On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6q2nb3wh&chunk.id=0&doc.... Preferred Citation: Rockmore, Tom. On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6q2nb3wh/ On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy Tom Rockmore UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford © 1991 The Regents of the University of California Preferred Citation: Rockmore, Tom. On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6q2nb3wh/ ― v ― Acknowledgments I owe an important debt to the increasing number of scholars, some of them with a considerable investment in Heidegger scholarship, who continue to seek the truth, even when it contradicts Heideggerian strategies for dealing with Heidegger's Nazism. To this general debt I would add more specific ones incurred to two anonymous readers of the manuscript, to Michael Zimmerman for helpful comments on the initial draft, to Debra Bergoffen, who read a draft of the chapter on Nietzsche, and to Theodore Kisiel, who commented on the entire final draft. None of them is responsible for the views expressed here. But I gratefully acknowledge that their attention to detail has saved me from numerous slips and in general helped me to strengthen the argument. I gratefully acknowledge as well that discussion with Joseph Margolis has provided insight useful in writing this book. His willingness to collaborate in bringing Farias's study of Heidegger and Nazism into English started me on the road that led to this book. Nicolas Tertulian initially called this problem to my attention. Edward Dimendberg, Philosophy Editor at the University of California Press, whose faith in this project made it possible, has been a constant pleasure to work with. His own insightful suggestions have improved the manuscript. I am grateful as well for the excellent copyediting by Nicholas Goodhue, which generally improved the manuscript and detected several errors. As always, I am deeply indebted to my family in ways that I cannot simply or even adequately express. ― 1 ― 1 of 263 5/21/2006 4:05 PM On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6q2nb3wh&chunk.id=0&doc.... Introduction: On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy This book considers the nature and philosophical significance of the controversial relation between Heidegger's philosophy and his Nazism. The significance of this relation is clear in virtue of the importance of Heidegger's philosophical thought and its widespread influence not only in the philosophical discussion but throughout the cultural life of this century. Heidegger's supporters and even his most ardent critics agree that Heidegger's thought is important and cannot merely be dismissed. Heidegger is often held to be one of the most important contemporary philosophers, even the most important philosopher of this century, maybe even one of the small handful of truly great philosophers in the history of the philosophical tradition. Heidegger is certainly the most influential philosopher of our time. Heidegger's influence is widely felt in contemporary philosophy: in negative fashion in Husserl's final phase; in the positions[1] of Gadamer and Derrida, his two closest students; in the thought of Herbert Marcuse, the first Heideggerian Marxist; in the phenomenological theories of Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, and Paul Ricoeur; and more distantly in the writings of Foucault, Apel, Habermas, and Rorty, as well as in those of a host of other figures such as Hans Jonas, Hannah Arendt, and Leszek Kolakowski. The Heidegger literature has by now taken on such proportions that no one, not even the most industrious student, can possibly read it all. Heidegger is now ― 2 ― widely present in the discussions in Germany, even more so in the United States, but above all in France, where for several decades he has functioned as the main "French" philosopher, the unacknowledged but omnipresent master thinker whose thought continues to form the horizon of French philosophical thinking. Heidegger's influence, which is by no means limited to philosophy, is widely apparent throughout the recent discussion: in theology in the work of Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, and Karl Rahner; in psychoanalysis in the work of Jacques Lacan, Ludwig Binswanger, and Medard Boss; in literary theory through Paul de Man; in feminism through Gayatri Spivak; in ecology through Albert Borgmann and Wolfgang Schirmacher; in political theory through Fred Dallmayr; and so on. The list of those influenced by Heidegger, which is impressive, rivals in scope that of such other conceptual giants of this century as Freud and Weber. Obviously, the impressive nature of Heidegger's thought and its extraordinary influence do not diminish but rather only raise the stakes of the present discussion. In view of the growing knowledge of the historical record and the ongoing publication of Heidegger's writings, one can overlook, or choose to ignore, but can no longer deny, the relation between his Nazism and his philosophy. To "bracket" this issue, simply to turn away from the problem, to refuse to confront it, is silently to accept what a number have seen as the totalitarian dimension in one of the most important theories of this century, itself largely marked by totalitarianisms of the right and the left, a theory apparently lacking in the resources necessary to come to grips with totalitarianism. In confronting Heidegger's Nazism, one inevitably questions as well the philosophical and wider intellectual discussion of our time and its ability to think the connection between philosophy and politics. The link between Heidegger's thought and politics has been known for many years. Its discussion began in the 1940s in the pages of the French intellectual journal, Les Temps Modernes , in a controversy initiated by Karl Löwith, Heidegger's former student and later colleague.[2] The initial phase of the debate ended quickly, but the theme has continued to resurface at intervals. It has recently received a fresh impetus in publications by Ott[3] and Farias.[4] The merit of Farias's book, in part based on Ott's research, is that for the first time it has brought the Heidegger affair to the attention of the wider intellectual readership. Since a relation between Heidegger's thought and his Nazism has been known for more than half a century, one must ask why it has not been studied earlier in greater depth. The reasons include the relative success at what can charitably be described as damage control on the part of his most fervent admirers—those for whom he can apparently do ― 3 ― no wrong, or at least none of lasting consequence for his thought—as well as a lack of insight into its philosophical significance. But the recent discussion has provided sustained attention to the series of issues surrounding Heidegger's thought and politics. It is now too late to put the genie back in the bottle, to deflect attention away from this relation, since the publications by Farias and Ott raise this 2 of 263 5/21/2006 4:05 PM On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6q2nb3wh&chunk.id=0&doc.... issue in a way that in good faith cannot simply be ignored. Everything about this relation is subject to dispute. It has been asserted that it is philosophically insignificant, since the struggle concerning Heidegger is merely symptomatic of a weakness of contemporary thought. It has been claimed that Heidegger was not a Nazi, or at least not in any ordinary sense. It has been suggested that we must differentiate between Heidegger the thinker and Heidegger the man, for the former cannot be judged in relation to the latter. It has been argued that information recently made available is not new and was already known to any serious student. It has been held that everything that Heidegger ever did or wrote was Nazi to the core. It has been maintained that Heidegger's only problem was that he never said he was sorry, that he never excused himself or asked for forgiveness. Finally, it has been maintained with all the seriousness of the professional scholar, in a way recalling many a theological dispute, that Heidegger's thought is so difficult that only one wholly immersed in it, at the extreme only a true believer committed to his vision, could possibly understand it. Yet if it can only be comprehended by a "true" believer, then Heidegger's Nazism is beyond criticism or evaluation of any kind, since no "true" believer will criticize it. The view of the present study is that all of the above claims about the relation of Heidegger's thought and his Nazism are false. Attention focused on Heidegger's Nazi inclinations by Farias, Ott, and others (e.g., Pöggeler, Marten, Sheehan, Vietta, Lacoue-Labarthe, Derrida, Bourdieu, Schwan, Janicaud, Zimmerman, Wolin, Thomä, etc.) has created a momentum of its own. It has been realized that Heidegger's Nazism raises important moral and political issues that cannot simply be evaded and that must be faced as part of the continuing process of determining what is live and what is dead in Heidegger's thought. It is not inaccurate to say that as a result of recent discussion, at least two things have become clear: First, the problem cannot simply be denied since one can no longer even pretend to understand Heidegger's philosophy, certainly beginning in 1933, if one fails to take into account his Nazism. In a word, serious study of Heidegger's thought can no longer evade the theme of Heidegger's Nazism. Second, the issues posed by Heidegger's unprecedented turn to Nazism on philosophical grounds, ― 4 ― and the way the theme has been received in the discussion of his thought, point beyond his position to raise queries about the nature of philosophy and even the responsibility of intellectuals.