Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil (ISBN 0674387090)

How to begin.....:
There are a lot of reasons why I was interested in picking this book up: my mentor at Georgetown, Wilfrid Desan, stressed how important it was to know the life of a philosopher, even the likes of Quine, because philosophy is ever and always about one's life. In the case of Heidegger, the mysteries of this man, the profound impact of his work on the course of 20th century thinking, the controversies of his politics all left me wondering how to get a grip on this man. This book is not for beginners. I've spent my undergraduate and graduate years studying Heidegger. Like a moth to the flame, and it consumed me in every regard. His books have totally spun me inside out, shook me to my soul, sent me off into Asian thought. If ever there was a Dasein thrown, yers trewly is it. How to begin to come to terms with this writer? Safranski does an absolutely brilliant job at delineating the strands of thinking leading up to the advent of phenomenology. But, as I say, this isn't for the novice or the casual reader. This is disciplined, committed writing in service of Thinking itself. There are no two ways about it, Heidegger erupted into the Twentieth Century. There seemed to be a sense among his teachers that this was an extraordinary thinker. As he gains the acceptance and posts of influence in German university life, he gains his confidence and from the point of BEING AND TIME onward, nothing, absolutely nothing will ever be the same. This book documents the transitions remarkably and with great clarity. Of course, one of the things that troubled me the most in my undergraduate days was the prospect of Heidegger's anti-Semitism and his political allegance to the Nazis in the early days of their rise to power, all the while entering into a passionate romance with Hannah Arendt. The book does not hide or apologize for Heidegger. But it seems clear that it is not real clear just how anti-Semitic he was. He quite directly states to Arendt that he finds his Jewish students annoying, and he somewhat buys into the supremecy of the German state espoused by the 1920's and early 30's Nazis. And he very definitely benefits from their appointments. Yet, he witholds. His wife does not. She is clearly and vehemently disgusted by Jewish people. I'm sure that her husband's affair with Arendt only added fuel to that fire. Yet Heidegger does not seem to buy the whole program. On the other hand, he does little or nothing to help Arendt get out of Germany, and nothing at all to save Edith Stein, his colleague from their days with Husserl, who had become a Catholic nun, was murdered at Auchwitz and has since been canonized. Nor is he willing to give a full and clear account of himself in the trials after the war. I am as puzzled now as I have always been. Was this incredible thinker also so filled with narrow mindedness that he could watch a people get exterminated because some of his students were annoying him? And as his thought began to walk more Buddhist paths, how did he resolve this great beginning of thinkng with the conflicts in his life? Those questions are not answered. Still in all, this book is a remarkable achievement. I could go on about so many other aspects, but I'll leave it at this: this is a book about a man's beginning, about being thrown fully consciously into the ground of thinking, and it uncovers what he found in the clearing with great insight.

The gale that blows through Heidegger...:
The epigram at the front of this brisk and efficient biography of Heidegger opens with an epigram from Arendt, 'The gale that blows through Heidegger...is not of our century...'. This is true, and evocative of the mysteries of philosophic history and origins, and yet the observation poignantly reveals the mystique that swept through the culture of the times and brought too many to a fool's ruin, among them students of Heidegger. One reviews the question ad infinitum reluctant to pass judgement on a philosophic genius, and yet the facts of the history show just this, a long grace period, viz. the postwar French devotion to this philosophy, now followed by a renewed offensive at the harsh reality of the facts of the case, and the difficulty of separating any longer the philosopher in politics from his philosophy. Hellishness beckons. This biography is very dry, neat, but includes the assessement of the case in the light of the work of Ott and Farias. Much was clear even before the rectorship speech, the influence of Junger, Spengler, then one gets unlucky, if one is mesmerized. How can one judge? Is there a choice? One looks at the wreckage in a hurricane and moves on.

A reluctantly written review of perhaps a great 'thinker' but a contemptibly small human - being:
I have read four chapters of this book, the ones on Anti-Semitism, Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, and the concluding chapter. The book is clearly written and the philosophical exposition outstanding. I was interested more in the whole question of Heidegger's Anti- Semitism, and his relationship with Hannah Arendt- in part because I just finished Elisabeth Young- Bruehl's excellent biography of Arendt. My sense of it all is that Heidegger was not at all a Socrates willing to take the hemlock for a higher ideal. His relations to his great mentor , the Jewish Husserl are shabby to say the least. He did not stand for him in any way, removed the original dedication to Husserl of 'Time and Being' from later editions of the work. He did not go out of his way to save Jewish friends. And in fact he became a Nazi ideologue at a certain point. His 'rehabilitation' in the eyes of the world owes a lot to Jaspers and Arendt. She especially showed a lifelong devotion to him. His failure to recognize the quality of her own work, the power of her mind in anything but understanding him shows a certain obtuseness, and inhumaneness. It is always disturbing to deal with a creator who may well have done great work when that creator's personal life is not commendable. It is all the more so when the creator is one like Wagner , truly evil. Heidegger obviously does not fit 'the evil category'. He may not be exactly midway between good and evil, but he was not the worst of the worst. I myself cannot read his Philosophy simply because I would feel very guilty in doing so. The thought of all the innocent dead murdered by the Nazis by a regime he served, cannot let me do this.

An informative biography of one of the greats:
Writing about philosophers is a rather difficult task in most cases. The author has to be able to separate the philosophy from the man without making too many conjectures as to how the man shaped the philosophy or how the philosophy shaped the man. It's rather understandable the different opinions on him. He was a rabid National Socialist, hough he saw the errors of this ideology with time, he alienated many of his close friends for petty reasons, and showed blatant infidelity towards his wife. His writing had a tendency to be obtuse, but this book is anytihng but. His philosophy is well covered, and there are some instances of a tongue -in-cheek amusement at his play on words. Like every philosopher, the philosophy changed with him, and there were times he was writing almost incoherently. It seemed he was in love with his own words as opposed to being at certain points, or perhaps couldn't come up with a logical structure to explain what he felt. Regardless, his influence is without question, and with time he always recomposed himself to the core of his teaching, to be-in-the-world, and to be open to one's own Dasein. An excellent biography that is a good introduction to his core teachings.

Absolutely worth time and effort:
Rüdiger Safranskis biography on Heidegger combines a profound understanding of Heidegger's philosophy with a wealth of anecdotes and perceptive analysis of Heidegger the man and his relationships. In particular, Heidegger's affiliation with National Socialism is well covered. Overall, the book is very impressive and well worth time and effort. As I am quite familiar with the young Heidegger via Theodor Kisiel's "The Genesis of heidegger's Being & Time" and the work of Scandinavian philosophers on the subject, my only regret is that Safranski didn't write more about the "thinking" of the late Heidegger.