At 3:05 AM -0800 3/1/2002, Paul Murphy wrote:
>The Holocaust has many apologists!

Paul, I totally resent the accusation that I am an apologist for the
Holocaust because I say that Heidegger is complex and that a simple
demonisation will not do if you truly want to evaluate his work.
There are many who say, despite the problematic nature of his
political affiliations, that he _is_ "Europe's greatest thinker".
Whatever such superlatives mean.

Myself, I have problems with his placement of the quotidian as the
opposite of Being, and think he does so because he is a philosopher
who wishes for himself the irresponsibility of poetry while keeping
(his) megalomaniac desires to be a Philosopher-Authority intact (all
philosophers who write poems at the beginning of their books ought to
be approached with bomb defusing equipment) and that therefore his
life-understanding is deficient.  But I am no philosopher and no
doubt my own responses are crude.

Rorty in fact says something quite similar to Pierre below, and wants
to take from Heidegger the parts of his thought which assist thinking
about Becoming.  "I think," he says, "that the best tribute we can
pay to Heidegger's achievement is to be selective about what we take
from him".  Which seems to me fair enough.  Is it necessary to say
say that referring to Rorty doesn't mean, either, that I agree with
_him_ all the time, since he's written things that have made me throw
his book across the room?

Alison

At 8:42 AM -0500 3/1/2002, Pierre Joris wrote:
>I essentially agree with Alison's stance, though I do think that certain
>core areas of Heidegger's thinking, being exactly in step (goose-pun
>intended) with his time, lent themselves much more easily to fascist than to
>left-wing leanings or excesses. The insistence on earth / volk / etc. are
>absolutely core motives in fascist / nazi ideology -- & H got to the "Volk"
>as solution early on, i.e. in the late 20s in the final chapters of _Sein &
>Zeit_. (BTW, the best book on the ropots of fascism unhappily still remains
>untranslated from the Frenmch as far as I know, & is Jean-Pierre Faye's _Les
>Langages Totalitaires_). The problem for me is wider, philosophically
>speaking: any philosophy of "Being" is at risk of such or similar excesses,
>which is why I have always argued for a philosophy of "becoming." For a
>recent take, too long to rehash here, see my response to Adrian Clarke in
>the current _Open Letter_ ( at the following url:
>http://www.arts.uwo.ca/openlet/11.3/letters/012b.pdf )
>
>         The Celan poem Alison refers to is "Todtnauberg" (it begins
>with the word
>"Eyebright") & is the record of Celan's visit to H's hut in the Black
>Forest -- a visit that went very badly, from Celan's point of view, as the
>text of the poem shows,if one digs deep enough, by returning etymologically
>to root cyphers for fascism (see my essay "Celan/Heidegger:Translation at
>the Mountain of Death"
>http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/joris/todtnauberg.html )
>
>A belated nappy ewe's ear for everyone,
>
>Pierre
>
>>
>>  I thought the most controversial aspect of Heidegger was that he
>>  _never_ apologised or even commented on his support for Nazism.
>>  (That famous "eyebright" poem of Celan's, for instance, or Derrida
>>  and Habermas' comments that his post-war silence was his real crime).
>>
>>  One analysis of Heidegger that makes sense to me is Rorty's:  he
>>  claims that H would have thought and written much the same things
>>  about Being and Time had he been a liberal and had spoken out against
>>  anti-Semitism.  He argues against the claim that Heidegger's Nazism
>>  was an essential part of his philosophy (unlike Richard Wolin, say,
>>  in The Politics of Being).  Rorty's fantasy of a Heidegger with an
>>  alternative biography is impossible to prove, of course; but he does
>>  argue pretty convincingly that H's thought is compatible with various
>>  political stances, and that Heidegger was full of contradictions,
>>  like most people, and ought to be approached in that light.  And
>  > there's a certain crudity in simply saying that Heidegger was a Nazi
>  > and therefore anyone who reads him is an acolyte of Hitler.
>>
>>  Best
>>
>>  A
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________
>Pierre Joris            Just out from Wesleyan UP:
>6 Madison Place
>Albany NY 12202                 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999
>Tel:  (518) 426-0433
>Fax: (518) 426-3722     go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm
>Email: joris@ albany.edu
>Url: <http://www.albany.edu/~joris>
>____________________________________________________________________________
>_


--


Alison Croggon

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