ness in Mein Kampf, as “a culture is fighting for its existence, a culture that involves thousands of years of development and that embraces Greece and Germany together.”34 Hitler blamed the loss of WWI on the Jewish people and harboring a long hatred of them for many reasons (see Mein Kampf).
Heidegger likewise grew up amidst anti-Semitic rhetoric, notably - according to Victor
Farias - the German writer and preacher Abraham a Sancta Clara. This common
32 “The Situation of Germany”, The New York Times, 1 July 1866. 33 Is Volkstum a better term? According to Michael Inwood’s Heidegger Dictionary, volkisch means “of a nationality, or the language associated with a nationality”, which he notes “later come to mean ‘national’ and was used by the Nazis in this sense, but with the flavours of ‘popular’ and ‘racial’.” What Heidegger seems to see as the German-Dasein fits more with the German term “ Volkstum ", meaning the special character of a people expressed in their life and culture,”33 [emphasis mine] 34 Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, (Munich, 1942) as cited in Victor Farias’ Heidegger and Nazism, p. 100. 23
historically colored both the warmonger’s view and the philosopher’s view of the world and German peoples in the world, and specifically instigated each man’s insistence to assert the superiority of German-volkisch.
Young refers to this volkisch as “German inwardness”, and claims “the uniqueness of
German inwardness grounded the claim to spiritual leadership beyond the state, but it grounded it to, geistige Fiirhrung [spiritual guidance] within the state. If the German mission is an essentially spiritual one then, evidently, it is Dichter and Denker (poet and thinker) referring to the metaphysicality that Heidegger claims Germany is the epitome of.35 On Young’s analysis, “inwardness together with spiritual leadership ... are ideas all of which make highly visible appearances in Heidegger’s ideology,... [who] ... derives from the uniqueness of German inwardness a uniquely German mission to take over the spiritual mission of the world”.36 On my reading of Heidegger’s Being and Time as it relates to his Rectoral Address, Germany’s metaphysical being (German-Dasein) is the being that is ontically demonstrated in German volkisch.
Heidegger, Nazi
One could argue that my reading of Heidegger’s speech - that is, his intention to establish the German University as the means by which German citizens’ essence is disclosed to them, grounding German existential ‘greatness’ - is speculative. Objectors to this
35 Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 38 (as cited in Young, p. 15). 36 Young, p. 16. 24
reading37 might counterclaim that the plain facts are that Heidegger became a member of the Nazi party, assumed a position of leadership within the party (i.e., Freiburg
Rectorship), and proceeded to run the University solely according to Nazi ideology, starting with restructuring the University in accordance with Nazi Gleichschaltung. Their argument might appeal to the absence o f ‘Solicitude’ in the Rectoral Address discounting my appeal to Being and Time to explicate the speech. Of her translation of the posthumously published “The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts”, even Karsten
Harries - who worked with Heidegger’s son, Hermann Heidegger, to honor Heidegger’s wishes that “his writings speak for themselves” - footnotes that “the reader should not assume that in the Rectoral Address Dasein means just what it does in Being and Time” because although the use of “Dasein” is in both the Rectoral Address and Being and
Time, is “well established”, [Dasein] remains a “untranslatable technical term”.38
The term ‘Dasein’ pertaining to a human being, is one of Heidegger’s many constructed plays with the German language, however, in all of his writings he consistently refers to
‘Dasein’ to characterize being, specifically to characterize the phenomenological being,
‘human’, for whom its existence as a ‘thereness’ is an issue for it. Thus, when he speaks of the relationship between “the essence of the German University” and “our Dasein”; or,
“the power of the beginning of our spiritual-historical Dasein” - both of which he
37 For example, Farias, (1989); Ott, (1993); Rockmore, (1992) 38 Harries, Karsten in the Preface of her translation: “The Self-Assertion of the German University” and “The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts”, fn p.473. 25
references throughout the Rectoral Address, it cannot be denied or otherwise interpreted that he is speaking of (not alluding to) the German-Dasein as defined in his - at the time
- most complete work discussing his accounts of Dasein. His works just prior to assuming the Rectorship - What is Metaphysics, On the Essence o f Ground, and Kant and the Problem o f Metaphysics likewise describe his philosophy of ontology, ‘Dasein’, and phenomenology. How else could one understand his repeated appeals to ‘Dasein’ except as explicated in his lengthy magnum opus dedicated to the issue of Being - that is,
‘Dasein’?
Though John Haugeland chose not to address the issue of Heidegger’s politics in his project, Dasein Disclosed, he introduced this work - as well as, repeated as an opening in many of his courses - with the succinct summary that “Heidegger was born; he was a
Nazi; he died. In the meantime, he published Being and Time ...”39 For several scholars
(Victor Farias, 1987; Jurgen Habermas & Karl Lowith,40 Hugo Ott, 1988; Lyotard, 1990;
Rockmore, et al), Heidegger’s life and work prior to the Rectorate already evidenced
Nazi-like ideology such that his philosophic system - particularly Being and Time - cannot be considered separate from his politics. In the introduction of his controversial book, Heidegger and Nazism, Farias puts it thusly: “Heidegger’s decision to join the
NSDAP was in no way the result of unexpected opportunism or tactical considerations.
The decision was clearly linked with his having already acted in a way consonant with
39 John Haugeland, p. 48; Editor’s fh. 40 As quoted in Victor Farias, p.62; and, referenced on p.312. 26
National Socialism prior to becoming Rector of the University of Freiburg and with his actual political practices as Rector and member of the party”.41 Perhaps most damaging to any reading of Heidegger - particularly the Rectoral Address - absent a Nazi-esque interpetation are testaments from Heidegger’s former students and friends, such as Karl
Jaspers and Karl Lowith and noted his increasing National Socialist behavior. Even his former lover, Hannah Arendt described Heidegger as “always, at every opportunity ... a notorious liar”.42 Both of these concerns are illustrated by comparing, for one example,
Heidegger’s “Letter to the Rector of Freiburg University”, in which he claims to have
“demonstrated publicly [his] attitude towards the Party ... by not wearing its regalia ...”43 with Lowith’s “My Last Meeting with Heidegger in Rome, 1936” wherein he expresses disappointment and surprise that Heidegger openly wore Nazi party insignia (i.e., the swastika) on his lapel “during his entire stay in Rome”, and “was convinced now as before that National Socialism was the right course for Germany”.44
In light of Heidegger’s willingness to accept, as he offered in the famed der Spiegel interview, “some compromises” regarding his declaration to students that “The Fiihrer himself and he alone is the present and future German reality and its rule”, such displays and claims indeed belie any denial that Heidegger’s philosophy of Being was completely
41 Farias, p. 4. 42 Daniel Maier-Katkin, Daniel, Stranger from Abroad: Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness, Norton & Company, p. 185. 43 Wolin, p. 66. 44 Wolin, p. 141-142. 27
estranged from Nazi ideology. Indeed, Heidegger was too smart to have simply
misunderstood Nazi ideology or Nazi expectations of him in a leadership role within the
party; and, neither could he have misconstrued Nazi political aims and methods. That
said, Heidegger was fundamentally a philosopher dedicated to the issue of Being, and he
was by profession, an educator committed to the true essence of the University.
Heidegger, Defender o f Academic Autonomy
Other scholars might argue that if Heidegger’s Rectoral intentions were anything less
than his public commitment to the Nazi party/ideology, at most it reflected an intention to preserve the academic autonomy of the University. Heidegger’s declared that University
alone must govern and “to set our own task, to determine ourselves the way and manner
in which it is to be realized”.45 It is natural to contend that his intentions were to protect
“the essence of the faculties and the unity of the university ... [by changing] the
university's constitution”46, which on his understanding of the activities in other German
Universities, were in danger of being subsumed under Nazi Gleichschaltung anyway47:
Not only the inner unity of the university was thus threatened, but also the basic mode of academic training, that is to say, that which I was trying to save by means of a renewal and which alone had led me to assume the rectorate.48
45 Rectorship Address, p. 471. 46 “Facts and Thoughts”, p. 496. 47 “Facts and Thoughts”, p. 494. 48 “Facts and Thoughts”, p. 496. 28
In “Facts and Thoughts”, Heidegger claimed that his motive for restructuring the
University under Gleichschaltung “was not at all revolutionary fervor eager for innovation”, but rather was motivated by his attempt to “forestall this threat to the real essence of the university” from being transformed into “legal, medical and teaching ... professional schools”.
Heidegger, Philosopher
In fact, the “essence of the University” to which Heidegger referred in his speech, was specifically the original, scientific essence of the University as begun in ancient Greece, namely that science was an ongoing investigation of the nature of Being, for the purpose of transcending ontic understanding towards ontological understanding.
Heidegger’s life was devoted to an investigation and explication of the issue of “Being”.
If he was a Nazi politician, or defender of academic freedom from political influence, he was still - and primarily - a philosopher obsessed with returning to, and completing the task of understanding Being that he felt the ancient Greeks had begun. The Rectoral
Address explicates the relationship between ‘knowledge’ and ‘science’ in that true science is the method of investigating the type of understanding that belongs to being; to primordial existence. This is what Greek philosophy reveals, explains Heidegger in the
Rectoral Address:
“For the Greeks science is ... the innermost determining center of all that binds human being to people and state. Science, for them [the Greeks], ... the power that hones and embraces being-there (Dasein) in its entirety. 29
Science is the questioning holding o f one's ground in the midst o f the ever self-concealing totality o f what is. This active perseverance knows, as it perseveres, about its impotence before fate. This is the original essence of science. Questioning then forces our vision into the most simple focus on the inescapable”.49 [emphasis mine]
At a conference given six months into his Rectorship on the University in the Nationalist
Socialist State, Heidegger told the audience of students, teachers and Nazi Culture ministers that “to learn is to give yourself to yourself - grounded in that original possession of your existence like a member of a people (volkisches Dasein) and being conscious of yourself as a co-holder of the truth of the people in its state”.50 The self- examination that Heidegger presents as the path to essence in the Rectoral Address is precisely not “pure contemplation”, but rather is intended to access the truth of German-
Dasein’s primordial beginning as unequivocal recognition (literally meaning, re knowing)I of its ending - that is, its destiny or fate as its possibility as handed down to it by its specific beginnings.
Knowledge Corps
My reading of the mission that Heidegger presents in the Rectoral Address is of an urgent imperative that Germans assert - that is, be - their ontological superiority by way of understanding their nature. The imperative was twofold. First, the German University
49 Rectoral Address, p. 473, 474. 50 Farias, p. 147, from a speech Heidegger gave at Tubingen on November 30, 1933, organized by local pro-Nazi NSDAP, which was later published in the News Tiibinger Tiiagblatt and the Tubinger Chronik the next day. 30
must not become a part of the Nazi’s Labor corps by losing its operational and academic autonomy in conversion to training schools for political purposes.51 Secondly, crucial to
Heidegger’s vision of German assertion of ontological superiority, the University must assert its rightful responsibility and original purpose as inquirers and disciplinarians of truth; and, as philanthropists of truth for the purpose of right action, or being. In the case of the Rectorship, this meant re-structuring the lost-its-way University to return to its rightful and true purpose first established by the Greeks: learning and teaching for “the
Good” - that is, knowledge to transform being. Specifically for Heidegger, Germans transformed to their highest “Good” by understanding their nature (i.e., ontological greatness).
There are ‘right’ roles and ‘wrong’ or usurped roles that could harm the mission.
According to Harries, “Selbstbehauptung means not just ‘self-assertion’, but a defense of one's proper place against attempts by others to usurp it”. Though the Nazi party had initiated German citizens’ movement in the direction of their greatness, Heidegger felt that the politico-military, “was inferior and lacking in ability” 52, thus unequipped to provide the proper leadership for the movement they had initiated. His metaphysical urgency to “counter the advance of unsuited persons [emphasis mine] and the threatening
511 am not referring to the training of future party leaders - though, perhaps that would be an outcome as well, but rather, the loss of academic training for the purpose of seeking and knowing truth to higher level vocational training such as doctors, engineers, etc. as would be needed by Nazi leadership to create a skilled workforce. 52 “Facts and Thoughts”, pp. 483-484. 31
hegemony of party apparatus and party doctrine”.53 On my reading, this unsuitability is less directly about the ethics of the Nazi Party, but was rather, more about the practical reality that spiritual leadership is not an attribute or ability of military leadership. “Our theme,” explains Heidegger, “has been the ontological Constitution of the disclosedness which essentially belongs to Dasein. The Being of that disclosedness is constituted by states-of-mind, understanding, and discourse.”54 Heidegger’s urgency was that in 1933,
Germans factical momentum in this direction had to be managed properly for the sake of achieving its true essence. Thus, for-the-sake-of Germans’ existential understanding of their rightful assertion of ‘greatness’, and to be able to bear their stamp on history,
Heidegger added the Knowledge corps to the National Socialist party’s Labor corps and
Military corps. However, Heidegger’s assertion refers not merely to organizational governance of the University, but more as an assertion of the University’s rightful and proper role in the well-being and authenticity of Germans. The University’s self- governance is essential to its ontological assignment, “so that”, Heidegger explains, “thus we shall be what we ought to be”55 — “den ‘Fiihrer zu fuhren ([i.e., the Knowledge corps] leading the leaders [i.e., the Nazi-Military] which had begun, but was unsuited to rightly lead Germans towards their ownmost authentic possibilities).56
53 Wolin’s The Heidegger Controversy: Authentically Critical Reader, pp. 34 (as cited in Young, p. 18). 54 Being and Time, p.224/H180. 55 Rectorship Address, p. 470. 56 Otto Poggeler, ‘Den Fuhrer zu fuhren? Heidegger und kein Ende’, Philosophische Rundschau 32, 1985, pp.26-7 (as cited by Young, p. 17). 32
Only after his Rectorate, did Heidegger explain the true purpose of the Knowledge corps:
“The ‘service of knowledge’ does, to be sure, stand in the third place in the enumeration, but in terms of its meaning it is first. One ought to remember that work and the military, like every human activity, are grounded in knowledge and are enlightened by it”.57
[emphasis mine] The reason relates to why adherence to right and rightful are paramount to Heidegger’s philosophy of how and why German-Dasein’s must grasp its possibility of greatness handed down from its beginning:
“As what is greatest, the beginning has passed in advance beyond all that is to come and thus also beyond us. The beginning has invaded our future. There it awaits us, a distant command bidding us catch up with its greatness. Only if we resolutely submit to this distant command to recapture the greatness of the beginning, will science become the innermost necessity of our being (Dasein)”.58
This is strongly beyond the pale of merely preventing the University from becoming schools of professional training. On Heidegger’s view the University (in the seat of the
Knowledge corps) “m ust... be integrated again into the Volksgemeinschaft (community of people) and be joined together with the State”.59 In a later speech, Heidegger again refer to this particular link between German citizens, his spiritual “mission” and knowledge, claiming that “meaningful membership of the Volksgemeinschaft requires
57 Heidegger (Interview September, 1966), “Only a God Can Save Us Now”, published in Der Spiegel (May 31, 1976), by Rudolph Augstein and Georg Folff, printed in Richard Wolin’s The Heidegger Controversy (1990), p. 96. 58 Rectoral Address, p. 473. 59 Heidegger, “The University and the New Reich”; printed in Richard Wolin’s The Heidegger Controversy (1990), p. 44. 33
that the individual should know the will and direction o f the movement as a whole”.60
[emphasis mine]
V. Leaping In
Heidegger’s Rectoral intentions were neither purely political for-the-sake-of Nazi ideology, nor were they purely administrative for-the-sake-of academic autonomy, however, his intentions as laid bare in his Rectoral Address, appealed to both as means that his philosophy should be realized by German citizenry.
The form of Leaping Ahead is a mutual engagement between Daseins. The Leapt-Ahead- for Dasein is as engaged in its own welfare to understand itself as is the Dasein that leaps ahead for it. Meaning, whether Dasein may or may not be struggling to understand itself when it is Leapt- Ahead for, it is active in its own Care to do so. The Leapt-Ahead-for
Dasein is a willing participant such that when Dasein is freed and is able to perceive its ownmost authentic possibilities, it is - of its own will - ecstatic about those possibilities.
This was not necessarily the case in 1933-Germany.
Positive Solicitude : Leaping In to Assume Dasein’s Care for Itself
With a clear goal of conquering Europe militaristically and the wind of determination and a string of military victories fueling them, the Nazis were certainly not looking to be
60 Heidegger, 22 January 1934 speech (as cited in Young, p. 34). 34
Leapt-Ahead for.61 While members of the University may have been concerned about retaining academic freedom from the influences of Nazi Gleichschaltung within their respective disciplines, they were also not looking to be re-organized at the expense of their respective fields. The angst German citizens were feeling was likely assumed to be related to the tensions that accompany war, particularly under a totalitarian regime.
Above all, on the reading of Heidegger’s Rectoral Address that I have presented in this paper, it would seem that no one other than Heidegger understood his “spiritual mission”.
If Solicitude addresses a helpful stance towards Dasein’s understanding of itself - for the sake of its ownmost authentic possibilities, how is it that when given an opportunity to manifest his philosophic system in German citizens, Heidegger slid more towards domination of Germans’ Care than their freedom? With such an imperative mission, why did Heidegger not make his vision clearer - that is, why did he use language and philosophic references to ancient Greek philosophy and texts that few - if any other than himself - would understand in such an important speech? In his book, Encounters and
Dialogues with Martin Heidegger, Henrich Petzet quotes Heidegger’s complaint that the
“the philosopher’s in his own University have hardly understood Being and Time”62, adding bewilderment as to why Heidegger would employ - as Harries described it - an
“untranslatable, technical term” nineteen times in the Rectoral Address! In the “Facts and
Thoughts” essay, Heidegger demonstrated that if saving the University from becoming a
61 Wolin, p. 100. 62 Heinrich Petzet, p. 93. 35
professional training center was his actual goal, he could have presented that vision
clearly (as he did in “Facts and Thoughts”).
If Heidegger’s own colleagues could not understand Being and Time, than surely not only
could the average (or, even above-average) German citizen not acquire an existentiell
understanding of themselves (nor grasp the imperativeness of German-Dasein’s call to its
authentic ownmost possibility as its ontological right), German citizens as cases of
Dasein did not have the capability of knowing that that they did not know what they most
needed to know. Meaning, on Heidegger’s method of presenting this most important
shared goal, cases of German-Dasein were unable to even self-Care towards their own
authentic being. Thus, for-the-sake-of German-Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being - that is,
Heidegger’s spiritual mission, Leaping Ahead for cases of German-Dasein would not be
fruitful.
As such, cases of Dasein, the self-Care that each case should possess as a sense of
“mineness” to understand their own being would need to be given to them. In other
words, German citizens would need to be thrown out of their positions of control their
own self-care to understand their being - and be ecstatic for it. To realize his spiritual
mission, Heidegger would need to Leap In for them. Only upon acceding to the
understanding of their being on Heidegger’s understanding o f their ownmost authentic possibilities, self-care (i.e., working towards Heidegger’s given existentiell understanding
o f them) could be released back. This calls to mind the image of the parent who sets his 36
child on the path that the parent interprets as “success” in life (e.g., attaining a high- paying job, a large family, a life of charity, etc.). Only when the parent is assured that the child embraces the parent’s definition and vision, does the parent allow the child to make her own decisions (e.g., choosing among “acceptable” mates, schools, etc.). This, however, runs against Heidegger’s account of cases of Dasein always referring to
“mineness”.
This addresses the question of what differentiates Hitler’s vision and method from
Heidegger’s. Heidegger, Being-in-the-world as being-oneself requires that Dasein approach its understanding of its self hermeneutically - that is from within: an understanding of its essence (i.e., an existentiell understanding) from the perspective of
Dasein as mineness providing meaning to its existence. Noble in its conclusion or not,
Heidegger’s method is Nazi in nature - just as Hitler’s was, however, Heidegger’s form of domination is in the extreme form of Leaping In regarding Dasein’s hermeneutic understanding of itself. That is, for-the-sake-of his existentiell understanding of German-
Dasein’s destiny given to it by its thrownness, Heidegger denies cases of German-Dasein their understanding of their own destiny as something different. On the occasion of his assumption of the Rectorate, Heidegger’s speech presents the philosophical indication of
Leaping Ahead. As an educator, whose students were known to admire, he would have perhaps preferred to Leap Ahead in anticipation that the average German citizen would on its own seize upon the possibilities that Heidegger understands (regarding German- 37
Dasein and its cases), but for the urgencies of his mission that I have presented, he Leap
In, thwarting the professor-student relationship in favor of the more immediate results associated with domination - a form of Nazism.
VI. Summary
I have argued that Heidegger’s Rectoral intentions (as laid out in his Rectoral Address) can be explicated by his account of Solicitude in Being and Time on the ground that in his speech he speaks o/Dasein, as well as, to cases of Dasein. Any reading of the Rectoral
Address then, requires an understanding of Heidegger’s philosophy to make sense of the language, assertions and references in his speech. Even on the claim that Heidegger’s speech describes his effort to save the University from Nazi oversight, the language that
Heidegger uses to describe such an effort is Dasein-language. Heidegger’s use of Dasein, spiritual mission, self-understanding, possibilities handed down to Germans from the beginning, etc. renders his speech non-sequitur without understanding Heidegger’s philosophy of Dasein; and, that entails an appreciation of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, whose thrownness (i.e., historicality) and authenticity is described by the structures of
Care, which are the subjects of Being and Time.
Though Heidegger never directly uses the word ‘Solicitude’ in the Rectoral Address, his intentions regarding cases of German-Dasein (i.e., German citizens) can only occur via
Solicitude. ‘Negative Solicitude’ is Dasein’s “deficient mode-of-being -with others”, in 38
which Dasein is “indifferent” towards other Dasein. ‘Positive Solicitude’ is of two sorts:
‘Leaping In' and ‘Leaping Ahead', in which Dasein either takes over another Dasein’s
‘Care’ for its being (that is, its work to understanding its own being); or, frees another
Dasein’s potential for ‘authenticity’ with respect to its work of understand its being.
Dasein’s ownmost possibilities are defined by its ‘thrownness’ and ‘authenticity’, and made possible by an existentiell understanding of one’s self. In the Rectoral Address
Heidegger addresses the imperative that Germans understand themselves. This type of understanding of self that Heidegger wants to propagate for the sake of Germans ownmost authentic possibility can only be imparted by those with the ability to gain the understanding themselves (for-the-sake-of bearing their stamp on history); and, likewise able to Leap Ahead for those unable to grasp it. As noted by Young,
“Of course, for the Volk to be adequate to that mission there must be ‘an inner self collection and renewal of the Volk. This alone is the ‘path to the discovery of its historical-Westem purpose’ (‘Facts and Thoughts’). Germany’s assumption of “its historical mission of spiritual world-leadership, lay in his plans for university reform. The spiritual leadership of the world was, in short, to be based on the spiritual leadership of German society by the revived German university”. 63
On Heidegger’s philosophical view, Germans’ rightful place of world leadership is for
Heidegger an existential and temporal imperative mission - just as ontic world domination was an imperative and temporal mission for Hitler. While Hitler was concerned with German physical nihilism - an apophantic fear that led him to dominate,
63 Young, p. 16-17; with quotes from Martin Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and Answers, eds. G. Neske and E. Kettering, tr. L. Harries (New York: Paragon House, 1990), p. 17. 39
Heidegger was concerned with the danger to German spiritual nihilism - a hermeneutic fear that led him to dominate.
If Heidegger entertained the notion of himself as Rector-politician and attempted to evidence this in his Rectoral Address, his politics are fully founded on his philosophy.
While Being and Time is not the source which can affirm or deny Heidegger’s Nazism,
Lyotard admits that “it is difficult to attribute an apolitical quality to a work like Sein und
Zeit, of which the entire second section is devoted to the power that Dasein, and notably that destiny called Volk, has to escape from inauthenticity and open itself to the future-as- coming-toward its fate by giving (delivering) to itself the knowledge of its having-been - what is called historicality”.M
In Being and Time, Heidegger describes Leaping In in the spirit of helping or preserving one who temporarily cannot Care for themselves, and is efficacious when self-Care is restored for the purpose of Dasein (re-)assuming - or, choosing to disburden itself - of its own self-care. On the reading of the Rectoral Address I have presented, Heidegger’s
Rectoral intentions extend beyond these descriptions, and also parallel Nazi ideological administration and method, so to the question of whether Heidegger - in his role as
Rector of the University of Freiburg - was a politician or a philosopher; and, further, was he a Nazi politician or a Nazi philosopher? That is, did Heidegger Leap In for Germans in light of his role as philosopher, administrative politician or Nazi? Given the language in
64 Lyotard, pp. 67-68. 40
Heidegger’s Rectoral Address - specifically, his references to Dasein, I believe that
Heidegger’s Rectoral Address is a philosophical declaration given on a political occasion, but one that reflected the spirit of Nazi domination. Thus, my view is that Heidegger embraced Nazism for philosophical reasons, and that he intended to use the Nazi movement to achieve his philosophical Solicitude of the German people according to his understanding of German thrownness and potentiality-for-Being at the expense of
German citizen’s own understanding of themselves. That is, though the tone of the
Rectoral Address would imply his intentions to Leap Ahead for cases of German-Dasein, he knew - and thus, intended all along - to Leap In for-the-sake-of his particular existentiell understanding of cases of German-Dasein. 41
References
Primary Heidegger, M. (1933), “The Self-Assertion of the German University” and “Facts and Thoughts”, as printed in Harries, Karsten and Heidegger, Hermann “The Self-Assertion of the German University” and “The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts”, The Review o f Metaphysics. Vol. 38, No. 3 (Mar., 1985), pp. 467-502.
Heidegger, M. (1926), Being and Time, New York: Harper and Row, 2008.
Secondary Azadpur, M. (1989), Reason Unbound: On Spiritual Practice in Islamic Peripatetic Philosophy, New York: SUNY Press.
Dreyfus, H. (1991), Being-in-the-world: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Farias, V. (1989), Heidegger and Nazism, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Haugeland, P. (2013), Dasein Disclosed: John Haugeland's Heidegger. (Joseph Rouse, editor), Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lyotard, J.F., (1990), Heidegger and “the jew s”, University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis.
McCummber, J. (1999), Metaphysics and Oppression, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Ott, H. (1993), Martin Heidegger: A Political Life, New York: HarperCollins.
Ott, M. (1988), Heidegger’s Pragmatism, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Petzet, H.W. (1993), Encounters and Dialogues with Martin Heidegger, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Polt, R. (2006), The Emergency o f Being: On Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Rockmore, T., Margolis, J. (eds.) (1992), The Heidegger Case, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Rockmore, T. (1992), On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy, Berkeley: University of 42
California Press.
Wolin, R. (ed.) (1991), The Heidegger Controversy, New York: Columbia University Press.
Young, J. (1997), Heidegger, philosophy, Nazism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.