An Ethical Question: Does a Nazi Deserve a Place Among Philosophers?

[cali]

By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: November 8, 2009

For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology and literary theory and inspired some of the most influential intellectual movements of the 20th century. Yet he was also a fervent Nazi.
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Felix H. Man/ Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz

Martin Heidegger in 1949.
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Times Topics: Martin Heidegger

Now a soon-to-be published book in English has revived the long-running debate about whether the man can be separated from his philosophy. Drawing on new evidence, the author, Emmanuel Faye, argues fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of Heidegger’s theories that they no longer deserve to be called philosophy. As a result Mr. Faye declares, Heidegger’s works and the many fields built on them need to be re-examined lest they spread sinister ideas as dangerous to modern thought as “the Nazi movement was to the physical existence of the exterminated peoples.”

First published in France in 2005, the book, “Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism Into Philosophy,” calls on philosophy professors to treat Heidegger’s writings like hate speech. Libraries, too, should stop classifying Heidegger’s collected works (which have been sanitized and abridged by his family) as philosophy and instead include them under the history of Nazism. These measures would function as a warning label, like a skull-and-crossbones on a bottle of poison, to prevent the careless spread of his most odious ideas, which Mr. Faye lists as the exaltation of the state over the individual, the impossibility of morality, anti-humanism and racial purity.

he book is the most radical attack yet on Heidegger (1889-1976) and would upend the philosophical field’s treatment of his work in the United States, and even more so in France, where Heidegger has frequently been required reading for an advanced degree. Mr. Faye, an associate professor at the University of Paris, Nanterre, not only wants to drum Heidegger from the ranks of philosophers, he wants to challenge his colleagues to rethink the very purpose of philosophy and its relationship to ethics.

At the same time scholars in disciplines as far flung as poetry and psychoanalysis would be obliged to reconsider their use of Heidegger’s ideas. Although Mr. Faye talks about the close connection between Heidegger and current right-wing extremist politics, left-wing intellectuals have more frequently been inspired by his ideas. Existentialism and postmodernism as well as attendant attacks on colonialism, atomic weapons, ecological ruin and universal notions of morality are all based on his critique of the Western cultural tradition and reason.

Richard Wolin, the author of several books on Heidegger and a close reader of the Faye book, said he is not convinced Heidegger’s thought is as thoroughly tainted by Nazism as Mr. Faye argues. Nonetheless he recognizes how far Heidegger’s ideas have spilled into the larger culture.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/books/09philosophy.html?_r=2

[MadHound]

1. Philosophical hypocrisy if you ask me,

This guy is more up front about his POV, but it's not like Plato didn't advocate for a master race rule by a small group of oligarchs. Philosophy has had its fair share of power hungry fascists, and managed to survive. Throw it all together and leave it up to the individual to decide.

When you start labeling ideas as somehow inherently dangerous, start advocating for their segregation, then you're coming dangerously close to becoming that which you hate.

[cali]

2. I think you make a good point

In any case, I confess that I find him nigh on unreadable. As unreadable as Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being.

[Mixopterus]

4. In modern philosophy

Even the Plato scholars take The Republic with a grain of salt, although Plato's anti-democratic bias has a tendency to seep into his dialogues as well. The fact that one has a difficult time separating the philosopher from the work is probably the primary reason I have always and will always focus on Aristotle, who I find to be the more valuable of the two "greats".

And yeah, some ideas are actually inherently destructive/dangerous, just like some ideas are flatly wrong. I'm normally a non-consequentalist, but there are a handful of philosophical and economic systems that have done nothing but impoverish mankind through their influence.

[Jim__]

3. Heidegger deserves a place among philosophers.

Heidegger was a philosopher both before and after he was a Nazi. His ideas survive on their own merits. Somehow, I doubt Mr Faye's ideas will.

[Mixopterus]

5. Heidegger's biggest problem

Was probably a lack of any sort of ethical core aside from "what the state said", which is the identical problem in Plato's Republic. Ethical systems built into the state instead of an external arbiter outside of institutions never work for the best, how in the world can one reason what is best with that fundamentally irrational basis?

[Jim__]

6. The biggest problem that Heidegger worked on is the nature of Being.

I'm trying to understand what you're saying with: Ethical systems built into the state instead of an external arbiter outside of institutions never work for the best; but I'm really not getting it.

[Mixopterus]

11. Problem as in flaw in his system of thought in practice

Not what he addressed as his primary focus of study.

[geek tragedy]

7. This would open the door to barring everyone from Marx to Nietzsche

from the discussion.

[coti]

8. Which demonstrates the flaw in Faye's argument.

Faye, in arguing that Heidegger should be, what...banned?...from philosophy, or at least not taken seriously as far as his ideas are concerned, is taking a political stance, not a philosophical one.

If he was taking a philosophical stance he would attempt to shoot down Heidegger's theories with facts and reason, and depending on how clearly he did so fellow philosophers might say, "Yeah, I guess Heidegger's theories weren't all that accurate."

But that's not what he's doing. He's picking through Heidegger's ideas and figuring out which ones he can label or characterize as Nazism. That's cheating, and it's not philosophy, it's politics.

So, doing what Faye is doing, one might come to a "valid" political conclusion, but it has very little philosophical merit and thus very little bearing on philosophy itself.

It's all in how one makes the argument.

[geek tragedy]

9. Certainly the logical extension of Heideggers's beliefs should be

discussed as a measure of their validity, of course. But disproving ideas is generally a better policy than banishing them.

Note, that in Germany I would take a different policy, because of their rightful concerns about Never Again.

[Odin2005]

10. I found Heidegger ridiculous.

[old mark]

12. Of course he does. You can't make him disapear. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. Of course. (Does Ezra Pound merit a place among poets?)

[montanto]

14. An idea is not a person.

Ideas must be considered on their own merits, not on those of their fathers/mothers.