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DocTomoetoday at 5:33 PM1 replyview on HN

I think you are painting Heidegger in an undeservedly bad light (not all Nazis were the same. There were shades of grey), and even if you consider Heidegger's thoughts as worthless by contamination (which would be a tragedy), you are adding a contact guilt to one of the most influential philosophers for having known him 10 years before he turned brown.


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joe_the_usertoday at 6:58 PM

Arendt was a defender of Heidegger even in the post-WWII world.

But moreover, Heidegger didn't just "turn brown". He saw NAZIism as a potential realization of his philosophy. Such a belief definitely influences my view of Heidegger. Any summary of Heidegger's philosophy and it's problem naturally either involves a lot of simplification or is book length. For book length critiques, I'd recommend The Jagon Of Authenticity by Adorno. My simplification of Heidegger's weakness is that he among a number of philosophers criticizing the lacking of authenticity/awareness/true-being/etc in the modern world in isolation. Such critiques tend to fall for political movements promising the violent reconstruction of tradition - such as NAZIism but limited to that. Michelle Foucault's despicable endorsement of Ayatollah Khomeini on the eve of the overthrow of the Shah is quite similar Heidegger's turn.