Description

What does it mean when a radical understanding of National Socialism is inextricably embedded in the work of the twentieth centurys most important philosopher

Martin Heideggers sympathies for the conservative revolution and National Socialism have long been well known As the rector of the University of Freiburg in the early 1930s he worked hard to reshape the university in accordance with National Socialist policies He also engaged in an allout struggle to become the movements philosophical preceptor to lead the leader Yet for years Heideggers defenders have tried to separate his political beliefs from his philosophical doctrines They argued in effect that he was good at philosophy but bad at politics But with the 2014 publication of Heideggers Black Notebooks it has become clear that he embraced a far more radical vision of the conservative revolution than previously suspected His dissatisfaction with National Socialism it turns out was mainly that it did not go far enough The notebooks show that far from being separated from Nazism Heideggers philosophy was suffused with it In this book Richard Wolin explores what the notebooks mean for our understanding of arguably the most important philosopher of the twentieth century and of his ideasand why his legacy remains radically compromised