Overcoming the Tradition: Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Arendt Frederick M. Dolan

An oft-repeated theme over the last two centuries of philosophy has been the need for a radical criticism and overhaul of the entire Western tradition. Karl Marx (1818–1883) told us that everything we believed about human history was wrong, and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was similarly dismissive of our moral commitments. Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) announced that the tradition was tainted because it had ignored what he called “the question of being,” a notion he formulated for the very first time. Finally, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) argued that our inherited political categories prevent us from appreciating what is truly significant about political action itself. Each of these thinkers, moreover, attributes some conspicuous ills of modernity (alienation for Marx, nihilism for Nietzsche, technology for Heidegger, and the atrophy of political judgment for Arendt) to defects in the tradition from which they are attempting to free us. This course provides an opportunity to evaluate the ideas, arguments, and aspirations of these four pivotal thinkers.

Texts:

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Marx-Engels Reader ed. Tucker (Norton). Friedrich Nietzsche. Basic Writings of Nietzsche trans. Kaufmann (Modern Library). Martin Heidegger. Basic Writings ed. Krell (Harper Perennial). Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition (Chicago).

Requirement for Letter grade and Credit: If you are taking the course for credit, an eight- page paper on a pertinent topic is due at the last class meeting

Schedule:

The Tradition

January 9, 2012

Leo Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens: Some Introductory Reflections.”

Marx

January 23, 2012

Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (in The Marx-Engels Reader, hereafter MER). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (in MER).

January 30, 2012

2

Karl Marx, The German Ideology (in MER). Marx. Capital, Volume One, chapters I-IV (in MER).

Nietzsche

February 6, 2012

Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil, Parts One and Five (in BWN).

February 13, 2012

Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil, Part Two (in BWN). ––. selections from The Gay Science and Twilight of the Idols (in BWN)

Heidegger

February 20, 2012

Heidegger. “The Origin of the Work of Art” (in BW).

February 27, 2012

Heidegger. “The Question Concerning Technology” (in BW).

Arendt

March 5, 2012

Arendt. The Human Condition, Chapters II-IV.

March 12, 2012

Arendt. The Human Condition, Chapters V-VI.

Suggestions for further reading:

Marx

For a relatively brief account of the development of Marx’s thought, see Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment. For a comprehensive study of Marxist philosophy, see Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown (3 volumes). Important twentieth-century Marxist philosophers include Georg Lukács (History and Class Consciousness), Theodor W. Adorno (Dialectic of Enlightenment), Herbert Marcuse (Eros and Civilization), Jürgen Habermas (Knowledge 3 and Human Interests), Louis Althusser (Reading Capital), and Antonio Negri (Empire). For a treatment of economic theory from a Marxist point of view, see E.K. Hunt and Mark Lautzenheiser, History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective. For the history of Marxism in practice, see Robert Service, Comrades! A History of World Communism.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche’s thought is intimately related to his life, so reading a good biography is an excellent way to further acquaint yourself with his work. The best one I know is Rüdiger Safranski’s Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. (This is not to be confused with Julian Young’s Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, which is often insightful but not nearly as well-written as Safranski’s – and is riddled with distracting typographical errors.) Three especially influential interpretations of Nietzsche’s philosophical project as a whole are Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche (2 volumes), Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity, and Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy. Walter Kaufmann’s Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist is a minor classic, as is Arthur C. Danto’s Nietzsche as Philosopher. For in- depth treatments of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, see Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche’s Teaching: An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Stanley Rosen, The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

Heidegger

For a relatively brief account of the development of Heidegger’s philosophy, see Richard F. Poldt, Heidegger: An Introduction. For a readable and reliable introduction to his first major work, see William D. Blattner, Heidegger’s Being and Time: A Reader’s Guide. (For more detailed treatments of this book, see Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division One, Theodor J. Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time, and Blattner, Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism.) Two influential studies of the development and significance of Heidegger’s thought are William J. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought and Werner Marx, Heidegger and the Tradition. Rüdiger Safranski’s Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil includes a fair account of Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism. For a more detailed study that relates Heidegger’s political activities to those of professional philosophers in Nazi Germany more generally, see Hans D. Sluga, Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany.

Arendt

The standard account of Arendt’s life and work is Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. A relatively brief and reliable introduction to her work is Maurizio Passerin d’Entrèves, The Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt. For essays by various authors on a wide range of issues pertaining to Arendt’s thought, see Dana Villa (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt. On the philosophical background and significance of Arendt’s political philosophy, see Dana Villa, Arendt and Heidegger: 4

The Fate of the Political and Philosophy, Politics, Terror: Essays on the Thought of Hannah Arendt. Other important studies include George Kateb, Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil, Margaret Canovan, Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of her Political Thought, Robert Pirro, Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy, and Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt.