Heidegger s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse
£6.98
Not a book for someone wanting to understand Heidegger - This book does have some good points. The chapters on Lowith, Marcuse, and Jonas are not bad and may be helpful as an introduction to their respective philosophies. But really why bother, go straight to the texts themselves. As for the analysis of Heidegger I can only say that it is really quite poor. Wolin s arguments are really only rehashed versions of either the criticisms previously levelled by Habermas or Lowith. Serious engagement with Heidegger s texts is sparse and clumsy. Moreover, there is little attention paid to Heidegger s development and the significance of the Kehre for his thought. It would seem according to Wolin s account that Heidegger thought came to a grinding halt after 1927. His readings of texts thereafter are woefully inadequate and one-sided. Their crudity is sometimes startling given that this is supposed to be a piece of serious scholarship. Heidegger s reading of Holderlin, Nietzsche, Schelling, etc... seems of little consequence. Those of us that have the slightest clue know this to be manifestly false. Wolin seems to just ceaselessly espouse the umbrella concept of critical rationalism so as to exonerate his own philosophical position without really understanding why Heidegger took that very tradition to task. For example, Heidegger s Letter on Humanism is putatively evidence of his anti-humanism . This epithet is clearly misleading to anyone whom has actually read the Letter . Nonetheless, we are supposed to accept that this is sufficient in and of itself for a dismissal of the arguments presented in that essay. Wolin doesn t want to understand Heidegger so don t waste your time unless you only want tendentious material in order to fuel your own polemics. For genuinely critical insight the ones to read are Derrida, Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe, Janicaud, Krell, Sallis, Haar, de Beistegui, and Schurmann. This book is the dilettantes alternative, the intellectual equivalent of the National Enquirer .
Wherefore loyalty? - The controversy over Heidegger is likely to continue into future generations. One of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century, he blotted his copybook (so to speak) by becoming one of the leading intellectuals of the National-Socialist movement in Germany in the 1930s, changing from a professor who attracted the best and brightest of students from all over Europe to one of the more rigid and dogmatic defenders of Nazi ideals, even at the expense of colleagues, students and friends. Even after the destruction of Germany, Heidegger remained unrepentent about his history and views.This book, while a stand-alone text, represents the conclusion of a multi-volume task to examine Heidegger s work and intellectual legacy. The first two texts, The Politics of Being and The Heidegger Controversy , represented an attempt to look both the politics and the philosophy of Heidegger -- the latter book having created a bit of a fire-storm due to the inclusion of an article by Derrida, who objected to the inclusion. One of the more bizarre twists in the tale of Heidegger, however, was in the continuing intellectual development of his legacy among his Jewish students. Many of the top students in Heidegger s following in the 1920s and early 1930s were Jewish, and they would ultimately have to reconcile their associations and attachments to Heidegger (the person and the philosophical ideas) in response or reaction to his actions. Richard Wolin s text looks specifically at four key figures: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse. All of these four thinkers, acclaimed in their own rights, considered themselves more assimilated Germans than Jews, however, this was not the thinking of the powers-that-were in the 1930s/40s Germany. Each would have to, in the course of careers including academia and writing, have to reconcile to the past idolisation of Heidegger. Germany was, after all, the centre of culture, a nation of writers and thinkers, all to go horribly mad. Wolin s introductory chapter sets a context -- the real problem for Heidegger s students was to determine whether or not there was something integral, something necessary in the connection between the political totalitarian and vicious National-Socialism and Heidegger s existentialist ideas. Wolin gives a brief overview of the development of philosophy to existentialism. In the second chapter, Wolin gives a brief history of German-Jewish relationships, and looks to the points of divergence that culminated in holocaust.Wolin devotes a chapter to each of the key children . Hannah Arendt was not only Heidegger s student, but also carried on an affair with him, making Heidegger s betrayal personal as well as political. Arendt s problem was not just a Heidegger problem , but also a Jewish problem , in the sense of her writing allowing that the line between victim and villain was not as distinct as might be believed. Karl Lowith is less well known outside the German speaking world, but his work in philosophy has made him a significant figure, particularly in examining the history of philosophical development -- this development is very much in line with much of Heidegger s methodology, despite the obvious problem that such development leads to a Heidegger. Hans Jonas did confront Heidegger s past openly and publically, in lecture format no less, causing a shift from theological Heideggerian developments such that the trend fell quickly from vogue. Herbert Marcuse is perhaps the most interesting development among Heidegger s children, having been more of an interested pupil rather than proto-disciple, Marcuse combined Heideggerian influences into a general Marxist framework.In the final chapters, Wolin looks at the overall synthesis and development of these ideas, the post-war German and European intellectual experience, and the problems and strengths that continue from Heidegger s primary work, Being and Time. In the conclusion, Wolin states that while it is hard to find better histories of philosophy than those produced by Heidegger and his students, they make the mistakes of confusing philosophy and history, and this can also explain part of Heidegger s general political trouble. There are a few issues -- Wolin is occasionally choppy, and sometimes repetitious needlessly. Also, Wolin s lack of inclusion of a few key figures (Strauss comes to mind here) leaves something to be desired. However, the construction with the four figures here is well-done and thorough. This is a fascinating text, highlighting a lesser-known but strangely pervasive strand in intellectual history, and helps to highlight difficulties and opportunities in the continuing development out of the work of Heidegger.