Book Description
When they first met in 1925, Martin Heidegger was a star of German intellectual life and Hannah Arendt was his earnest young student. What happened between them then will never be known, but both would cherish their brief intimacy for the rest of their lives.
The ravages of history would soon take them in quite different directions. After Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, Heidegger became rector of the university in Freiburg, delivering a notorious pro-Nazi address that has been the subject of considerable controversy. Arendt, a Jew, fled Germany the same year, heading first to Paris and then to New York. In the decades to come, Heidegger would be recognized as perhaps the most significant philosopher of the twentieth century, while Arendt would establish herself as a voice of conscience in a century of tyranny and war.
Illuminating, revealing, and tender throughout, this correspondence offers a glimpse into the inner lives of two major philosophers.
Customer Reviews:
The passionate and morally problematic love of two of the greatest thinkers of the century .......2006-11-30
This collection of letters is as one- sided as the relationship between Heidegger and Arendt was in certain respects. In this collection Heidegger is the one who speaks, over three - fourths of the one- hundred sixty- six letters are his. We do not have key documents, Arendt's early letters to Heidegger which were destroyed either by Heidegger himself or a member of his family.
The relationship in the first stage at Marburg in 1925 was of the great intellectual figure Heidegger, already a person of tremendous reputation, thirty- five married with children, and that of an eighteen old student worshipper. The illicit love affair was clearly passionate and deeply felt on both sides.
However in little more than a year there are signs that he does not mind her going out with a fellow student,and off to study somewhere else a sign perhaps of his being troubled that the affair exposed might cause harm to his reputation.
A second stage came with the rise of the Nazis to power , Arendt's exile, and Heidegger's becoming a collaborator with the Nazi regime. At this stage Arendt becomes disturbed about allegations of Heidegger's anti- Semitism.
The third stage came after a long hiatus in letter - writing. It was only after the war that there was a renewal of their relationship, though it is not clear that this was also a romantic renewal. For by this time Arendt was married to Heinrich Blucher. At this point Arendt played the role of advisor to Heidegger in helping him deal with the charges of collaboration with the Nazis. This chapter is not one which does Arendt credit. Her readiness to not simply excuse Heidegger for his revolting behavior, (including anti- Semitic remarks, dismissal of Jewish colleagues, a use of concepts of his own philosophy in a pro- Nazi speech, ) but to help him get off the hook reflects a loyalty void of all judgment. And this from the philosopher for whom 'judging' was a fundamental philosophical category.
Their post- war reconciliation was prompted and pushed by Heidegger's viciously anti- Semitic wife, Elfreide. Elfreide despised Arendt but understood that she could help Heidegger, and so encouraged the renewal of the relationship. Heidegger for his part never read Arendt's work and could not give her the kind of respect and esteem that she continued to give him.
Heidegger and Arendt are profound souls, and this is felt in the content and tone of these letters. They are people of high ideals and aspirations. They are two of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century. Their story of love and friendship is a fascinating one. And whatever additional light is thrown on this relationship is eagerly seized upon by students of their work. Yet their relationship illicit at the outset , later became even more suspect as it worked to cover up Heidegger's immoral behavior. The dishonesty and evasiseness of Heidegger in dealing with the charges against him is all the more reprehensible as it is that of one whose fundamental enterprise is in striving for Truth.Arendt's excess of caring to protect Heidegger are in painful and troubling contrast with her insensitity to survivors of the Shoah, this of course in her famous 'banality of evil' analysis of the action of Eichmann. Her tone in ' Eichmann in Jerusalem' was contemptuous and superior, a tone she might too have learned from Heidegger. There are those who claim that the final phase of the Heidegger- Arendt relationship involved a reversal in which she was the powerful one and he the one more needing and enslaved. But these letters do not seem to bear this out. Her loyalty to him and love enabled her to continue serving him too well to the end of their days. She died in the latter half of 1976 and he only six months later.
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Some ontics.......2006-07-03
Most of the material in this correspondence between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt shouldn't come as much of a surprise to most students who are familiar with these great thinkers's respective work. Although, there is surprisingly little discussion of the unfortunate political situation of Heidegger, I suppose the de-Nazification trials exhausted the subject. Still, this is a nice collection of letters; what unfolds are the painful vicissitudes of their affair, and the almost complete destruction of their (and their families) lives on account of WWII. What is a pleasure to read here, however, is Heidegger's casual remarks on his serious philosophical projects, it provides an excellent window into his craft. One reaction, though it hardly comes as a surprise: Heidegger was a terrible poet. For example:
"SONATA SONANS"
What rang rings.
It sinks
Into lament's unknown ware's
Sings into what no one dares,
What's formed from the wreath,
Takes place,
Gentle's love and woe
Into the Same.
Etc. Etc.
Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this collection is (at least for me), that it turns the reader into a creepy voyeur who peers into these personal love letters. Still, there is enough scholarly material contained within for scholars and students to make it a worthwhile collection.
Poetry and how personal histories matter.......2005-07-10
Everybody knows what two people in a situation like Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger in 1925, a female student and a married philosophy professor, shouldn't say to each other. With imaginary docudramas filling in the blanks of the lives of so many famous people in ways that fulfill the fantasies of millions of TV viewers, as well as the readers of historical novels, those who watch movies about Samson, and theologians who wonder what Adam and Eve ever saw in the forbidden fruit, it is a relief to be getting some actual documents from a famous romance. Heidegger's fame was growing rapidly at the beginning of this book, and Hannah Arendt was bound to become known for paying attention. The fiftieth item in this book, "Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt: Five Poems," ends with the short poems:
Correspondence
Godless is God
alone, and no
other thing--
death first
corresponds,
to the ring
of Being's poem,
the first.
DEATH
Death is, in the world's own rhyme,
Being's mountain chain.
Death will evade what's yours and mine
in the falling weight
falling toward silence's tor,
star of earth, nothing more.
For the friend's friend (pp. 63-64, prior to a letter dated Febr. 15, 1950).
Hannah Arendt responded in item 127, twenty years later, a few weeks after Heidegger sent her a poem about time, but trying to quote the earlier poem, from New York, on November 27, 1970:
Dear Martin,
For days, weeks, I have wanted to write to you, at least to tell you how much good your letter did me, your sympathy, the time poem as an aid to reflection. Together with the other from many, many years ago
Death is, in the world's design,
Being's mountain chain.
Death will evade what's yours and mine
In the falling weight.
Falling toward silence's tor,
Star of earth, nothing more. (p. 173).
British users of the English language might know that tor is a hill. Heinrich Blucher had died and a memorial service was held at Bard College on November 15. Like soldiers in a time of mounting casualties, people of different ages often have unsettled feelings about death because which will survive is not obvious. Hannah Arendt died in December, 1975, a few months before Heidegger's death in May, 1976. The `Romeo and Juliet' ending of fifty years of being German, Jewish, or American thinkers, bound together by an interest in the years that offered multiple lessons to be learned on both sides, makes this a bit more interesting to me than the other collections of Hannah Arendt's Letters with Karl Jaspers, Mary McCarthy, Hermann Broch, Kurt Blumenfeld, and Heinrich Blucher.
This book mentions Nietzsche or Heidegger's book about Nietzsche about a dozen times, but the interesting comments are in Hannah Arendt's tribute, "Martin Heidegger at eighty" on pages 148-162, and a brilliant short description of Heidegger as a fox in July 1953 which ends with:
But the fox living in the trap said proudly: So many fall into my trap; I have become the best of all foxes. And there was even something true in that: nobody knows the trap business better than he who has been sitting in a trap all his life. (p. 305).
Most of us could apply the trap business view to everything in life that requires our involvement. Longing for a few ideas, we can pick up a book like this as the inside and outside view of an intellectual trap. Lacking the ability to read this book all at once, I had bookmarks in several places for weeks at a time as my ability to comprehend was expanding to get a grip on what this book has to offer. The Index is helpful for those who have particular interests. Minor items like Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor are not to be found in the Index, however much it might have been on Heidegger's mind when he wrote his letter of April 12, 1950, listing Beethoven, opus 111 Adagio, Conclusion as an addressee on page 74 and thanking Hannah for the opportunity to listen to it:
"And now, Hannah, you have, on top of everything, and with a loving word, also given me Beethoven's Opus 111. Its sound has already become kin to the light I mentioned at the beginning of this letter.
"Elfride returns your greeting and kiss with a happy heart and is glad you returned home safely. Say hello to your dear husband from me." (p. 76).
The index does not have an entry for Elfride Heidegger on page 76, but it did list page 74, where Heidegger wrote about "what is loving about love that cast its light into my room when Elfride and you embraced. We will need time to make what has become of us our own: That you came, that what grew close in us became the closest closeness; that Elfride was helpful with all of it, that our love needs her love; that everything, including your safe return home, is reflected, clarified, and validated in everything else."
I'm sure that Nietzsche wrote that a married philosopher, like Socrates, ought to be cast in some comedy, as Aristophanes did with Socrates in `The Clouds' in 423 B.C., a comedy which placed last in the competition with Cratinous and Ameipsias at the Great Dionysia in the month of March, 423 B.C. Fortunately, Aristophanes revised his comedy, so "The Clouds' that we have today, "as purely farcical as the presentation of the philosopher himself suspended in a basket betwixt heaven and earth" in the notes for the Rogers translation, might be much better than running through it the first time. Heidegger's opportunity in these LETTERS to get himself right all over again after five half decades had passed has a miraculous quality, to say the least.
Arendt and Heidegger in Letters.......2004-06-03
This collection of letters is an absolute necessity for anyone interested in Hannah Arendt, and particularly her relationship with the controversial German philosopher (and mentor) Martin Heidegger. The letters are well annotated and there is a helpful introduction as well. The only problem is that there are relatively few letters from Arendt. And those that appear in the collection are somewhat concise, whether from the editing or simply because they were not extensive. As a result, the reader does not get the intimate and expansive view into Arendt's thinking and activities that one comes away with from reading, for example, her collection of letters to and from Mary McCarthy. Of particular interest is the exchange of poetry between the two--somewhat ironic given Heidegger's controversial career and purported anti-Semitism during the Nazi period. One cannot help thinking, as the letters pass by, as to why Arendt chose to treat Heidegger with such kid gloves; nonetheless, there is a touching quality about this late-in-life correspondence of two former lovers. Quite pleasant and informative and not overly technical in philosophical terms.
Finally Available.......2004-03-19
Perhaps it's a sign of the times in which we live, but the biggest stories of recent note in philosophy have been Heidegger's flirtation with National Socialism and the revelation of his affair with his student, Hannah Arendt, in the 1920s. The affair with Arendt has left a bad account of the affair (Ettinger) and a badly written novel in its wake, but perhaps these lumps of fool's gold have led us to the real thing, for they helped persuade Heidegger's son, Herman, to open the private files of his famous father and release these letters to the public. These, along with the letters to Arendt that are extant, comprise a volume that belongs in the library of every serious student of Arendt and Heidegger. It provides a glimpse of the lives and thought of two intellectual giants and of how events led to their estrangement and shaky reconciliation.
The first part of the book comes across as a one-way conversation, as only Heidegger's letters to Arendt are extant. Obviously Heidegger was smart enough to destroy Arendt's letters lest they fall into the hands of Mrs. H. The tone of these early letters is that of a besotted adolescent. Heidegger sends her bad poetry and, in one letter, refers to her as his "little wood nymph." As these letters were meant to be strictly private, we cannot help but suffer the embarrassment of an unintentional voyeur. However, the section ends on an ominous note with a letter from Heidegger in 1933 answering Arendt's charges that he is anti-Semitic. This came shortly after the ascension of Hitler and makes us sad that Heidegger destroyed Arendt's letter making the charges.
The correspondence begins anew after the war and only because Arendt saw it in her heart to forgive her former mentor and in effect bury the hatchet. Heidegger seems most pleased and the letters lead to a personal reconciliation with Arendt visiting Heidegger and his wife in Germany. But all was not to remain quiet. Heidegger had confessed all to his wife, and took her willingness to see Arendt again as a sign all was back to normal, as it were. The letters he sends in 1950 give the impression that he is more than willing to resume their affair; to once again have his cake and eat it, too. But a sudden dispatch from Heidegger warns Arendt to cancel a postponed visit and not to write for a while. Seems Elfride Heidegger was not the willing accomplice her husband believed her to be.
But time heals all and the letters (and visits) resume. Heidegger is more interested in what he is doing and the American response than in what Arendt is doing. In one telling letter, he admits he has no idea of what she means by "radical evil." Another subject on which Arendt treads lightly is that of Karl Jaspers: Jaspers and Heidegger attempted a reconciliation after the war, but failed and each has bitterness toward the other with Arendt playing the diplomat in the middle, though in her letters with Jaspers there is no doubt about whose side she is on.
Another missed opportunity is the sudden death of Merleau-Ponty a few months before he was to meet Heidegger in Marburg. Arendt has a higher opinion of him than does Heidegger, although in a philosophical debate I'd place my money on Merleau-Ponty, whose forays into aesthetics, ontology and physics expose Heidegger as stuck in a neo-Kantian continuum.
All in all, this is the book students of these two intellectual giants have waited for, and I, for one was not disappointed in the least.
Book Description
Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers (including critical theorists, communitarians, and participatory democrats) who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.
Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God (i.e., the collapse of objective correlates to our ideals, ends, and purposes). After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics.
Download Description
Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers (including critical theorists, communitarians, and participatory democrats) who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics. Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God (i.e., the collapse of objective correlates to our ideals, ends, and purposes). After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics.
Book Description
The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt rereads Arendt's political philosophy in light of newly gained insights into the historico-cultural background of her work. Visit our website for sample chapters!
Customer Reviews:
This book was extremely intelligent!.......1999-02-09
Seyla Benhabib is an amazing thinker known throught the world. She displays her intelligence and knowledge through this book.
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- A sad and sordid tale.
- Identification with the aggressor
- Arendt / Heidgger
- a day in the lives of...
- I couldn't possibly be right about this.
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Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger
Elzbieta Ettinger
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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Letters : 1925-1975
ASIN: 0300072546 |
Book Description
This book is the first to tell in detail the story of the passionate and secret love affair between two of the most prominent philosophers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Drawing on their previously unknown correspondence, Elzbieta Ettinger describes a relationship that lasted for more than half a century, a relationship that sheds startling light on both individuals.
Customer Reviews:
A sad and sordid tale........2006-09-14
This slim volume was a book I had chosen thinking that it contained actual correspondence between Arendt and Heidegger. Instead it is the interpretation of these letters along with biographical details to portray the relationship between Arendt and Heidegger. This relationship began as a love affair between Arendt and Heidegger when Arendt was Heidegger's student.
Ettinger's depiction of the interaction between Arendt and Heidegger is painful to read. According to Ettinger, Arendt was slavishly devoted to Heidegger and believed anything he said despite evidence to the contrary. She defended him despite his activities as a Nazi sympathizer. And she assisted Heidegger to restore his reputation after WWII.
Heidegger is presented as a narcissistic manipulator who uses his charisma to cover up his bad behavior, and appears to believe his own lies, becoming angry when people challenged him. Arendt is portrayed as a pathetically willing dupe who is so enthralled by the psychopathic Heidegger that she does not challenge him, and accepts his pretences as the necessary payment to be his friend.
The book is readable but shows little sympathy toward either character. It is a sordid and psychologically simplistic portrait of a relationship. It is to be hoped that there is more to the story than is portrayed here, however the pattern portayed here of emotional dominance and submission is not an uncommon one.
Identification with the aggressor .......2005-01-14
First let me sound completely old- fashioned. The Heidegger - Arendt affair is immoral from the beginning because it is an adulterous relationship.
Secondly, Herr Philosopher did use his power and position to enchant the very enchantable fledgling philosopheress.
Thirdly, however morally distasteful the relationship before the War its renewal afterwards represents a tremendous moral failing on Arendt's part.
Fourthly, Arendt showed in ' Eichmann in Jerusalem' a kind of contempt for her own Jewishness. Her willingness to slip over Heidegger's Nazi connection shows a moral failing at the deepest level. Heidegger is no ordinary person, and as person of stature much more , not much less, should have been expected with him. He identified with those who killed one third of Arendt's people.
Fifthly, Jaspers Arendt's other great mentor and friend was a truly noble person. He set an example in regard to Heidegger which Arendt unfortunately was unable to follow.
Sixthly, Arendt in this relationship from the beginning was the subordinate, the secondary, and in some way the ' slave'. The Jew subordinated to the superior Aryan Heidegger. She never overcame this, and this represents a tremendous moral stain. She was a great thinker and in some of her life actions a noble person but in this relationship she failed the moral test. Heidegger was a Nazi sympathizer. For that reason I believe he deserves his own special place in a very low circle underground.
Arendt / Heidgger.......2002-03-16
The story of Arendt and Heidigger's love affair is an interesting one, and this book is interesting because it tells that story, but for no other reason. The author seems to have chosen this subject becuase she had access to the material in the archive, and not because she had anything to say about the subject. It left me feeling that, aside from a a few gossipy details, I knew no more about either person than before. Not only do Arendt and Heidigger remain elusive, Ettinger does not even seem to want to go after them! Their relationship is primerily of interest becuase of what they thought and wrote: Ettinger presents the few enough facts about their relationship in a readable style, but has no grasp of the thought of either one.
I find it impossible to agree with reviewer quoted on the back of the jacket, that this is "a most valuble book, an important record". It isn't: it's an evening's light reading. I can imagine a biographer of either figure (or a playwright or novelist, for that matter), immersed and *interested* in their work, who will really show us why their relartionship was important. (And why was a book that must of necessity include German names and words set in a typeface without umlauts? Bizarre!)
a day in the lives of..........2002-03-09
Just to be fair: The book is not exhaustive but nor is it "tabloid" as one reviewer put it. And it is certainly not "soft porn". There is nothing "lurid" in these pages. The writing is, as the more fair-minded reviewer suggested, restrained in a respectful way, to all parties concerned.
This brief account does not set out to describe the impact the affair had on the two individuals' respective work. For anyone to demand such an account seems to me totally unreasonable: That a private passion of the heart always impacts one's intellectual work is by no means a given.
What this book shows you, regardless of the subjective tinge the author may have imposed on the characters in question, is the mystery of the workings of the heart. Ettinger sketches a portrait of a woman in love but not just any woman, but a woman of exceptional intelligence, expansive soul, and loyalty -- to her own ideals of friendship. Cloying speculations concerning the psychological causes -- childhood traumas, etc -- that may have led these two individuals to live and love the way they did are left out and the book is the more elegant and tactful for it.
To call Arendt a naif for the way she allowed herself to be "abused over and over again" would be to admit to total lack of understanding of the very nature of love. Arendt shows over and over her desire, need, psychosis -- choose your favorite term -- to forgive a man who in many ways was unforgiveable. Love does that.
In this double portrait of two people who happened to be academic thinkers, some 50 years is rendered as if it were a day. Heidegger comes off here as a man not above the sort of pettiness and calculation you and I lapse into occasionally, while Arendt is portrayed, without forcing any evidence to this purpose, as the kind of woman who could leave behind a legacy of not only of thinking but also of loving in the grand style. Great and important as Heidegger may be in the history of western philosophy, he may, alas, very well have been one of those gnomish professors we've all come across in our lives: brilliant and thus all the more annoying when they put their intelligence and intellect in the service of self-serving calculation. This book, written in clear prose and balance, confirms the disturbing (and disappointing) fact character and thought are not always equally winged.
Forget the names of the characters involved. Read it as a document of a love that would have made a great B&W movie as well, with the late Ingrid Bergman as Arendt, and Mickey Rooney as Heidegger.
I couldn't possibly be right about this........2002-03-09
The German tradition in philosophy has been so notoriously wrong about the nature of women so often that it is only fair that I, who usually appears as nobody in the world of philosophy as often as I am wrongly genedered in any attempt to belong to the world of women, have to read this book occasionally to remind myself how unfair this whole question must be in any context. That philosophy, as a love of wisdom, might be compared to a love of women, as the kind of passion that Mozart might attempt to display in operatic splendor in "Don Giovanni" (I think this is the most reasonable opera that I have ever heard) faces grave danger in a book in which the man who has embraced most totally the greatness of philosophy (who but Heidegger might want this distinction?), is slammed for having an unreasonable love life. For all I know, this might have been the story of a philosopher who might as well have thought that all was fair in love and war, but it is really the story of the woman. The perfection in this book, for me, was the idea that Heidegger might have been offended when Arendt triumphantly returned to Germany as the author of a book on totalitarianism in which the style of the Nazi regime, which Heidegger supported in certain official capacities, was treated like communism under Stalin, the kind of enemy of freedom that modern people ought to be able to understand in a negative light much better than anything positive that I could say at this point. I doubt if I would have had much interest in Hannah Arendt, if not for this book. It made me wish that I could be that smart.
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Correspondencia 1925 - 1975 - Arendt- Heidegger
Hannah Arendt , and
Martin Heidegger
Manufacturer: Herder & Herder
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ASIN: 8425421098 |
Book Description
Martin Heidegger is perhaps the twentieth century's greatest philosopher, and his work stimulated much that is original and compelling in modern thought. A seductive classroom presence, he attracted Germany's brightest young intellects during the 1920s. Many were Jews, who ultimately would have to reconcile their philosophical and, often, personal commitments to Heidegger with his nefarious political views.
In 1933, Heidegger cast his lot with National Socialism. He squelched the careers of Jewish students and denounced fellow professors whom he considered insufficiently radical. For years, he signed letters and opened lectures with ''Heil Hitler!'' He paid dues to the Nazi party until the bitter end. Equally problematic for his former students were his sordid efforts to make existential thought serviceable to Nazi ends and his failure to ever renounce these actions.
This book explores how four of Heidegger's most influential Jewish students came to grips with his Nazi association and how it affected their thinking. Hannah Arendt, who was Heidegger's lover as well as his student, went on to become one of the century's greatest political thinkers. Karl Löwith returned to Germany in 1953 and quickly became one of its leading philosophers. Hans Jonas grew famous as Germany's premier philosopher of environmentalism. Herbert Marcuse gained celebrity as a Frankfurt School intellectual and mentor to the New Left.
Why did these brilliant minds fail to see what was in Heidegger's heart and Germany's future? How would they, after the war, reappraise Germany's intellectual traditions? Could they salvage aspects of Heidegger's thought? Would their philosophy reflect or completely reject their early studies? Could these Heideggerians forgive, or even try to understand, the betrayal of the man they so admired? Heidegger's Children locates these paradoxes in the wider cruel irony that European Jews experienced their greatest calamity immediately following their fullest assimilation. And it finds in their responses answers to questions about the nature of existential disillusionment and the juncture between politics and ideas.
Customer Reviews:
The Second of Wolin's Books I've Read.......2006-08-09
This book ends by stating "Only an understanding of Heidegger's children that appreciates their relationship to the German catastrophe and the traumas it bred will prove capable of doing justice to their powerful and complex philosophical legacy." This sentence could as easily have begun the book, for it effectively introduces what Wolin set out to do: to present the intellectual and historical roots of Heidegger's "children" (Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, Herbert Marcuse).
Whether he succeeds in this depends upon how one understands the lineage of intellectual development, and how to account for any thinking that appears new. Wolin is excellent at providing parallel and complementary ideas from the milieu in which each of the "children" lived and worked. He has a gifted eye for similar and potentially influential observations and arguments; whether that means he has explained the finished product represented by each of the title subjects' works, is a distinct question.
I'm glad to have read Wolin--it was time worth spending. There were numerous proofreading errors ('it' instead of 'if', e.g.) that are unsettling in a mode of writing that heavily depends upon precision about often complex distinctions, but the gist of his writing is never in doubt. My understanding of Heidegger's philosophy and specifically of his relationship to national socialism, has definitely been enhanced.
It is Wolin's core use of what I call "contagion theory," that gives me greatest pause about both his analysis in this volume and the overall utility of his work. I found myself mentally summoning a voice from America's Fifties, asking "Have you ever been, or are you now..." in considering just how I should frame and weigh the by-now predictable Wolin approach in addressing thinkers of whom he disapproves.
For disapproval it is, far more than mere disagreement. Give the man his due: he's thoughtful and obviously bright. Whether this means his "contagion" analysis is substantively or even fatally flawed, is for me an open question...as is whether it would be time well spent to read yet another of his volumes.
An acceptable inquiry into Heidegger's legacy.......2006-07-06
Richard Wolin's "Heidegger's Children" is an overview of Heidegger's pupils, Heidegger's effect on them philosophically and the position of Heidegger's political choices in this relation. Judging by the tone and a general lack of depth, the book is mostly intended for people of intellectual caliber but not very well-versed in the subject, which makes it excellent for academics who know nothing about Heidegger, for example. Of course this will not satisfy any real Heidegger scholar, but contrary to other reviewers, I don't think that's necessarily a problem.
Wolin's rapid overview of the philosophies of Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse is generally good, and critical where deserved. He never really goes into the issues with their works themselves, but stays on the subject of the connection between their thought and Heidegger, often mainly relying on biographical analysis. Wolin's overall tone in reflecting on Heidegger and his pupils is that of the 'left-liberal' (continentally speaking) wondering what could have gone wrong, which is a bit annoying at times, but should not bother the reader too much.
On the whole, the book succeeds well for its purpose, but is a little superficial. One also would have wished that the two chapters on Heidegger himself had been in the front of the book instead of the back, since now one is basically 'reading backwards' into what Heidegger thought, so to speak. The conclusion is also rather stronger in criticism than the book itself allows. Therefore, I would recommend it mostly for intellectuals who want a basic overview of four of Heidegger's main pupils, but not for those knowledgeable about Heidegger or interested in an in-depth analysis of his work.
Wherefore loyalty?.......2004-01-31
The controversy over Heidegger is likely to continue into future generations. One of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century, he blotted his copybook (so to speak) by becoming one of the leading intellectuals of the National-Socialist movement in Germany in the 1930s, changing from a professor who attracted the best and brightest of students from all over Europe to one of the more rigid and dogmatic defenders of Nazi ideals, even at the expense of colleagues, students and friends. Even after the destruction of Germany, Heidegger remained unrepentent about his history and views.
This book, while a stand-alone text, represents the conclusion of a multi-volume task to examine Heidegger's work and intellectual legacy. The first two texts, 'The Politics of Being' and 'The Heidegger Controversy', represented an attempt to look both the politics and the philosophy of Heidegger -- the latter book having created a bit of a fire-storm due to the inclusion of an article by Derrida, who objected to the inclusion.
One of the more bizarre twists in the tale of Heidegger, however, was in the continuing intellectual development of his legacy among his Jewish students. Many of the top students in Heidegger's following in the 1920s and early 1930s were Jewish, and they would ultimately have to reconcile their associations and attachments to Heidegger (the person and the philosophical ideas) in response or reaction to his actions. Richard Wolin's text looks specifically at four key figures: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse.
All of these four thinkers, acclaimed in their own rights, considered themselves more assimilated Germans than Jews; however, this was not the thinking of the powers-that-were in the 1930s/40s Germany. Each would have to, in the course of careers including academia and writing, have to reconcile to the past idolisation of Heidegger. Germany was, after all, the centre of culture, a nation of writers and thinkers, all to go horribly mad. Wolin's introductory chapter sets a context -- the real problem for Heidegger's students was to determine whether or not there was something integral, something necessary in the connection between the political totalitarian and vicious National-Socialism and Heidegger's existentialist ideas. Wolin gives a brief overview of the development of philosophy to existentialism. In the second chapter, Wolin gives a brief history of German-Jewish relationships, and looks to the points of divergence that culminated in holocaust.
Wolin devotes a chapter to each of the key 'children'. Hannah Arendt was not only Heidegger's student, but also carried on an affair with him, making Heidegger's betrayal personal as well as political. Arendt's problem was not just a 'Heidegger problem', but also a 'Jewish problem', in the sense of her writing allowing that the line between victim and villain was not as distinct as might be believed. Karl Lowith is less well known outside the German speaking world, but his work in philosophy has made him a significant figure, particularly in examining the history of philosophical development -- this development is very much in line with much of Heidegger's methodology, despite the obvious problem that such development leads to a Heidegger. Hans Jonas did confront Heidegger's past openly and publically, in lecture format no less, causing a shift from theological Heideggerian developments such that the trend fell quickly from vogue. Herbert Marcuse is perhaps the most interesting development among Heidegger's children, having been more of an interested pupil rather than proto-disciple; Marcuse combined Heideggerian influences into a general Marxist framework.
In the final chapters, Wolin looks at the overall synthesis and development of these ideas, the post-war German and European intellectual experience, and the problems and strengths that continue from Heidegger's primary work, 'Being and Time". In the conclusion, Wolin states that while it is hard to find better histories of philosophy than those produced by Heidegger and his students, they make the mistakes of confusing philosophy and history, and this can also explain part of Heidegger's general political trouble.
There are a few issues -- Wolin is occasionally choppy, and sometimes repetitious needlessly. Also, Wolin's lack of inclusion of a few key figures (Strauss comes to mind here) leaves something to be desired. However, the construction with the four figures here is well-done and thorough. This is a fascinating text, highlighting a lesser-known but strangely pervasive strand in intellectual history, and helps to highlight difficulties and opportunities in the continuing development out of the work of Heidegger.
Heidegger's Children.......2002-06-12
Wolin appears to be a decent philospher and researcher, but
he needs to learn how to write. Herky jerky style and skewed syntax make this one an almost impossible read. Sorry folks, but
I have to rate this one as unintelligable garble.
Wolin, Gossip Columnist to the Philosophers.......2002-05-12
You have to give Wolin credit for choosing a very deserving topic, and the relationship of Heidegger to his many disciples, and especially his Jewish disciples, is worthy of a big fat book. This is not that book. First, he leaves out Leo Strauss, arguably the most interesting case among Heidegger's Jewish students, and the one with the most critical stance towards his teacher. Second, Wolin's ignores the basic fact that the antimodern views of "Heidegger's children" were shared by many in Weimar Germany who never studied with Heidegger. Marcuse, Arendt, etc. were more children of their time and place than of Heidegger.
Wolin also attributes to Heidegger an antimodernism that his philosophy itself dismantles. The real story of Heidegger's Nazism is not how much his philosophy accomodated Nazism but how little mind the opportunistic philosopher paid his own philosophy when the party called. Wolin gives Heidegger more credit for being principled than he deserves. Wolin also pays too much attention to deciphering Heidegger's opinions from his biography and too little time actually reading Heidegger. In fact, at no point in the book does Wolin betray ever having read Being and Time.
Let us take one example of Wolin's woeful prosecutorial method. He refers to some pamphlets that Heidegger wrote as a student for a Catholic, antimodern publisher. In the pamphlets, Wolin reports, Heidegger valorizes reason and strict rationality above the modern devotion to the self, an unsurprising argument coming from a seminary student. Wolin then draws a straight line from that antimodern Catholic upbringing to Heidegger's later devotion for the Fuhrer. This is perhaps the first time that Thomas Aquinas has ever being accused of encouraging Nazism.
One of the most interesting things about Heidegger's students is that they reached such a broad audience in America. Marcuse and friends were the stars of a worldwide youth movement despite having thick German accents. The commanded such a large audience in part because they were so much more impressive than their colleagues. Wolin does not give sufficient weight to the possibility that Heidegger's students may have learned something worthwhile from their teacher. Wolin is too busy contorting himself into fits of indignant censure.
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