Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Hating on Heidegger

If you read Arts & Letters Daily you may have noticed a recent trend: the editors seem to be pushing anti-Martin Heidegger pieces lately. Here are three of them.

This is hardly a new development. If you're unfamiliar with Heidegger, here's a picture of him -- he's the mustachioed fellow sitting above the dark x at the bottom of the pic:

Now, if you're asking yourself, "What are all of those swastikas doing in the background?" there's a perfectly good explanation for that: Heidegger was a Nazi. He's also considered to be one of the most brilliant philosophers of the 20th century. It's been a debate that has raged in the philosophical community since the end of WWII with the typical ebbs and flows between both sides of the disagreement (here are two opposing views to those above).

So are we entering a period of anti-Heidegger furor or just another author getting attention for publishing an anti-Heidegger tract?

1 comment:

illusory tenant said...

"Heidegger was charged [with] incitement of students against 'reactionary' professors."

Sort of like David Horowitz?