[lit-ideas] Hans Sluga, Julian Young and Heidegger

I encountered the name of Hans Sluga in Julian Young's Heidegger,
Philosophy, Nazism.  Of the three anti-Heidegger writers that Young deals
most with (Farias, Wolin and Sluga) he hows the most respect for Sluga, but
he nevertheless disagrees with him.  

Unlike Tom Rockmore (another anti-Heidegger writer) who is attempting to
rehabilitate Karl Marx, Sluga is interested in philosophers that seem more
directly related to Heidegger: Nietzsche, Foucault (in the sense of being
anti-humanist).  He also claims a current interest in Heidegger:
<http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/people/detail/19>
http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/people/detail/19 . 

Not quite so respectful was the Julian Young comment on page 134 of his
book: "The word 'Fuhrer' - before Hitler a perfectly decent, ordinary word -
has almost disappeared from the language of post-war Germans.  A 'party
leader', for example, has to be spoken of as a Partei Vorsitzender.  Sluga's
powerful reaction against the idea of leadership as such may well be
influenced by this 'Fuhrer' -phobia, an understandable but excessive
reaction to the German politico-linguistic past.  (It may also be influenced
by his residence in California, the home of phoney [sic] charisma)."

The book of Sluga's that Young criticizes is Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy
and Politics in Nazi Germany, 1993.  Here is an interesting quote from a
review by Frank Edler:  <http://commhum.mccneb.edu/PHILOS/review.htm>
http://commhum.mccneb.edu/PHILOS/review.htm : "The book is rooted in Sluga's
own experiences learning philosophy in the late fifties as an undergraduate
in West Germany, in particular, his own painful discovery that many German
philosophers were involved in National Socialism in varying degrees. Sluga
turned away from the early influences of Oskar Becker and Heidegger and
shifted to Gottlob Frege, only to discover that even Frege was not above the
taint of nationalism and antisemitism. This book represents Sluga's attempt
to address that uncomfortable silence concerning the role of German
philosophy in relation to the rise and takeover of National Socialism."  

Here is an interesting review by Thomas Baldwin of Julian Young's The Death
of God and the Meaning of Life: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1434 This
review portrays Young as a Heidegger advocate:  "Young is, however, much
more sympathetic to Heidegger's own positive philosophy. The 'early'
Heidegger of Being and Time gives us an account of 'authenticity' which
builds on Nietzsche's position but, according to Young, takes matters
further by emphasising that the task of achieving authenticity can be
accomplished only by taking account of the values inherent in one's own
historical context (one's 'heritage'). The issue that Young raises here, as
to how far the achievement of authenticity is a matter of self-discovery as
opposed to choice of oneself . . ."  .  

 

COMMENT:  .  My little Heidegger library is warped toward the con side in
the issue of his Fascism since the pro writers have been largely French and
have incorporated a Heideggerian influence into their philosophies.  Whereas
the cons may be considered philosophical light-weights who seek to spoil
Heidegger's reputation.  Sluga's motivation may be clear if we can believe
Elder.  I am not so clear yet on the motivations of Hugo Ott, Victor Farias,
Tom Rockmore (someone else who doesn't seem like a lightweight), Wolin and
Emmanuel Faye.  Why am I interested in their motivations?  If Heidegger's
reputation has been established since the 60s by the French Left and
subsequently by the American Left, it would seem logical that those
motivated to attack Heidegger would be on the French and American Right, but
I find no evidence of that.  Tom Rockmore, for example, with his interest in
rehabilitating Marx would seem to be on the Left but he has doggedly opposed
Heidegger.

Motivations aside, Julian Young deals very convincingly with the actual
arguments of Sluga, Farias and Wolin and that was part of my initial goal,
to find out whether the anti-Heideggerian attacks based upon his association
with Fascism were valid. 

A more important issue has to do with the French Left.  They seem to have
put all their post-Marxist eggs in a Heideggerian basket; so it is important
to learn whether there are valid holes in that basket.  So far I haven't
found any.

 

Lawrence Helm

www.lawrencehelm.com

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