Unlike Chris, I have never had any particular interest in Heidegger, but I think that he is right to make a distinction between the philosophical critiques Heidegger introduced and his politics. It's fairly clear that Heidegger, like a lot of conservative Nationalists, saw the Nazis as a way of escaping the baleful influence of Bolshevism (their terms, not mine, of course), and Heidegger joined the party, and took advantage of that membership to further a set of goals he had in the German university. At some point he became disenchanted, but this doesn't excuse his fairly reprehensible behavior (which, sadly, wasn't particularly outstanding in that quality in opposition to his contemporaries). However, you would have to do some work to establish that this cynical opportunism was the result of his philosophy. I would have no problems accepting this notion, but you would need to do the theoretical footwork so to speak, not simply take the correspondence for granted.
In addition, I think that it would be a mistake to see Heidegger's work as some sort of epistemological support for the Nazi project, which seemed to be a sort of bricolage of what happened to be available at the time... (not that having a beautiful philosophy would have really made all that much of a difference.)
robert wood
(Incidentally, what a terrible reading of Nietzsche...)
> Chris Doss wrote:
>
>> Exactly. Put slightly differently, the fantasy that I "know" that I
>> am "right," when my very notions of what knowing and being right are
>> are dependent on where I fall in a changing system. What historical
>> period I live in, what place I occupy in society, etc.
>
> As I've pointed out before, this idea "that 'truth' does not have any
> content or substance of its own", is what Heidegger, in rationalizing
> his behaviour during the period of National Socialism, identified as a
> "grotesque" feature of the "intellectual plans" of "National Socialism
> and the Party" for "science and learning" in general and
> "universities" in particular. They had formulated these plans,
> according to Heidegger, "citing Nietzsche as their authority, who
> taught that 'truth' does not have any content or substance of its own,
> but is merely an instrument of the will to power, i.e. a mere 'idea',
> a totally subjective concept."
>
> Hugo Ott provides the context and reproduces the passage containing
> these claims in the following extract from “Martin Heidegger: A
> Political Life.”
>
> “In order to attain his political, indeed historic goals, Heidegger
> had to work, not to say fight, in a variety of different arenas. His
> own university was only ever a base, a point of departure, and an
> occasional refuge – at least to begin with. Even before his formal
> installation as rector he had already begun to stake out the territory
> that he planned to occupy. Some considerable stir, not to say
> indignation, was caused among the few people in the know in Freidburg
> when it emerged that Heidegger had sent the following to Adolf Hitler
> on 20 May 1933: ‘I respectfully request postponement of the planned
> reception for the Board of the Association of German Universities
> until such time as the much needed realignment of the Association in
> accordance with the aims of Gleichschaltung has been accomplished.’
> “With this the new rector had unequivocally stepped up on to
> the national stage, which he no doubt saw as his proper field of
> action – though there is not a word about this in the apologia
> published in 1983. To sketch in the background briefly: the
> University Association in those days – in contrast to its post-1945
> successor – was the corporate union of all German universities, whose
> principal purpose was to represent the interests of university
> teachers as a social and professional class. In effect it was an
> organ of the Conference of German University Rectors. Heidegger
> planned to replace this dual structure, not least because it had
> overtones of a parliamentary system, with a single, integrated
> Conference of Rectors, modelled on the principle of totalitarian
> leadership (Führerprinzip).
> “The agitation in Freiburg was provoked principally by the
> reference to Gleichschaltung, whose meaning then, in the early summer
> of 1933, was clear enough: the realignment of all institutions, all
> areas of life; in conformity with the principles of the totalitarian
> state and the totalitarian society and the new power structures of the
> centralized National Socialist regime. This telegram weighed heavily
> against Heidegger in 1945, and in November of that year he submitted
> the following explanation to the chairman of the denazification
> commission – furnishing further evidence of the way he conducted his
> defence:
>
> ‘Although the telegram mentions “Gleichschaltung”, I was using the
> term in the same way that I used the term “National Socialism”. It was
> not, and never had been, my intention to impose Party doctrine on the
> University; on the contrary, I wanted to bring about a transformation
> in thinking both within National Socialism and with regard to it. It
> is untrue to claim that National Socialism and the Party had no
> intellectual plans for the universities or for science and learning:
> they had them only too clearly, citing Nietzsche as their authority,
> who taught that “truth” does not have any content or substance of its
> own, but is merely an instrument of the will to power, i.e. a mere
> “idea”, a totally subjective concept. What was and is so grotesque
> about it, of course, is that this “politicized” science and learning
> is essentially in line with the teachings of Marxism and Communism on
> the “idea” and “ideology”. It was against this that my rectorship
> address of 23 May, given three days after I had sent the telegram
> [Heidegger confuses the 23rd with the 27th of May], was clearly and
> explicitly directed.'” (Hugo Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life,
> pp. 194-6)
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
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