Great mind, dim idea

Author: By Dietrich Orlow

Date: SUNDAY, May 3, 1998

Page: E3

Section: Books

Not surprisingly, such a complex man has attracted the attention of many researchers, many of whom have focused especially on his Nazi period and his relationship with Arendt. It is legitimate, then, to ask if this most recent study can add anything new.

On one level the answer is ``no.'' Rudiger Safranski, a German freelance biographer, does not (nor does he claim to) present any revelations or smoking guns about his subject. His interpretation of Heidegger's ideas is based for the most part upon a close reading of Heidegger's published works and correspondence, while the facts of the philosopher's life are drawn from earlier biographies. Nonetheless, this is a welcome addition to the field of Heidegger studies. A superb work of synthesis, the book places Heidegger's thought and life in the volatile context of 20th-century German and European politics and philosophy.

The central problem for anyone attempting to understand Heidegger is how a philosopher consumed with the need for finding Truth, the meaning of Being, and the nature of Authenticity found the answer to all these quests -- at least for a time -- in Hitler, Nazism, and the Third Reich. At first glance, the evolution of Heidegger from lonely philosopher trying to find a place for his subject in the modern world to organizer of a quasi-military ``scholars' camp'' appears more than a little ludicrous. It is very much to Safranski's credit that he provides a convincing account of this paradox.

Faced with the claim by natural scientists and moral relativists that philosophy had little relevance in the modern world, Heidegger was only one of a number of philosophers who set out to reestablish the relevance of their discipline. His starting point was the work of his teacher, the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl. Husserl had come to the conclusion that reality lay in the manner in which things showed themselves to the mind, or appeared as phenomena. In his most famous book, the 1927 ``Being and Time,'' Heidegger carried Husserl's concept one step further. He agreed that Being or Reality is the process of abstracting by purely logical thought the Real from alien circumstances and extraneous factors. (Heidegger called these the ``They.'') However, Heidegger insisted that the phenomenon of Being is a fleeting occurrence: It is always connected with a historical moment, a given time and place. Heidegger, who had a lifelong obsession with wordplay, used one of his most famous creations to express this concept, stating that Dasein (Being) is always associated with ``da sein'' (being there at a specific time).

Although written at breakneck speed to put Heidegger on the tenure track, ``Being and Time'' established him as an instant celebrity in academic circles. Clearly, though, it had little relation to everyday life or politics. The author realized this as well, and as he saw the advance of the detested forces of modernism, he became desperate for some means of pulling German society back from the brink of a disastrous future. Heidegger convinced himself, Safranski argues persuasively, that Hitler and Nazism would lead a revolution that would give Germany a moment of national authenticity. Heidegger himself used the analogy of Plato's cave to describe the Nazis as leading a collective breakout of the inhabitants from the darkness into the sunlight of Truth and Being.

Keeping the analogy of the cave, Heidegger also saw a pivotal role for himself in the coming revolution. He and a few other philosophers (Heidegger did not think Germany needed more than two or three professors of philosophy) would act, much as Plato had hoped to do for the tyrant Dionysus in Syracuse, as philosophical guides for the political leadership of the Third Reich. For this reason he welcomed his election as rector of the University of Freiburg.

Safranski describes both Heidegger's initial enthusiasm for the Nazi ``revolution of Authenticity'' and his disillusionment with Germany's new rulers. Heidegger quickly recognized that the Nazi leaders had no interest in philosophical mentoring, and the Nazis discovered that Heidegger, who was never a racist or an anti-Semite, was ``not one of us.'' Heidegger regarded racism and anti-Semitism as concepts of the ``They,'' not worthy of serious consideration.

After his resignation as rector, Heidegger for the remainder of the Nazi years went into what would later be called ``inner emigration.'' He taught his classes, and devoted his research activities to interpretations of poetry, notably the works of the 19th-century German mystic Friedrich Hoelderlin.

At the end of the war Heidegger was certainly out of the limelight, and he, for one, thought it was very unfair to punish him for his brief association with the Nazis. His colleagues thought otherwise. As part of his de-Nazification, Heidegger was barred from teaching for three years. When the ban was lifted in 1949, he returned to teaching at Freiburg, but he never regained the popularity among students that he had enjoyed earlier. West German students after the Second World War preferred the pragmatic modernism of Juergen Habermas and the sophisticated Marxism of the Frankfurt School to Heidegger's railings against modernity.

Ironically, he was able to bask in a couple of new limelights. He became something of a darling of the postwar French intellectual scene. Beginning with a few occupation officers (Freiburg was in the French zone of occupation), a steady stream of French intellectuals made their way to Heidegger's home to speak with the man whom many, including Sartre, acknowledged as the father of existentialism. At the same time, Heidegger became a feature on the lecture circuit in West Germany. Audiences made up primarily of businessmen and technocrats seemed to enjoy listening to Heidegger's obscurantist warnings against the dangers of technology.

Heidegger's last years were spent in quiet retirement. He became reconciled with Arendt, who, understandably, had written some bitter things about him after she fled the Nazis in 1941 and settled in the United States. Beginning in 1967, she visited him annually until her own death, in 1975.

Although Safranski sees Heidegger as a towering figure in 20th-century philosophy, this is a ``warts and all'' biography. The author leaves no doubt about Heidegger's self-centeredness, his intellectual arrogance, and his convenient lapses of memory about his role in the Nazi years.

But the book's primary merit is a superb explication of Heidegger's thought, its antecedents, and its place in the context of his political and philosophical times. For an English-speaking audience, Safranski's treatment is easily the best introduction to Heidegger's complex philosophy.

Heidegger's German is notoriously difficult and idiosyncratic. He delighted in new word creations and giving common words entirely new meanings by playing with their suffixes and prefixes. As a result, translating Heidegger into English -- and this book understandably quotes long passages -- is a daunting task. Translator Ewald Osers deserves particular praise for rendering Heidegger's prose very understandable. He has helped make this an important book, highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of 20th-century Continental philosophy and Martin Heidegger's place in it.