[lit-ideas] Re: Heidegger's philosophy and Christianity

--- On Sat, 7/11/09, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> While there might
> be in some cases a connection between a
> philosopher’s politics
> and his philosophy, and while several writers have assumed
> that there is a connection between
> Heidegger’s
> philosophy and his politics, I
> can’t visualize
> what that connection might be.  

[It'll be abstract a connection and not therefore easily visible.] What is 
meant by saying there is a connection between his "politics and his 
philosophy"? Well, that there is a _logical_ connection, for example? But what 
kind of logic? Clearly a person can have inconsistent beliefs: so we cannot 
ever _deduce_ that because a person believes X they also believe what follows 
from X. Also most 'thoughts' we believe are logically distinct in that one does 
not follow, by logical necessity, from the other. At the same time many 
persons, including philosophers, aim for consistency and what underpins their 
thought in one respect may likely underpin their thought in other respects: for 
these reasons alone it would be very surprising if there were no connection 
between a philosopher's "philosophy" and their political outlook. To say there 
was no connection would be tantamount to saying they were obtuse as to the 
political implications of their "philosophical"
 thought, or to claim that their "philosophy" pertains to a realm hermetically 
sealed from political or social life.

So, it is not a logical necessity or inescapable deduction that someone with 
H's "philosophy" would be a Nazi anymore than it is impossible that someone 
with a Poppn. "conjectural" view of knowledge could espouse totalitarianism [as 
the most effective system for eliminating "mistakes" within the political and 
social sphere]. But this is not anything like an strong argument in favour of 
the view that there is no connection between their philosophy and their 
politics or even that there is no strong underlying connection. 

What we have here is another example, perhaps, where the analytic attempt to 
examine _logical_ connections, may distract or blind us to the strong 
underlying or intrinsic connections that nevertheless fall short of being 
matters of strict inference.

> Surely nothing can
> be further from the
> triumphalist, ethnic oriented Fascism than secular
> existentialism.

Actually I can think of a lot of things, especially since there is a secular 
and existentialist ethic at the core of much Fascist thinking. 

And let's not forget here that much Christian theologising is clearly 
anti-Christian [unless we suppose inconsistent theologies can both be properly 
Christian, but this only renders the epithet "Christian" vacuous], going 
against the tendency of Christ's ethics whose great strength lay, surely, in 
their practical appeal to alleviate suffering without needing to offer a 
philosophy or theology or even an institutionalised church authority.

Donal



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