Martin Heidegger

nazism | national socialism

being-with

pick-up line

resoluteness

being and time

Being

one-liner

knock knock joke

philosophy

Valentine's Day

Dasein

Gottlob Frege

is a devil who behaved like a devil to his beloved teacher, Husserl, and had a devilish influence on Germany. One has to read Heidegger in the original to see what a swindler he was.

I appeal to the philosophers of all countries to unite and never again mention Heidegger or talk to another philosopher who defends Heidegger. This man was a devil. I mean, he behaved like a devil to his beloved teacher [i.e., Husserl ], and he has a devilish influence on Germany. … One has to read Heidegger in the original to see what a swindler he was.

is a reserved and insecure man, unable to look into another’s eyes, for he lacked the gift of candid communication with other people. Hence his natural expression was one of cautious, peasant-sly mistrust

It is rather difficult to describe Heidegger’s face because he could never look straight into one’s eyes for long. His natural expression revealed a reflective brow, an inscrutable countenance, and downcast eyes, which now and again would cast a quick glance to assess the situation. Forced, in conversation, to look one straight in the face, he would appear reserved and insecure, for he lacked the gift of candid communication with other people. Hence his natural expression was one of cautious, peasant-sly mistrust.

secularizes the Single One of Kierkegaard, that is, he severs the relation to the absolute for which Kierkegaard’s man becomes a Single One.

As we have seen, Heidegger secularizes the Single One of Kierkegaard, that is, he severs the relation to the absolute for which Kierkegaard’s man becomes a Single One. And as we have seen, he does not replace this “for” with any other worldly and human “for”. He ignores the decisive fact that only the man who has become a Single One, a self, a real person, is able to have a complete relation of his life to the other self, a relation which is not beneath but above the problematic of the relations between man and man, and which comprises, withstands and overcomes all this problematic situation.

showed that how misguided was the search for metaphysically certain foundations in knowledge, language, meaning, mathematics, and morality, which stretched through Descartes and all the way back to Plato.

The philosophical tradition that goes from Descartes to Husserl, and indeed a large part of the philosophical tradition that goes back to Plato, involves a search for foundations: metaphysically certain foundations of knowledge, foundations of language and meaning, foundations of mathematics, foundations of morality, etc. […] Now, in the twentieth century, mostly under the influence of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, we have come to believe that this general search for these sorts of foundations is misguided.

's arguments' forcefulness depend in large part on his personality, on the slow intensity of his speech and his prophetic solemnity.

It should be added, perhaps, that the forcefulness of Heidegger's "aristocratic" arguments depends in large part on the personality of the lecturer. One is caught as in a political rally by the slow intensity of his speech. The contemptuous epigrams with which he dismisses the protests of logic or good sense sting the listeners ears with their acidity; and his prophetic solemnity when he invokes the quest for being ties one as spellbound as if one were a novice taking his first steps into the Eleusinian mysteries.

's greater glory is that all thinkers of the past twenty-five hundred years were so tragically off the track.

It seems to be for the greater glory of Heidegger that all thinkers of the past twenty-five hundred years are found to have been so tragically off the track.

's lecturing method consisted in constructing an edifice of ideas, which he himself then dismantled again so as to baffle fascinated listeners, only to leave them up in the air.

We nicknamed Heidegger ‘the little magician from Messkirch’ … His lecturing method consisted in constructing an edifice of ideas, which he himself then dismantled again so as to baffle fascinated listeners, only to leave them up in the air. This art of enchantment sometimes had the most disturbing effects in that it attracted more or less psychopathic personalities, and one female student committed suicide three years after such guessing games

's major ideas were sufficiently protean that with a bit of tinkering they could easily be adopted by the left, which they were.

Heidegger’s political views are commonly deplored today on account of his early and open support of Nazism. Because of this connection, many like to suppose that his influence on subsequent political thought (as distinct from general intellectual thought) in Europe has been meager. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Heidegger’s major ideas were sufficiently protean that with a bit of tinkering they could easily be adopted by the left, which they were. Following the war, Heidegger’s thought, shorn of its national socialism but fortified in its anti-Americanism, was embraced by many on the left, often without attribution. In the writings of numerous thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre, “Heideggerianism” was married to communism, and this odd coupling became the core of the intellectual left for the next generation.

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