Heidegger and National Socialism
By Laure Paquette, Ph.D.
Abstract
This article examines two questions. Did Heidegger’s philosophy give support to National Socialism? And if so, why? This article reviews the evidence that Heidegger provided some philosophical foundation to Nazism. It also provides an admittedly provocative hypothesis and discusses some the evidence about why he did so: that to uproot and reject the parts of his work that support Nazism is to discover a weakness in his work, a weakness that reduces its significance. The story of Martin Heidegger and Nazism is a potent cautionary tale for any scholar who comes after him.
For most professors of philosophy, the notion that a controversy in the discipline could spill over into the front pages of the national dailies and provide colleagues with bestselling books is nothing more than a fantasy. In
This article examines two questions. Did Heidegger’s philosophy give support to National Socialism? And if so, why? This article reviews the evidence that Heidegger provided some philosophical foundation to Nazism. It also provides an admittedly provocative hypothesis and discusses some the evidence about why he did so: that to uproot and reject the parts of his work that support Nazism is to discover a weakness in his work, a weakness that reduces its significance. The story of Martin Heidegger and Nazism is a potent cautionary tale for any scholar who comes after him.
Support for Nazism
That Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party is undisputed. We also know that he accepted the chair from which his Jewish supervisor, Edmund Husserl, has been forced. He later became the Nazi appointed rector of the
There is no question, then, that Heidegger went much further than was necessary for survival as an academic. He personally profited by the patronage of Nazis, and by their anti-Semitic actions. However, he did apologize after World War II, and was rehabilitated within a few years. [9] That his apologies were lukewarm and self-serving seems clear. In the post-war period, Heidegger used the concept of essence as a foundation for the cult of essence of the German people.[10] It was also after World War II that Heidegger also compared a system of agriculture to the death columns bringing Jews to the ovens.[11] What is critical to this argument, however, is the question of whether he provided any foundation for Nazi thinking.
The Great Contribution
Heidegger’s great contribution in metaphysics, and in particular in ontology, was only to shift the point of view when engaged in the scientific study of being, not in fact to launch a new paradigm. Instead an observer looking at a being from the outside, also observing being as a reality in interaction with other realities, Heidegger adopts the point of view of the being itself observing its own nature and the nature of other realities. This is done in Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics and Time and Being -- moving from outside observer, also a being, before one or more beings, to that of being under self-study, and surveying the situation from there.[12] In Concepts fondamentaux Heidegger calls this the flow of the object towards the subject.[13] History of the Concept of Time, « Knowing as a derivative mode of the in-being of Dasein, » confirms the flow of object to subject.[14] Heidegger discusses the structure of knowledge, in relation to the structure of being. [15]
That this is a contribution of immense significance requiring genius is not in question. However, Heidegger himself credits the contribution on flow of object-subject relations to Hegel: « This turning back of the determinate into itself, while precisely not escaping to another determinate outside itself, belongs to the essence of infinity. But this turning back of the other into the one, whereby the difference becomes a non-difference and wherein what is differentiated remains preserved and sublated…is to be shown in the Phenomenology.”[16] Hegel is not cited in Being and Time.[17]
Once Heidegger had established that new point of view and explored its possibilities, he used it to found a new philosophical paradigm, in effect overstating its theoretical significance. From claiming primordial importance for this new point of view on being, it was only a step further to making the characteristics of being of equally primordial importance. Heidegger’s Sein is always a human being, and moreover a being conscious of being a being. Although Heidegger does not say so, he always refers to a being which has to be human, precisely because it is endowed with self-awareness. If that being happens to be human, and much of Heidegger’s text show that it must be human, then characteristics of humanity become of primordial importance. It even becomes possible to rank-order the importance of those characteristics. From there, it is again only a step to rank-order human beings themselves according to their characteristics. Heidegger promotes being, and therefore the human being, as the fulcrum of origin.[18] Concepts fondamentaux, the first work of Heidegger’s maturity, is where there first occurs what I call this: ontological fundamentalism.[19]
It all began with Heidegger no longer believing in God. That he did once is clear: he was a seminary student; there is a mention of reverence for God as late as his dissertation, Traité des catégories et de la signification chez Duns Scot.[20] Heidegger’s Concept of Time is a lecture given to the Marburg Theological Society in July 1924, and discusses the difference between a theologian and a philosopher.[21] «If our access to God is faith and if involving oneself with eternity is nothing other than this faith, then philosophy will never have eternity and, accordingly, we will never be able to employ eternity methodologically as a possible respect in which to discuss time. Philosophy can never be relieved of this perplexity. The theologian then is the legitimate expert on time…the philosopher does not believe. If the philosopher asks about time, then he has resolved to understand time in terms of time…which looks like eternity but proves to be a mere derivative of being temporal.” [22]
From Introduction to Metaphysics, it is possible to see that he substituted the notion of being for all that is immanent: “…anyone for whom the Bible is divine revelation and truth already has the answer to the question…before it is even asked; beings, with the exception of God Himself, are created by Him. »[23] Paul Kidder’s discussion of Heidegger’s ontology shows that his notion of being, even before self-awareness and desire to know, ought still to be finite and limited if transcendence of any kind is to be allowed in the philosophical system.[24]
There is evidence of ontological fundamentalism in several of Heidegger’s works. In Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, the point of view of being instead of that of the observer. That point of view is so basic, so primordial that it is not possible to distinguish time from being.[25] In Fundamentals of Metaphysics, Heidegger discusses the fact that ‘the animal is poor in world’ and that ‘man is world-forming.’[26] Being and Time is brilliant in every way.[27] But the ontological fundamentalism is there also. “In directing itself toward… and in grasping something, Da-sein does not first go outside of the inner sphere in which it is initially encapsulated, but, rather, in its primary kind of being, it is always already ‘outside’ together with some being encountered in the world already discovered. Nor is any inner sphere abandoned when Da-sein dwells together with a being to be know and determines its character. Rather, even in this ‘being outside’ together with its object, Da-sein is ‘inside,’ correctly understood; that is, it itself exists as the being-in-the-world which knows.”[28] Heidegger gives the impression that he is describing what he perceives, but he has defined Da-sein himself, and he is the one who is assigning it the characteristics. Those characteristics are essential because otherwise it would be impossible to avoid the conclusion that there is a supreme being, and one wonders if this was not utilitarian.[29] Again in Concepts Fondamentaux, Heidegger promotes here being (and a human being) as being the fulcrum of origin. « Si l’homme des Temps Nouveaux éprouve tant de difficulté à se retrouver dans l’essentiel, cela tient visiblement à ce qu’à d’autre égards il connaît trop de choses, quand il ne s’imagine pas tout connaître. » [30] He does so again later.[31]
Only he is actually speaking of a being with characteristics such that it can only be a human being, not beings in general. It is hard to see how he manages to avoid including other types of beings, including transcendent ones, with this treatment of Dasein. Moreover, he only treats of a particular category of being, humans. Otherwise, he would have had to philosophize over matter and not being. He may have given certain traits to human beings to avoid dealing with the issue of transcendent beings. In other words, he is anthropocentric only when it serves his argument. The central property of Dasein is awareness of being and engagement of this self-consideration. If Dasein has an awareness powerful enough to become aware of being, then why doesn’t this same Dasein use it in a variety of other ways? Again, this path leads directly to transcendence -- a very capable, but a very selective, argument. If we accept that, it is possible to wonder whether he was tempted by a sort of ontological fundamentalism, and where this temptation of such fundamentalism absolutism was generalized or shows up elsewhere in his work. [32]
Laziness or Obfuscation?
All this leads me to speculate about why Heidegger’s language was so obscure – did he wish to avoid being understood, about the loss of immanence, about putting humankind at the centre of the universe, about creating a hierarchy of human beings? He had to have been aware of it: in Nietzsche, he was clearly aware of the problems posed by transcendence, but instead of trying to solve them he simply did away the possibility of transcendence. [33]
He overestimated the value of his own arguments, but even this means they should have been too important for him not to revise them to some extent. Being and Time is brilliant in every way, particularly the introduction.[34] But the introduction itself, far more clear and more cogent than many parts of Heidegger’s work, shows the potential for greater clarity. He had to invent his own vocabulary, which may well have been necessary, but he also uses existing words while changing their definition. In Elucidations of Holderlin’s Poetry, what is most interesting is the fact that Heidegger says that he turned to poetry because the words he needed did not yet exist to express the entirety of his thought, and that he had never given the fullness of his thought in his books because he lack terminology. Contemporaries of Heidegger were also working on being, and they several of them were much more clear in their writing than he. Karl Jaspers’ Introduction to Philosophy, for example, provides an excellent contrast. Heidegger must have known his work, since the two corresponded.[35] There is not much with which to choose between laziness and obfuscation. The only hint comes from the fact that Heidegger also occasionally changes his levels of abstraction without mentioning it, perhaps without even realizing it himself.[36] Heidegger’s taste for secrecy also supports this hypothesis.[37] There is even an account of Heidegger being warned by one of his professors, Ernst Jünger, on the dangers of looking for originating fantasies and myths.[38]
Conclusion
That he personally benefited early in his career from the atmosphere of anti-Semitism in
The above reasoning supports to Emmanual Faye’s argument that Heidegger and his literary executors tried to obscure the link with Nazism.[39] What is most damning in Faye’s evidence, of course, is the fact that the seminar on Heraclitus was revised by Heidegger himself before it was published, as well as the seminar on Nietzsche. Faye concludes that « …au fond du questionnement heidegerrien, il n’y a pas …une intuition spirituelle ou une pensée inspiratrice, mais au contraire un vide… ». [40] Could his literary executors have been trying to protect him? One needs to await the translation of the documents from Heidegger’s youth to discuss in more detail how he came to reject transcendence, for example. The same can be said of the documentation about denazification in the French sector between 1945 and 1947.
Pride goes before a fall. Heidegger or his executors could protect his reputation and his archives for up to twenty years after his death, but eventually files were opened. His legacy can now take its proper place in history, not, perhaps, the heights he has been held to achieve, but a dignified and significant place nonetheless. The final answer may be found in his correspondence with Herbert Marcuse is damning.[41] How could a philosopher who understood western Philosophy better than anyone else fail to see where Nazism was inevitably leading? I am forced to conclude that Heidegger did not know because he did not want to know.
[1] Eric Loret, "Heidegger lasse," Liberation,
[2] Stuart Elden, “National Socialism and the Politics of Calculation,” Social And Cultural Geography 7:5 (Oct 2006), 753-769; J. Agassi, “Heidegger Made Simple (and Offensive),” Philosophy of social Sciences 34:3 (Sept 2004), 423-431; J. Phillips, “Heidegger’s roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 12:1 (2003), 85-88.
[3] Martin Heidegger, Textes divers (M. Haar, ed. Paris : L’Herne, 1983).
[4] (New York: Wisdom, 1965).
[5] (
[6] (New York : Harper, 1991).
[7] Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger, L’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie (Paris: Albin Michel, 2005).
[8] Jean Pierre Faye, Le piège (Paris : Balland, 1994).
[9] Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).
[10] Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie (Albin Michel, 2005), 140.
[11] Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 287.
[12] Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (Indiana University Press, 1995); Time and Being (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).
[13] Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (translated by Daniel Panis; Paris: Gallimard, 1992).
[14] History of the Concept of Time (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 94ss.
[15] History of the Concept of Time (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 163.
[16] Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 78.
[17] Time and Being (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).
[18] particularly in the fifth section, and especially p. 52ss. Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (translated by Daniel Panis;
[19] Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (translated by Daniel Panis; Paris: Gallimard, 1992).
[20] Traité des catégories et de la signification chez Duns Scot (Paris : Gallimard, 1970).
[21] Concept of Time (London : Blackwell, 1992).
[22] Concept of Time (London : Blackwell, 1992), 1.
[23] Introduction to Metaphysics, (translated by Ralph Manheim;
[24] Paul Kidder, “The Lonergan-Heidegger Difference,” Philosophy & Theology 15:2 (2003), 273-298.Kidder uses deity, not immanence, in his argument.
[25] Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (Indiana University Press, 1984).
[26] Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, op. cit., 192.
[27] (New York : SUNY, 1996).
[28] Being and Time (translated by Joan Stambaugh,
[29] Elucidations of Holderlin’s Poetry, (
[30]Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (translated by Daniel Panis; Paris: Gallimard, 1992). 29.
[31]Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (translated by Daniel Panis; Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 85.
[32] Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (Indiana University Press, 1984), 149.
[33] Nietzsche (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), vol. II, 101.
[34] (New York : SUNY, 1996).
[35] Martin Heidegger, Correspondance avec Karl Jaspers 1920-1963 (Paris: Gallimard, 1997).
[36] Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker;
[37] Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie (Albin Michel, 2005), 22.
[38] Pierre Bourdieu, Ontologie politique de Martin Heidegger (Paris : Minuit, 1988), 26.
[39] Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie (Albin Michel, 2005).
[40] Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie (Albin Michel, 2005), 363.
[41] Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 179.
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