Subject: Re: Heidegger in Germany
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 22:17:34 +0100


Henk,

>And it says that paragraph XXVI is published in 1951. What we have is
>the published text, not the written one. I do not have the original
>manuscript. Do you know if Heidegger made any changes in it on behalf of
>the published version?>

No, I can offer you only this kind of _evidence_. But, as far as I see, even
if you had an absolute evidence (?) this would not help to change your views
on H.

>I will not repeat myself.


neither I

>
>With all due respect, I gather that you have not seen the original
>manuscript either. The Gesamtausgabe is _letzter hand_, it means that
>the date of writing is less important than the date of last publication.


sorry, Henk, but this kind of sophism is hard to understand (I mean, to
understand it seriously)


>Besides, in a seminar in 1943 Heidegger still believes that Germany
>should have a role in _saving_ Europe:
>
>"[...] wir fragen und fragend wissen wir auch, dass dieses Fragen nur
>ein sehr vorlaeufiges Wissen sein kann, dass aber dieses fragende Wissen
>sein muss, wenn anders die Deutschen und nur sie das Abendland in seine
>Geschichte retten koennen." (GA55:107-108)
>[...] we question and questioning we also know that this questioning can
>only be very provisional, that however this questioning must be, at
>least if the Germans and only they can (should be able to?) save the
>occident in its history.
>Should we really read Heidegger's remarks on the role of Germany and on
>the role of nationalism as a good example of his resistance against
>Hitler? And even if one would grant that Heidegger is more grey than
>black - is it not asking far too much to see him as the greatest critic
>of National Socialism ever? >

this is not the point (_greatest critic_). The point is: Did H. criticize
explicitly NS before 1945, how did he do it and what did he afterwards. This
text is a very explicit example of this three questions. It is an example
too that his so called _silence_ concerning the NS after 1945 was not the
case: he published this, as you remark 1951. In case (what I do not
believed) that he made any changes in this text, this remains a an explicit
critic of NS. But the way you turn the arguments (saying: are you sure the
text was written 1942, and then: maybe he changed it 1951, and then: he
never changed his mind etc. etc.) is really at the limits of what scientific
honesty can accept.

>But suppose that one does believe Buchner, what does one believe?
>
>Your translation:
>"The earth appears as the un-world of the err-wandering."
>
>I cannot follow Buchner here. Why does Heidegger believe in 1942 that
>National Socialism is all-embracing? And if he does, why is this belief
>the severest possible criticism of Hitler cum suis? >

It is not _the severest possible..._ but _his_...


>If the earth as a whole - Heidegger does not mention Germany - is an
un-world because of
>National Socialism, National Socialism is the only political movement on
>earth that really counts. >

your are a sophist, once again

>In relation with the quotation above from Heidegger's seminar in 1943,
>this does not look well, to say the least. It looks as if Heidegger
>counts upon the fact that the earth will be conquered by the Fuehrer.
>By the way, this is very interesting scenario. Also in the light of
>Heidegger's personal aspirations as a leading German thinker.
>However, I do not think it probable that Heidegger is this weird.
>


dito

>Rafael, to recapitulate:
>- I cannot read _Ueberwindung_ as an example of Heidegger's courageous
>resistance against National Socialism
>- NOR can I read it as an example of Heidegger's meek loyalty towards
>National Socialism.
>

_courageous resistance_ sorry Henk, nobody said this. You are looking for
heroes, aren't you?


>I hope that you will not mind that from here on I will be picking up
>bits and pieces from your mail and responding to them out of the strict
>context of your paraphrase of _Ueberwindung_.
>
>You write:
>> The moral indignations of those who still do not
>> know what is, concern mostly the despotisms and
>> the claim to power of the _Fuehrer_" (H. uses the
>> plural her, but not in the next sentence, Henk,
>> not in the next sentence where he writes: "Der
>> Fuehrer ist der Aerger... The Leader (well, you
>> would probably prefer the word Hitler at this
>> point, won't you? but there was really only one
>> Fuehrer, and a lot of Fuehrer) is the annoyance
>> (I do not know if this is a good translation:
>> Aerger  means: trouble, to be angry or
>> infuriated, offend, outrage...) who cannot stop
>> persecuting the annoyance that is apparently
>> produced by the other leaders, but who are not
>> the (real) agents.
>
>I must be misunderstanding you when I read this. I gather that you are
>saying that there is annoyance with Hitler because he cannot stop
>persecuting the annoyance that is produced by other leaders who don't
>really count. This certainly is a severe criticism of Hitler - for not
>having conquered yet the earth and having slain all the other leaders,
>who don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.>

extremely sophist


>Rafael, there must be a miscommunication here somehow. I really cannot
>believe that you meant to say this. >

thank you for saving my argument

>Although it would fit in with some other points touched upon but not
>having been considered more closely - on basis of the argument that
>Heidegger cannot be this weird.
>
>Again, I do not think that Heidegger is talking here about Hitler. I
>still _want_ to believe that he is talking about metaphysics and things
>that do go wrong under its influence.
>

you say: you _want_ to believe. Nobody can and will be able to influence or
even change your will to believe. Why should I? Your beliefs are your
beliefs

>> There are no more differences between the nations
>> and the cultures (Voelker): no multicultural
>> differences, as we say today... no difference
>> between war and peace, between the national and
>> the international.
>
>In this context, and in the context of the cited passage from GA55 it is
>interesting to note that Heidegger says in _Ueberwindung_ (p 92):
>
>"Wer heute "Europaeisch" denkt, laesst sich nicht mehr dem Vorwurf
>aussetzen, ein "Internationalist" zu sein. Er ist aber auch kein
>Nationalist mehr, da er ja auch das Wohl der uebrigen "Nationen" nicht
>weniger bedenkt als das eigene."
>Who thinks "European" in these days does not let himself to be exposed
>to the reproach that he is an "internationalist". However, he is also
>not a nationalist any longer because he thinks about the well-being of
>the others nations as well as about [the well-being] of his own
>[nation].
>
>I cannot see what this has to do with metaphysics. IF Heidegger wrote
>this in 1942 and meant it as a _description_ of these years THAN, seen
>against the background of his seminar in 1943, seen against the
>background of what he says in the last sentence of _Ueberwindung_ XXVI
>about the earth, seen against the background of all other points not
>fully considered thus far - IT IS ... what??? German nationalism (i.e.
>National Socialism) as the utmost concern for the well-being of all
>nations?


your identification of German nationalism and NS is sophistic (sorry for
repeating this). You are making identites where H. is making differences.
This does not, by the way, that I (!) agree with a non NS (German)
nationalist view (in politicis or in thinking). H. also changed his views
concerning the _other great beginnings_ . I you (well not you) are a good
American, this does not mean that you identify this with racist policy in
America. Nationalism is for us (!) (at least for me) no question. Even if I
try to understand H. _nationalism_ as a intellectual kind of nationalism
(with regard the the passage you mention, GA 55, p. 107), then this does not
mean neither that I consider this a valuable position today nor that H.
maintained this position for the rest of his life. In this passage H also
says that the_Wille zur Macht_ was not invented by the Germans.

But the point is that you misunderstand the text of this passage. H. says
that we cannot due with Nietzsche or against him in the sense of an
_antichristian philosophy_, in the way, that we would belong to the saved
people or one would even be the savior itself. So: the Germans (and H. the
less) are not saviors. And he continues: only a questioning helps, that
means, a kind of  _vorlauefiges Wissen_ a temporal or provisional knowledge
(i.e. the contrary of an absolute knowledge of the saviors). H. thinks
indeed about the mission of the Germans (what about the mission of the
Americans etc.... today?) but you identify this with following the NS where
H. is making exactly at this point a _difference_. Provisional knowledge,
questioning etc.: this is the contrary of dogmatic NS ideology. In p.181 H.
criticizes modernity (and you remember the passage from the Introd. to
metaphysics concerning NS and modernity) (modernity in H.sense of will to
power). We can criticize this kind of intellectual nationalism, but it would
be unfair (and in some of your interpretations: denigrating and absurd) to
identify this with the ns ideology. I am not so sure that we are (and can
be) completely out of this kind of thinking, as far as _nations_ are
understood not in a political but in a _cultural_ sense. Otherwise we (well
some of _us_) would not remark all the time the importance of cultural
differences (for intance in the net), languages, traditions etc.

By the way, the course is on a Greek thinker and it takes some 390 pages,
from which this two remarks should not be used as an _abstract_ for all what
is being said there: take for instance the analysis of _psyche_ in p. 281 in
the sense of opening for the open. The whole lecture concernes the relation
between Logos and _logos_, or, in the language of modernity, between subject
and object (p. 296). Human soul goes, no not _deep_ says H. (_tief_ greek_:
bathus) but _wide_ signaling and being signaled into the wide (_weitweisend_
and _weitgewiesen_), so that we are never sure what we collect (logos) in
our soul (as truth) (p. 305) etc. etc. All this (and much more) has really
nothing (!) to do with NS ideology. It is the opposite of it.

kind regards
rafael




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