From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Heidegger, Hitler, Racism and logic.
Date: 17 Aug 92 03:02:34 GMT
Organization: Oklahoma State University

From article <1992Aug16.161220.14795@husc3.harvard.edu>, by zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny):
> In article <memo.578614@cix.compulink.co.uk> 
> shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:
> 
> 
> 
> LS:
>>I feel bound to say here therefore, that because Nazism is
>>distateful, surely should not prevent us from accepting Heidegger as
>>a philosopher. As a human maybe, but not as a philosopher .....
> 
> Here is where you make a leap that is wholly unacceptable to me.  There is
> a well-established sense in which the goal of all philosophical inquiry
> consists in deducing an ethics from metaphysical premisses (I use the
> latter term in a sense which makes it applicable to even the self-professed
> "anti-metaphysical" thinkers).  Spinoza's _Ethica_ is a classic example of
> one such attempt, and it may be argued that the fatal defect of such
> apostles of existentialism as Sartre or foster children of positivism as
> Quine consists in their inability to formulate any ethical principles.
> Now, clearly an ethics is never deducible from logic alone; nor is
> Heidegger's doctrine in any way limited to the same.  In this sense, it is
> indeed important to note the moral failings of its creator, for these
> failings throw light on what may be interpreted either as a fundamental gap
> between theory and praxis, very likely due to an essential feature of the
> former, or as prima facie evidence of its internal inconsistency, which
> brings us back into the provenance of logic, or, finally, as a sign of a
> fatal defect in its basic assumptions.  In no case does the philosopher
> escape unscathed by the ramifications of his personal scrofulousness.

At last we arrive at  MIkhail's fundamental problem.  It bothers him
first and foremost that ethics seems to have taken a flying leap
from Heidegger's philosophy.  Second, he takes as evidence of 
Heidegger's short involvement with the Nazi party as proof of lack
of ethics.  First, I find it not inconceivable that one may not live
up to their own ethical principles.  Second, while it is true that
logical-ethics are more or less non-existent in the writtings of
Heidegger, there still exists a system of ethics.  What I find so 
compelling about the Heidegger as Nazi argument is first that people 
do not want to accept his early-on withdrawl from the Nazi party
as a statement against Nazism.  If any person wants to take the political
life into question, one should immediately realize the inherent dangers
of such a withdrawl in the first place.   To publicly denounce such a 
movement in the second case may have been one that proved fatal.  
Unlike Socrates, however, Heidegger may have found himself more valuable
as a living person--in fact some of his most impressive philosophy comes
from his post-nazi era.   Further, some of the most fundamental ethical
issues that Heidegger raises are ALL included in his post-nazi writtings.
So, in a sense, although Heidegger did not stand forth and say "Down 
with Nazism," a close inspection of his ethical system will show 
that clearly Heidegger would have been opposed, as he was else why
would he have left, to any of the future goings-on within the 
Nazi party.  When Heidegger joined the Nazi party it was nothing more
than a nationalistic movement(existential writters have a tendency
to be nationalisitic) however Heidegger left whenever the threat
to the jewish community came to the fore.  He left because some of
his own department members fell to the grips of the Nazi party.  Those
members were jewish.  Yes, it was a dissapointment that he became involved
in it in any way--and even if he were a tried and true Nazi to the
end(which is a ridiculous statement in any case) the philosophy he
left, along with its internal ethics, is one which stands directly
opposed to such behavior.  The conept of dwelling, I think, stands
in evidence sufficiently alone.
    Mikhail, you have no case on this point--nothing exists that
can prove that Heidegger's philosophy is without ethics, that Heidegger
himself was without ethics, that Heidegger was a tried and true
Nazi.  You have nothing left, so why don't you just drop the point 
and get on with your life by stopping making trouble for dead white guys.

> cordially,
> mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
> "Nous donnons la mort, nous saurons la subir."
> 

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III  Account at Oklahoma State University for summer.
Graduate Student in Religious Studies           onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu
University of Chicago
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