File spoon-archives/habermas.archive/habermas_2000/habermas.0011, message 73


Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 23:14:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Gary D <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: HAB: JH and Heidegger



--- Eduardo Mendieta <mendietae-AT-usfca.edu> wrote ("Re: Language and
Institution"):


> In many of his interviews,.... Habermas talks
> about
> Heidegger's influence on his thought.

I guess I'd forgotten about this. Basically, I have a large sense of
Heidegger-Habermas complementarity that is independent of what
Habermas may have said about Heidegger's influence on him. It was as
an Heideggerian (as best I could be) that I became interested in
Habermas' work, way back, oddly enough (out of an excursion through
Gadamer and Marcuse, whereby I ended up siding with Habermas
vis-a-vis both Gadamer and Marcuse). I thought JH was influenced by
Heidegger before any interviews were available in English. And if I
was wrong, then this mattered less than that the complementarity
deserved to be appreciated. 

> 
> See also his essay on Heidegger which served as the introduction to
> the
> Victor Farias book on Heidegger and the Nazis. You will note
> Habermas's
> deep reverence for the pre-1933 Heidegger, basically the Heidegger
> of Sein
> und Zeit. 

I don't recall much reverence for early MH in that essay, but I'm
glad to admit I forgot, as I was more interested during that period
in dealing with the Farias scandal.

> 
> Interestingly,  Habermas criticism of Heidegger in PDM are aimed at
> the
> post-Turn Heidegger, the Heidegger after his rejection of SuZ. So,
> we have
> to be careful what kind of anti-pathy toward Heidegger we attribute
> to
> Habermas. 

Hmm. I agree, more or less. Again, though, my memory must be failing
me. It recall it as a matter of Habermas' PDM critique of
"subject-centered reason" in Heidegger generally, which is argued
mainly in terms of _Being & Time_, if any work (and largely not in
terms of specific works at all).  MH, by the way, never rejected SuZ.

> Now, on the other hand, this would make an interesting
> article:
> Habermas relationship to Heidegger. 

Yes indeed!!

>For Habermas really thinks that
> there
> were two Heideggers, an idea which has become more and more
> unteneable, and
> has received a lot of criticism from committed Heideggerians.

Yeah, and I go along with MH's claim that the thinking of MH-II
(so-called) was already effective in the work of MH-I (avowed in his
1967-or-so letter to Wm. J. Richardson, reprinted in Richardson's
_Heidegger: From Phenomenology to Thought_, 1969). But there were
clearly two Heideggers in one characteristic sense: the lifelong
inner-directed thinker and the periodic outer-directed
teacher--master of philosophical "presence"--who improvised poorly in
light of political opportunity (and remained socially spineless,
while staying True to his path of thinking). Indeed, Habermas' theory
of communicative action provides an excellent basis for
distinguishing self and persona in Heidegger's claim to a singular
career of thinking exercised in various idioms, contexts, "times" and
lectural occasions. 

Yes, all very interesting....

Cheers (now lights out for sure),


Gary






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