Heil Heidegger!

I posted this in the 'Literary Snobs' community and thought I ought to post it here as well.

http://chronicle.com/article/Heil-Heidegger-/48806/

This article itself is not very well written or argued, but the subsequent 100 + articles are interesting.

Is Nazism essential or incidental to Heidegger's philosophy? Is it possible to separate a philosopher's life from him philosophy? Does Heidegger's Nazism make his place in the canon (and academic publishing industry) inappropriate?

Discuss...

Whether he writes of the German poets or the Presocratics there's more adulation there than is heard in the que in Graceland on Elvis' birthday. The man was a mythomaniac - but as such a typical University philosopher.

3) So long as publications aren't Nazi propaganda, it's hard to see why his work should be omitted from the canon on the basis of Nazi authorship, assuming that:
1) Heidegger's philosophy doesn't imply Nazism in any way as far as I can see. Sure it may seem conservative, or a little right wing, but right-wing conservatism doesn't itself equate with Nazism. In fact, Nietzsche's philosophy doesn't imply Nazism, although Nietzsche's philosophy is much closer to Nazi thought, which is presumably why he was their favoured dead philosopher.
2) I don't really understand this question. On the one hand, obviously you can't separate the philosopher from his philosophy - he wrote it, it was his life's work. On the other hand, we should judge people by how they act rather than simply by how they think. Heidegger ensured that Husserl was ejected from his professorial position because of his Jewish ancestry, so he acted badly on the basis of Nazi ideology rather than on the basis of his revision of metaphysics!.

I haven't read much of the literature about this topic, but Heidegger's philosophy has been very influential on undoubtedly radical philosophers. But it seems not too hard to slide down the slope, from his ideas of the precritical insertedness of people in life, to an emphasis on the Volk.

rdm666 wrote: ... the precritical insertedness of people in life...

What the hell does that mean?

semckibbin, I think he means dasein's throwness in the world in absorption. He's just replacing the jargon with apparent synonyms. Hopefully I got it right myself...it's been a while since I've read any Heidegger. If you're unfamiliar with the concepts, it basically just refers to how man finds himself already born into the world by no decision of his own (that's the thrown part) and is caught up in everyday day activities and consequently not reflecting on his situation as a human being and all that entails (that's the absorption part). It's a gross oversimplification, but hopefully that helps.

I definitely separate Heidegger's unfortunate political imbroglios from the genius of what he contributed to modern thought. The one has little/nothing to do with the other. I'm sure we'd all like our philosophers to act with the integrity that Socrates did; and always suit their deeds to their words. Unfortunately that is an overweening expectation on our part.