Martin Heidegger : between good and evil / Rüdiger Safranski ; translated by Ewald Osers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Safranski, Rüdiger.

Standardized Title:

Meister aus Deutschland. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.

Heidegger, Martin.

Philosophers--Germany--Biography.

Philosophers.

Germany.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvii, 474 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1998.

Summary:

One of the century's greatest philosophers, without whom there would be no Sartre, no Foucault, no Frankfurt School, Martin Heidegger was also a man of great failures and flaws, a Faustus who made a pact with the devil of his time, Adolf Hitler. The story of Heidegger's life and philosophy, a quintessentially German story in which good and evil, brilliance and blindness are inextricably entwined and the passions and disasters of a whole century come into play, is told in this biography. Heidegger grew up in Catholic Germany where, for a chance at pursuing a life of learning, he pledged himself to the priesthood. Soon he turned apostate and sought a university position, which set him on the path to becoming the star of German philosophy in the 1920s. Rudiger Safranski chronicles Heidegger's rise along with the thought he honed on the way, with its debt to Heraclitus, Plato, and Kant, and its tragic susceptibility to the conservatism that emerged out of the nightmare of Germany's loss in World War I. A chronicle of ideas and of personal commitments and betrayals, Safranski's biography combines clear accounts of the philosophy that won Heidegger eternal renown with the fascinating details of the loves and lapses that tripped up this powerful intellectual. Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil does not shy away from full coverage of Heidegger's shameful transformation into a propagandist for the National Socialist regime; nor does it allow this aspect of his career to obscure his accomplishments.

Contents:

Preface: A Master from Germany ix

1 Childhood and School 1

2 Idealism and Materialism: German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century 16

3 Career Planning and Career Problems 40

4 The Outbreak of World War I: Habilitation, War Service, and Marriage 55

5 The Triumph of Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger, Father and Son 71

6 Revolution in Germany and the Question of Being 89

7 Parting with Catholicism and Studying the Laws of Free Fall while Falling 107

8 Marburg University and Hannah Arendt, the Great Passion 126

9 Being and Time: What Being? What Meaning? 145

10 The Mood of the Time: Waiting for the Great Day 171

11 A Secret Principal Work: The Metaphysics Lectures of 1929-30 189

12 Balance Sheets at the End of the Republic 202

13 The National Socialist Revolution and Collective Breakout from the Cave 225

14 Is Heidegger Anti-Semitic? 248

15 Heidegger's Struggle for the Purity of the Movement 264

16 Departure from the Political Scene 276

17 The Age of Ideology and Total Mobilization: Heidegger Beats a Retreat 291

18 The Philosophical Diary and Philosophical Rosary 207

19 Heidegger under Surveillance 318

20 Heidegger Faces the Denazification Committee: Barred from University Teaching 332

21 What Do We Do When We Think? 353

22 Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Karl Jaspers after the War 370

23 Heidegger's Other Public 390

24 Adorno and Heidegger: From the Jargon of Authenticity to the Authentic Jargon of the 1960s 407

25 Sunset of Life 426.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [453]- 464) and index.

ISBN:

0674387090

0674387104

OCLC:

37712964