[lit-ideas] Re: Heil Heidegger?
- From: John Wager <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:50:26 -0600
Robert Paul wrote:
Romano begins with this gem:
". . . the pretentious old Black Forest
babbler makes one wonder whether there's a university-press equivalent
of wolfsbane, guaranteed to keep philosophical frauds at a distance."
I would not consider the claim that Heidegger was a Nazi and the claim
that Heidegger was a philosophical fraud to constitute any kind of
"argument."
It seems that Romano is making two separate factual claims. And it seems
to me that Romano is not calling for a "ban" on Heidegger; he's calling
for more caution by academic publishers to avoid being taken in by
frauds. Many authors are "bad people." Some authors are "Nazis." Neither
would seem to dis-qualify one from being published, and in fact for an
academic publisher to publish either one is quite acceptable. But to
publish works by a "fraud" is different because it violates the ethics
of publication, and an academic publisher may well have a duty to
refrain from publishing fraudulent works.
The current discussion here isn't all that interesting to me. The more
interesting question is why Heidegger is so popular. One might try to
link this to the Nazi movement, or one might argue that the appeal lies
elsewhere. To me, I always just wondered why without getting very far
in finding an answer. My dissertation was mostly on Karl Jaspers, who
has always seemed to me to be both more philosophically interesting and
more politically helpful than Heidegger, but Jaspers is hardly known at
all outside of Germany. To be a "Heidegger" scholar is to be on the "A"
list for jobs in continental philosophy; to be a "Jaspers" scholar is to
be relegated to adjunct status at a second rate school at best.
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager jwager@xxxxxxxxxx
River Grove IL, USA
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