I really welcome back to the new thing. I'm Alex Spreo. You can tell by my voice that David is not here, but we have a far greater man in the, as our third person, that's Professor Richard Valkley. But we don't mean greater in terms of size, I'm guessing.
No. That's hard to surpass our... David. Quite a corpulent fellow.
I'm actually a little worried about him. How was? Well, obviously, always, but also I guess, we have to be honest, reading, apparently, sort of got him in a funk. He was all this Heidegger and Nietzsche.
He just kept texting me, God has taught, and then something about an abyss. And I think he's fallen into the abyss. Well, thankfully, he's big enough that he should clog it. I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, it's bad news. Well, nevertheless, forget him. We're just thrilled to have back on the show Richard Valkley to sort of continue our conversation from before and to take it in another direction. And it was one of our most downloaded episodes.
We got a lot of great feedback on it on Twitter. And so our fans, the folks at home are going to be really excited to have another conversation with Professor Valkley. Yeah, welcome, Professor Valkley. Nice.
Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be here and talk with you again. Maybe I can just, as an introduction, just say this is a follow up of our last conversation, which was on Heidegger and Strauss. We're now going to go into a discussion of Heidegger and Nazism.
At the end, I think we'll get a little bit to Strauss's comments or thoughts on this. But for those interested in the subject matter, I'll direct you again to his book Heidegger Strauss and the Premisees of Philosophy on Original Forgetting. That's from University of Chicago Press, I believe from 2011, right? Can I just say Professor Valkley, we're now Facebook pals, you and I.
And I see that this book has now been published in a variety of other languages, other languages, right? It has appeared already in Mandarin and French. It's now being translated into Italian. Wow.
I hope the Germans will eventually get around to reading it. They want to translate into things. They really will, they are. That's right.
That's right. That's right. I'll put you all to reading that. Richard also sent along an essay that was published in 2017, which I really enjoyed, which if you want, the title is Political Philosophy and the Ontological Question, preliminary remarks on Heidegger and Strauss.
So if you want a sort of overview introduction to his thoughts, I think this essay is a fantastic place to begin. But also you have a novella that came out just last year or the year before. Strauss was create cave and you told me, we spoke the other day that you're working on a sequel, right? I have some plans.
I have some plans. They're not very advanced. Well, so something may come. We're hoping we're hoping one day.
So this is, let's get into the subject matter. This is a hot button issue. Writing on Heidegger and Nazism is a little bit of a cottage history. Everybody has their take.
One of the reasons I think it's worthwhile to have a conversation with you is because you don't engage in sort of mere apologetics or Heidegger or condemnation. You don't attempt to save his thought from his political action in order to reduce it. You really do, I think, try to present a nuance and sober assessment of his thought and these actions and reading, you suggest that we read chapters four and six of your book, which were very, very helpful, particularly chapter six. But maybe to just get us started, you could give us a sort of rundown of what happened.
Heidegger and the Nazis, clarifying the historical record from his account of things, but also just where are the mechanics of how he got himself involved with the Nazis? Oh, all right. Well, it's a complicated story and it's been a very, a topic of very lively discussion for some time. I'll mention that it became quite lively in the 1980s when a couple of books appeared, which discussed facts concerning Heidegger's association with the Nazis and which it was previously not been known.
And then this controversy got new life just about seven years ago when in 2014 a collection of notebooks from 1931 to 1941 was published, 14 volumes, notebooks, and that stirred up more discussion of Heidegger's attitude toward Jews for their thesis on very well, controversy on unpleasant things, the language we can go into. All of this raised the questions about what was the nature of his involvement with Nazism, how fully engaged was he with it, and how does that relate to his philosophical thought. But as you say, I think we should begin with mentioning some facts about his life to provide a context. So Heidegger was raised in a very modest family in rural Southwest Germany in a very conservative Catholic region.
And in his early years, he had his major interest with theology. He entered the seminary and he wrote some articles for Catholic publications, highly critical of modernity, critical of the idea of modern idea of autonomy, modern naturalist or materialist principles, and the emphasis on individualistic feeling and thought. And there's some continuity between this early set of attitudes, anti-modern attitudes, and further development of his thinking. He became acquainted with philosophy in the first place Aristotle, which always remained very interested in the rest of his life.
Then he read phenomenology and decided he would like to study phenomenology with Edmund Bisserl at the University of Freiburg. But he had superiors at the seminary, didn't want to let him devote himself to a doctoral degree there. They thought it would distract him from his duties, and Heidegger was furious, and left the seminary in Bitterton actually towards the Catholic church. And my concern is that he had significant changes in his thinking occurred, close around the time of the First World War.
And we won't go into many details about how Aristotle thought that the direction of his interest in phenomenology was focused on the question of being, which distinguished him from Bisserl, for his teacher, who was extremely important for him, focused in phenomenology on the questions of perception and knowledge. So Heidegger and Heidegger took over a certain Aristotelian concern with the question of what is being and proceeded to investigate it's in, let us say, more and a more modern or a phenomenological fashion. At the same time, he was influenced by Kierkegaard's existentialism and the philosophy of life in Jil-Dong, Dil-Tani. We might go into how that would reorient him also with this question.
But he taught in the 1920s at the University of Freiburg first in the University of Marvorg and returned to Freiburg at the end of the 1920s. And during this time Heidegger had no political engagements. He didn't belong to a political party. He did not mention political matters in his courses.
And he earned to politics only in a significant way when the Nazi movement arose, evidently he was made aware of it by some students. And then when in 1933 Hitler came to power, a dramatic change in Heidegger's life occurred, he was elected a record of the University of Freiburg, who was already a philosophical figure and elected the rector. And then just about a week after the election, he enrolled May 1, 1933, and already a member. And then at the end of the month of May, he gave a famous address, a rectoral address, called the self-assertion of the German University, which is a certain strong affirmation of the revolution that was underway.
But we'll get into the nature of that affirmation a little later. So at this point his concern was something political was unmistakable. And in shock to actually quite a few people who didn't think that Heidegger would make such a move. He, however, had a difficult time as way and resigned from the post less than a year after assuming the position.
Now, his record is not at all admirable. He did prevent some Jewish faculty from emotions and appointments. And he needs speeches to the University, which strongly encouraged commitment to the new regime. He did other things which the authorities didn't like.
He forbade the burning of books, campus, which the student, not the Association, wanted. He resisted some of the demands for national socialist appointments. So when he appointed a sub-deans who were not national social, he received a strong review of them. And then at that point he resigned.
This meant that he gave up all association with the Nazi regime. And in a lecture course, a couple of years after this, he in fact spoke of the inner truth and greatness of national social. At the same time, in that same sentence, he takes a swipe at what he calls pedaling of national socialist thought, or what is called national socialist thought. He never did affirm some basic tenets of the Nazi movement.
He did not favor the biological racist theories and the black notebook, which a lot of his private thoughts are in these years, a show that he thought of the Nazi movement as an inferior form of political life in the end. I mean, that is technologically oriented based on a kind of materialist out of the human and in general of anti philosophical and seeking to subordinate philosophy and everything in university to a highly political conception of society. And how he could never became really a strong proponent of the politicization of the Nazi terms. Now, it's still a case that he remained a nationalist and his disillusionment with the Nazis never led him to wish for the victory of the democratic allies.
And he never praised after the war, the Western democracy's effects go so critically on them his outlook consistently was anti capitalist anti socialist, at least in the left wing social sense, although it was a retro-aggression, it was simply certain socialism after all national socialism meant something in the positive sense to him. And overall, an anti modern outlook persisted, although in a way I think he doesn't fully see himself, his own philosophical approach is equally modern, or in any case very much shaped by certain modern concerns. The very idea that there could be a revolution that a wholly transformed society liberates us from major ills and major errors in a drastic way is a modern preoccupation. That's right.
And that he certainly did whole. So in however, in idiosyncratic way, I'll just add you see that the Nazis did not like his work. They couldn't see the relevance of the question of being to what they were about. I guess we shouldn't be surprised at that.
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So for major languages to in depth studies, I really think that is a re-founding of the ancient university university for the digital frontier. And now back to the show. I mean, one thing you get a sense reading, especially this, you know, his later reflections on the recto of 1933 to 34 facts and thoughts. You get the sense that he was aware that this was probably not going to go the way that he wanted it to go.
Yeah. But still a kind of optimism that's eventually disenchanted. And that seems to continue later his work, but there's a kind of contempt that comes out of this. Yeah.
Oh, yes. But it extends, I think, beyond the Nazi party, but even to his fellow Germans, his contemporary Germans, as just the stupidly falling into nihilism, I guess, unreflectively, you know, descending into nihilism. And there's a kind of tragic quality here. If I could just, you said something when we spoke in preparation about some of the anti-Semitic comments in Black Notebooks.
And you mentioned, I think this is just an important point to make sure that we cover. And you mentioned that though he does adopt various sort of obvious anti-Semitic tropes, they're all recast or understood in light of his critique of modernity, right? That is right, yes. No.
You can elaborate on that a bit because I think it's easy to see the anti-Semitism and say, oh, he's just like a brown shirt, obviously, right? I think there's a subtler point that you bring out in this. Well, he held some rather conventional silly views, you know, that of that. Jews as a ruthless cosmopolitan, the people who calculate calculating, and therefore, in some sense, representing in an exemplary way the characteristic of modernity as the era of calculative and manipulative reason.
And in Black Notebooks, he then places them within his framework of history that he conceives of the modern age, is technological, and based upon actulative thinking. And it really doesn't make very much sense, I mean, apart from the emptiness of the accusation itself, there's the fact that it doesn't really fit well in his philosophically-oambrated account of the history of being, which roots the gradual decline of what he calls the forgetting of being in certain steps taken in Greek philosophy. So it's very unclear why he should be bringing up the Jews and giving them this role. But it has to be said, though, that he doesn't do this in published work or in his lectures in his teaching.
And these anti-ITUH remarks do, I have to adjust a few pages total out of about 1200. So, you know, I mean, it's really regrettable and it shows a real failing on how to go as part connected, like to say, to failing. But this anti-ITUH attitude is not, let's say, central to his activity. Unfortunately, though, if you carry around feelings and ideas like this, you will do things that are regrettable.
And he did some regrettable to some reprehensible things towards Jewish colleagues while we're here. After that, he was mostly inactive in terms of engagement with party, mostly with grew from everything going on in the political world. He knew that he was under some suspicion from the authorities and that he probably had some spies in his classes. He did express and muted criticisms of the Nazi order in his lectures, particularly the Nietzsche lecture.
So the end of the war for Heidegger was quite a difficult period. He briefly served in 44 in the People's militia that Hitler required from all men between ages 16 and 60. He saw a military action that had to serve in some capacity, few weeks, in the French entered university city, and Heidegger was questioned. The French authorities began a de-nossification process in the summer of 45 and Heidegger was questioned.
They were threatening to remove them, his pension, and prevent him from teaching. Now, the university sent a Senate carrying out at least the spirit of the French request, removing from all teaching and reduced his pension. They didn't teach four or five years, although he was reinstated in 1951. It should be mentioned that he made a statement to the French comment his thoughts on the rhetoric of 1933-34, which is somewhat of an apology for his engagement with the Nazis.
He was not teaching specifically Nazi doctrines. He was under suspicion, and the regime was advised to observe his work in teaching. His true hope was that the movement would have a greater leadership, a true leadership, rather than the mediocre leadership that it had. There's no statement in Heidegger's writings of sadness about suffering costs, or famously he makes no comment of regret about the Holocaust.
He came into favor again, and that he had something to do with the interest that the French authors and intellectuals, baking in his work, visitors such as Jean Beaufrais and Jean Beaufrais, had contact with him, although a visit that was planned in November. When Heidegger was restored to favor and to teaching in 1951 as a meritist, he even really had another phase of prominence in German philosophy. Lectures, seminars, is generally a great deal of praise and acclaim. There was the famous interview of 1966 as the journal Dersfiego, in which he makes clear that he's not a supporter of democracy.
He says there that only a god can save us, but I believe that democracy cannot. That's simply a very broad and sketchy look at important moments in his life. So maybe I think Greg, do you want to jump in? Yeah, I was just thinking that was a really excellent historical account of his life, and maybe this is just the appropriate place to turn to Heidegger's critique of the history of philosophy that you weigh out so well in your chapters.
Oh, all right. Well, yes, this is a huge topic. So Heidegger investigated what he saw as the fundamental question of philosophy from an early time in his academic career, the question of the meaning of being or what is being. And it should be pointed out that that's from an early time in his work.
He saw the highest calling of a thinker to be the close reading and thinking about the great text in the history of philosophy. Right. That's really the heart of his teaching and art of his work. And why not keep that in mind when one gives the label of his sources to him, which I'm saying is certainly in a way warranted, but he's not a historicist and usual sense of a thinker who supposes that your thought is necessarily confined to contemporary thought, contemporary attitudes or on contrary sees the history of Western philosophy as a decline from its great beginning in Greek integrity and the increasing lack of concern with the greatest questions, especially this question about which he seeks to let us take recovery and reexamine and expose in a new way.
Well, well, at the same time, relying upon insights and basic moves made in earlier philosophy. You know, he engaged in what has been called a destruction of the Western tradition. It's easy to think of that because of the word as someone who just, it's a hammer and smashes it. That's not what Heidegger does.
He uses the Latin word instead of the usual German word for, corruption. He does convey a process of removing a structure, de-strups him up. That is to examine the structure and to show its makeup, how it is constituted, how it comes into being. And he's doing this with the history of thought, the nature, the question of being.
I see you have a hand up. Yeah, I just have a small question. Is this related all to I was just going over, I guess it's, let's be book seven of the Republic, where it actually talks about dialectics destroying the hypotheses. Is that at all connected here?
Well, I think you can make some links with the Socratic, the tonic, or civilian, you know, examination of opinion and exposing its presuppositions and doing so in a critical way and revealing to us that we pay for granted things that are in a hidden way essential to our thought. So the thought of being is always present when we're engaged with any particular beings around us and we're largely unaware of how that thought of being is in a fundamental way constitutive of our engagement with particular beings to that distinction between being and beings is the way it might well make this a bit more concrete is to say, you know, if you deal with any particular being you're dealing with a being among other beings for no particular beings and other isolation and the way in which beings are together we experience as a world and there is kind of world of assumptions and concerns that is presupposed by our engagement with any particular being but for the most part you don't give that presupposed that of concerns assumptions listed attention it is just assumed and And at the most fundamental what to assume is that there is a world and that there is a world rather than nothing at all and And and how can that be assumed what is involved in making that assumption? What does this show us now? You know the the presupposed concealed experience of being and How do you ever investigate this and claims that most philosophy has been inadequate way it examines that matter He's highly critical of modern philosophy from Descartes onward as Assuming that we can understand the world adequately through a certain constructive acts of the mind constructive acts of judging you know Simply put you know receiving data or having impressions or individual thoughts effects and somehow coordinate them that that would give one the sufficient understanding of things and of the world and Hydro's claim is contrary to that approach and of course it was greatly influenced by Edmund Hoserold but you see a kind of you're kind of very deep concern with the history of Western thinking about this matter which is very much animated by his sense of a decline and even collapse of the Western world and the need for a kind of revival and elevation of it and he thought of you know stressing this Problem of being is somehow that the central issue that must must be stressed in that in such a renewal and renewal I expected the first place of Germany who you know the his philosophic leadership and Reviving this question and the document which is that's a clearly it's correct all the graphs right?
Then jumping here real quick, you know I think one thing to point out here is that at the same time as he's trying to emphasize being over and above this sort of Modern you know calculative approach to impressions and to data let's say right the thing that he's doing that he's also sees that Turn toward the question of being as coming from a desire to have a sort of Resolute grounding for one's particular existence right? Yes, to bridge that and so it looks this is where I think the subtle connection The Nazis can come out right where it looks like he's just trying to sort of rise up to these these a theory of heights And absolutely he is but he sees that as deeply embedded and this is also connected to their sources and deeply embedded in kind of Historical destinies of peoples right and specifically German people, you know He says very clearly have this potentiality within them still That's right ability so there's so that's that's so at the same time he's pushing up He's also pointing downward to our particular historical existence and sees his task in a way as trying to bridge the two over and against the sort of uprooted as well as sort of Sublofty, I mean, there's sort of this mediocre middle ground and a nine to German enough nor essential enough at the same time Okay, yes, I like that. Thank you. So that will so He regards they say the fundamental Experience of being as as you've mentioned a kind of fate Something given to us something that over which we you know do not have mastery And his famous book of 1927 being in time his first major publication he characterizes it being thrown into the world Thrown in this into being and that's impossizing that we are not masters of our and yet as you point out in the retro address There is something which actually cannot appear in the trident It is that that is a demand a kind of demand address first of all to the university and the university audience and beyond that to all of Germany to assert an attitude Destiny another which to take responsibility for a destiny which he believes Was in such a given but also requiring a response And if we do not respond with the appropriate Resiluteness and courage and seriousness They're on the aid disaster or to germinate beyond Germany he believes for the west So here's one statement from the original address if you're looking at the PDF you Handed out to us for the record address.
It's on a four seven three This is just one characteristic sentence there are several like this only if we were to lose the mint this distant command Do we capture the greatness of the beginning will science become the inner most necessity of our being okay? All right, well that puts together in a rather obscure way some thoughts seemingly intention with each that is resoluteness the resolution of the form of submission to something that is commanding us namely He calls it a distant command to recapture the greatness of the beginning of Western thought he specifically mentions the early Greeks And primordial Greek science he calls it science his business job, you know not meaning modern natural time in the German sense over all intellectual inquiry and So this is a he believes a destiny given to the Germans that uniquely that they need to recapture that beginning Can I jump in here just right? So for those who are interested in this they can email us and we'll send them a PDF of these two documents the regular just and his later reflections But there's a I thought I never jumped out to me I was reading this before but on for something just a little bit above where you read he says the essence of science is referring to the primordial Greek science here The essence of science could not even be emptied out and used up as is happening today despite all its results and International organizations which he puts into scare quotes if the greatness of the beginning did not still endure the beginning still is so here You see I think quite explicitly A comment on how science uprooted gives us the sort of post-war international order But he has in mind is something far more rooted right? Yes, it's almost like you can see very explicitly there some of the political implications for what he's articulated.
Oh, yes Yes, and of course you can see the element here of a peculiar sort of nationalism and this is how his conception of You know recovering the Greek beginnings is in a certain way so very remote and Greek philosophy because Discress is on the ability of the entire nation of the fork to recover this question This is never a demand that stars I know but appearing in any Greek of philosophy It bears the marks of a modern or even enlightenment perception of the capacity of philosophy to transform the world opinion in a sweeping a general way of it You can say I did very is formulating here kind of powder revolution Having that political Character of transformation opinion, but directing it towards what he calls a recovery at the beginning The beginning that only lies behind us but stands before us in there that's in rejecting the 10 trends of modern international science modern internationalism politics Using the givenness of being is something that is pre let's say pre conceptualized or pre-discursive and pre-supposed in all our activities is identified by Heidegger with a particular spirit even to the people though being in its fundamental presuppositional character does have Is in certain ways particular right? Even at the same time as it says for this question of being for the humanist such but if you can say this is Taking something that in ancient thought the Socratic platonic years to him would be quite considerable opinion as it's a fact you know a fundamental philosophic ground and It is as as a particular people with its particular fault ways that This question is to be raised there's you know a radical I think tension within that conception and And I'm and I have to say I'm somewhat on how to get speak we have He developed an awareness of this problem at least in some measure Or for one thing as Strauss himself points out Heidegger gave up all hope relating the renewal of question to politics to any political movement Strauss says as of Heidegger Heidegger's never the connection of the vision his vision with politics or radically than either Marx or Nietzsche That's inclined to say that Heidegger has learned the lesson of 1933 more thoroughly than any other man Surely he leaves no place whatever for political philosophy Now he seems to be indicating something there that is one point of view favorable and And pointing at the same time for the efficiency that is Like whether it's writing say that Heidegger learned the lesson 1933 more thoroughly than any other man I mean or the elieces I see tempted to say that We're inclined to say it though Heidegger then you know was chastened and It's in the sense of broken by that failed experience of the retrograde just direct involvement in politics Why did he learn it more thoroughly than any other person though? I mean others could have had that experience too I think that is great in Heidegger with being still a philosopher. I mean Strauss Definitely characterized I think it's a great philosopher.
He says it's not a more than occasion. We can go into that later if you like so I did as rethinking of his thought as a certain philosophy yes in taking away the Move removing the attempt at the political actualization of what at the same time It says he says he leaves no place for political philosophy It's rather that the room for political philosophy is taken in I diggers thought by the gods I guess reflection on how you know a return or a new appearance of knowledge was somehow central to humanities a recovery of the question and So the lack of a political philosophy shows still a kind of defect is thinking Even if there's something important and worth commending in a sense in his later thought One thing I picked up on reading this time through since we kind of moved into his disenchantment with not Left there It looks like while he was still in the rhetoric, but he was getting pressure from the outside He was actively teaching things and this is not this is to push against the sort of easy identification Heidegger with Nazism but not to say that he was not a nationalist or folk oriented figure, but he started teaching It seemed like in order to deepen whether we started teaching early Greek philosophy right yes that Or beginnings of Western philosophy course that you can read and but also he started teaching some harzolin it seems like in order to Educate young Germans or faculty or whoever was attending a sports penalty It's all these Jesuits Upset the Nazis but it seemed like he was teaching all of that with an eye toward trying to deepen what was going on politically around him So that he seemed to have a sense that he did not have a good grip this the again this intertreathed greatness line right now The kind the potential of this movement that he saw in this movement He was actively trying to push it in that direction so you can see he early on this kind of struggle that he's having Yes, yes, and he thought he could give this new movement this new regime his own direction which would emphasize still the national roots of greatness you know and But taking it in his using his notions of the profound questions without his concern of the philosophers and poets and He'll be led us to come quite central you know as a thinker who well was it in his way also concerned with what is German and the relationship of being German to the two great traditions of the Greeks and the Bible and You know that was quite important in how you do your reading of help She I mean There's no doubt that I had your thought that standard not system what was being broadcast was very vulgar and And disconnected what he thought he had to be the The true purpose of this movement now you might say why should he associate with movement at all well He saw the world as a place of in a grave crisis. He thought the Western democracies are worse than nationalistic And fascist political movements and also the parts of the Marxism the Bolshevik Russia so this was the thought indication and opportunity for You know leading Germany to a higher level hired you know response is a crisis of the present age And he thought you see that The thinking and our action had to take on a kind of novel form even as he speaks with such great respects of the ancient Greeks the Now I would I didn't mention that he doesn't think that the movement towards the decline into thinking about me begins with Plato because he thinks that the platonic idea of the good is a kind of representation of a human application of a standard standard of correctness which Is he says there's the root of the emphasis on calculation Calculative thinking that simply reaches an apogee in the Cartesian and modern scientific tradition. So a Friday or a Simple return to reflecting in a Greek way was impossible and one had to investigate In other words make some major changes both in how we look at Greek philosophy When cover something that he believes that is being lost already and a socratic and platonic philosophy, but was glimpsed in the earliest philosopher Genuine understanding of being and then after this other end our end you have to renewal your hand to get new form of Social organization and action.
I hope I'm addressing Richard I think you're doing a great job, but maybe that would be a good point for us to pivot to this question about Strauss because I mean It seems like it seems like Heidegger is fairly clear that he thinks that the Greeks like philosophy has basically been off on the wrong foot Since beginning with Plato and Aristotle and Socrates because they weren't properly investigating question being I wonder if that's a disagreement regarding the and maybe this is connected to his His emphasis on the people the folk in so far as I think Strauss would say that the Greeks did investigate some of these questions a little More than than Heidegger thinks and so maybe this can get to get us off on thinking about some of Strauss's critique of Heidegger It's a little bit more interesting for me for Ross and for me are his philosophical critiques of Heidegger. Sure First though state that Heidegger is very still very respectful When he reads Plato and Aristotle with this more well critical lens, right? I mean he's got all these great lectures on Aristotle on for nazis right and Plato's office themselves Right and he's He's a pretty subtle way in saying he's a great thinkers who'd still have much we learn from and they their thought is starting to Conceal something that he he says is a necessary for us to discover and Strauss has a formulation of the effect Strauss and he tied your teaching hand In this regard and Heidegger took part courses on Aristotle and Greek philosophy. He says of Heidegger And although he was intending to do a root reforce, there's not the same thing as to destroy him See but to find a hidden roots to it It says as I said this presuppose laying bare its roots laying bare is what wasn't itself And not as it had come to appear in the light on the tradition and of modern philosophy And for the first time after many centuries when hesitate to see how many How many How do you make it possible to see the roots of the Tradition that they are and this perhaps to know what so many nearly believe that there's roots are the only natural healthy roots So we see something very positive in that examination of Great philosophy and there's another state by quickly just a small point there I've always wondered if Strauss using that word roots is is targeting to the Odyssey.
I don't know if that's something worth thinking I think it's my possible yes the The use of the word nature and that is it yeah the mollu plant the roots of a mother plant right? That's right. It's probably it's sorry I guess I should make that query that's good. It's probably So it's also made the statement in the public Nothing affected us as profoundly in the years in which our minds took their lasting rations as the thought of Heidegger Referring to a lasting direction not just an early effect of early inspiration Everyone else in the younger generation who had years to hear was either completely overwhelmed by Heidegger or else having been almost completely overwhelmed by him Engaged and well-intentioned but ineffective weird guard actions against him right so all right so that just passes the positive effect the eliminating character of his his teeth, but You know now in this connection is interesting convention also briefly that in spite of how he goes you know unpleasant personal practices He had many Jewish students You know, I mean we're from a young tour with number of these names not only Strauss and Yaka Klein But on our rant and Carl Oven It's just a little bit more than his thought as well, right?
No, that's quite Which makes his prejudice even stranger and more distasteful and Herbert Makuza on Jonas and the list is really quite well and I mean I will make a somewhat provocative statement which is that Heidegger's thought was actually better received by Jewish people than by the Nazis No, then by the Nazi's and I mean by the real Nazi's and not to authorities who just thought his work was irrelevant To their concerns It seems quite right, you know, but it's factually It wasn't celebrated by you know At the University by the Nazi student association. No, this is not to say he has a clean record He made some speeches while we're a director and called upon students to fall behind the fjora and And they did teach summer courses wherever more political nature where he was telling students This is a time of decision This is a time of crisis. We have to think about who we are and raise the question of who we truly are and he says we must think about how we form the state and our crucial to the state and So there's a political tension by the big hit as a vector but to get back now to the Top of your just now bringing up which took me back to that favorable remark about teaching so having said those, you know very favorable words Strauss has numerous numerous criticisms and And it's quite true that in sproust of view Heidegger did not have an adequate discovery of the Greeks and You know misses the significance of this crack turn And which is going together with missing the central theme of the tension between philosophy and political life You know that The philosopher is necessarily as a as a critical The thinker about the realm of opinion the realm of the beliefs of the people going to find himself in an inevitable conflict with them and In some sense how to do his work is wholly intended towards dealing that rift or or one could even say more strongly denied and Although he could not do so in any simple way. I mean is naive leap into direct political action utterly fail, but in his later thought where he talks about the need for the world to wait for a kind of Renewal of the question of being without facing this upon political action is Let us say taking the political out of the picture and thus trying to think of a harmony or unity between philosophic thought and Ordinary life in a certain Non-political sense or ordinary life is as poetic You know the major theme of Heidegger's later Heidegger's work already starting in 33 week is a with Helgerman is poetic dwelling and We're using while we still have a relationship the Germany and German tradition and and something some nebulous notion outside of your passive distinctive metaphysical eric of the German people This is not a in his later thought a specifically political consumption of that harmony between The people and the renewal of the question no Poetry without without you know the political sense of it.
I have a Greek antiquity. Yes Yeah, as I think I mentioned this to you when we were speaking before but as I more I think about Heidegger's life story the more It reminds me actually glaucom You know political and then the glaucom obviously As a student as I agree, but the sort of vaunting political ambition that has a philosophic edge to it the high expectations of what philosophy can accomplish politically the ultimate disenchantment and sort of looking at politics as a sort of decaying and then being left in You know book 10 of the Republic with this sort of weird Religious philosophic hybrid that is in a way opposed to politics or attention to politics But it's the kind of tension of the sort of religious like hermit or something like that Not the tension of the philosopher who's you know contemplating basic questions or something like that, right? Now that's that's again That's not that doesn't I think great injustice the Heidegger's acumen and commitment to philosophic questioning But it's tempting to see a sort of common trajectory to the plot of the Republic of the unfolding of his own life Well, Alex your mention of glaucom is very fitting because the retro address Which is the high point of Heidegger's political ambition makes use of Plato's republic a very explicit way It shows that Heidegger has a conception of Greek philosophy at this point which ties it very closely to the city and And reading the Republic literally as though it is an effort of philosophers to transform the city Heidegger says that a Greek science of isn't often which of course has been involved Philosophy as its meaning he says that the determining center of all the binding human beings to the people into the state He gives it the term spirit guys which brings to mind bagel as In connection with science. He says is the fundamental happening our spiritual being so Science in spirit is the you might say the binding force that brings together the various parts of the city and he mentions these parts But although he's speaking Expressively here about the parts of the university and speaking of the relationship of students and teachers.
It says there are three bonds of the community that we must pursue here in the university education and labor Uranus for defense in the of the honor of the nation and then the requirement of knowledge and he says about knowledge It's not in the service of the individuals desire for profession But what is needed above all in knowledge is the knowledge of the people Concerning their being now I should clearly referring to three classes of the city and the best city in speech and There's something strikingly missing in this use of the Republic and that is plaintiffs and all the strategies Further discussion of it of a meaning of justice as the order of the individual soul I think everyone can say it Lee leaving the discussion as a question of what is the justice of the city and how that is to be realized by philosophy Now it's really almost a battle brought this account The city pray says the teachers and students must be ready for battle and whether the questions whether we have the will or this battle the spiritual strength of the West he says it's failing and we First as the university participants of them as Germans must take up the task of the West a quickly mentioned this point Haggard is not expressly mentioned national socialism nor Hitler and Certainly he's putting forward a conception of the the role of philosophy that is different from the I'll take inception of my instant politics to replace the service of racial doctor So he's obviously giving his own way of trying to direct the national socialist movement It involves his own version of what he's called black shalom You know coordination of all members of society So this this is a exception of highly engaged knowledge claims to have its roots are its basis in the republic But we have to go back to the Alex's point to finish this part He did become disillusioned with this politicization of philosophy and continue to Reflect on philosophies role without connection to political program through the experience of the lambitist experience of the record another words, there's a kind of disillusionment with the highest version of the project the philosopher came as a reality the disillusion with that possibility but then a certain unwillingness to give up You know that being at home in this particular city and being the spokesman for it You know not not fully accepting that the philosopher will be a kind of exile amid the city and I think that's a help way of thinking about thing by the way another aspect of this you know is his engagement with Nietzsche and In the late 30s and the early 40s these teaching courses on Nietzsche which are quite significant not only as interpretations of nature but as showing the progressions and and Nietzsche's a very important figure or his thinking about what you know what philosophy is and where it will go and It also shows light in his relationship to the regime because he expressly is interpreting Nietzsche in an anti-Nazi way even though he doesn't know probably Only with hence indicate this is his purpose but he is critic of interpretations of Nietzsche in a biological sense and Discredits any effort to link nature to a racist biology and instead focuses on Nietzsche as a metaphysical thinker Where the central notions are the eternal recurrence and the will to power? And at the same time he's a critic of this nature this nature more Physically understood because he thinks of this nature this true nature as the completion That metaphysical tradition that begins agree amically that places an emphasis on calculation option and will and See is that nature's thought is still Developing within the framework of the primacy of will even as he gives into a deeper level of thinking about being in terms of eternal parents So nature's part of his a pointer toward something beyond the tradition as he has developed into modern nihilism and Political realization in Nazism nature's kind of pointer beyond that but only Only a partial pointer beyond it and a high degree continues after the world war to refer in his rights to Nietzsche to take certain cues from him And to say we learn from Nietzsche This about our situation equation where the gods have died the gods of tradition and we live in a growing wasteland the wasteland grows and Need is to respond to this and to find a way out of this this So Nietzsche is still a major figure is articulating our situation But having not achieved the mode of thinking that would make us beyond this You know, I mean there are certain things I'm not being fair about you dare credits nature at certain points with some great insight But there's a you know great great this relate a lot to try to get a suggestion poetry and poetry is essential to the saving grace You know a major line in high years later writings equals more than once from Hell It is where danger is there grows salvation So No, how to go conflate your blurst distinction. You might say to some extent He's just intelligent to be simply making obvious wonder but he is waiting in certain ways a poetic conception of gods philosophy or at least saying that poetic approach to the gods going to be decisive for this reopening of the being now is that a simple mistake I don't think so because you know But it is a very important starting point right into philosophy So let's say how to get is definitely insightful and onto something But at the same time there's something strange that the way in which he can save the philosopher as preparing that go away I Yes, okay. I think you know, I'm just gonna say like we're a little over an hour now and I I You know, I think that was about as excellent and deep and as well-paced and as polished as an account of Heidegger on Nazi And could be is one could hope for even I just want to only point out to the folks at home that as good as this was I got even more out of reading your chapter Of course right out of reading your chapters and the article that Alex shared as well So I mean I feel like we could keep going on for a couple of hours But before we turn to the lightning around I know you've been on the forest I had to come up some new questions, but before we turn there I was wondering do you have any final thoughts on higher before we conclude the show this afternoon?
I'm very I'm very I bring up something that might you know take us again at the long session I believe you know, just looking at my notes. I I covered them I covered the main points that I can mention Maybe I cannot just on the last thing you said just offer a thought that You have to say about this, but there's this idea of Heidegger understanding obviously not making it obvious Wonder as you said by understanding philosophy is preparatory right yes Retaking these structures exposing basic problems, but that contemplation is not the highest thing as it is for Strauss And I think Plato Aristotle, but somehow this is supposed to be all in in preparation for a new determination Or a new dispensation or being or some sort of new relationship between particular existence in ordinary life and the highest ice That expectation of that that will follow upon this or as I think the stochronic position would be rather know that Dispensation is the thing to be critiqued and to begin Sort of human openness to the basic philosophic problems the very subtle Difference use in its actual activity Heidegger looks so socratic in his critiques and you know showing the limits of inherited philosophic concepts Yeah, there is this hopefulness That remains sorry Point that I think it's worth bringing up yes, he sees himself as preparing for a new global situation you know Right transformation on a global scale And so that's giving a task for new philosophy, which you simply Well, you cannot think in in sobriety terms I mean whether Plato perhaps thought that by presenting Socrates as a new kind of Real let us say inspiring us to philosophy could in fact your philosophy a permanent place as Addressing you know human beings. Yes, of course one might say you could think that but that wouldn't be the same as a a global Transformation of the existence of Eric which I think it seems to hope to prepare And I think that's quite hard. Yeah, so then maybe we can get to these lighting rock questions, right?
Right, so you know we had such a good time with the last time and unfortunately I have very I don't have a very great imagination So I become up with some better questions and there were some we didn't ask you so I just have five or six questions for you Not the first one you wouldn't answer our question who are your who's your favorite philosopher last time? So can you tell us your favorite author or your favorite work of literature not a work of philosophy? Now, okay, I'll put aside let's say the class six and Shakespeare no You know when to say we're talking about the maybe modern literature fair fair on and literature all right and My favorite novelist is a I was a congrant. Oh, no wow.
Do you have a favorite work of congettes? Oh, I like nearly everything I've read by him so you know Nastromo it and Lord Jim and victory and heart of darkness. I find you know wonderful Words of literature. Yes, we should we should have you back on we did an episode on typhoon, but we do I was on that something well, I know I'm not you know, oh, you don't have to be next week.
I'm not an expert I mean look at us. We don't know we're doing yes, right? Follow up. Do you have a favorite played by Shakespeare?
Oh a favorite play nice. That is difficult. That's my guess for the favorite philosopher All right, I'm the interesting questions you dance around well, then I'll ask you as a different question This one's come this is from Alex Priu fan of the show. He wants to know who your least favorite philosopher is I don't know how to answer that How do you say that you you'd have to mention a person who is still somehow with it within your consideration that some of Where's considering right because they're really terrible people you don't think about or you're not they don't even qualify Yeah, so how do you say well, I don't those I will think about they know something about I'll tell you the one I like least right I'm not sure I'd be able to figure that out.
How about this major figure called the philosopher that when you hear somebody call them a Philosopher your eyes just wool is there one like that? Well, you mean a major figure in every academia? No, let's not do that I don't want to That question all right, we're heading in that dangerous direction. Well, we'll move on then What's one book or author that you have not read but that in your heart of hearts?
You know, you should oh Oh, yes, well, I can I could say quite a few of those such as you know, maybe boss was life of Johnson and give us decline and fall Yeah, there's a major no I would like to be I haven't yet read such as George Eliot's Daniel Duran to and Charles Dickens week house The folks at home are taking notes I mean this has a kind of arbitrary random quality, but these these these came to mind and And I think I should read I should read some point even though it'll be just a translation say all of the plays of air softening And there was a work to I wish to read that I haven't yet read like this autobiography and only read parts of it And I'm not making go on in this. Yeah, I want to go on a list of their lockers I can say that's fair so off which gears them so if you're not reading can you tell the folks at home? What do you do for leisure? Exercise like sports listen music and I guess frabble, you know if you're not if you're not thinking hard.
What are you doing? I guess since Valkley is such a student reader of Heidegger and Heidegger famously had this hot and he would talk in the local vernacular I imagine Richard goes out to the swamps of Louisiana and speaks at Creole and Honsigators and things like that. I'm a right No, not quite right Very close though. I'm sorry close.
Yeah. Well, I'll go into the the dance of Cuisine and norlin City Creole food that's kind of participation with the local life of the people here in such great food It is great. Yes, that's it. That's a past time.
I enjoy I spent quite a lot of time Listening to music. Okay, and reading about it. Do you have a favorite composer? Oh, I have several when you get into these favorites I find about to get usually where you've been listening to lately.
I mean I I listen to major composers from you know late Middle Ages to through the 20th century, so And I go through periods of emphasizing one, you know say above the music or type of music or a composer and You know sometimes I'm listening to romantic things like Schubert and Schumann and list Wagner but at other times I'm sitting on the baro, you know Corelli Bach and Oh, and I'm very likely That sounds great Richard. I just have one final lightning around question for you. Yes, remember this lightning so answer quick quick What is being I just answer quick? Oh Being as quick folks you heard here and listen to the new thing great stick around for all I was it that was pretty good was it being as quick I guess as it's like a lightning flash.
There you go. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny you say that I was actually looking for this passage He taught Heraclitus with agent think but it was it was thanks course I'd leave but there's this very funny moment early in the conversation. They're talking about how thunderbolts tears all things That's statement by Heraclitus and how to assist the following he says I remember an afternoon during my journey in a genie Suddenly I saw single bolts of lightning after which no more followed my thought was Zeus Oh, that's very good.
That's right. Well, thank you Richard for joining us again. This has been great Thank you all for listening to the new thing great