Overview

In February 1988, philosophers Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe came together in Heidelberg before a large audience to discuss the philosophical and political implications of Martin Heidegger's thought. This event took place in the very amphitheater in which, more than fifty years earlier, Heidegger, as rector of the University of Freiburg and a member of the Nazi Party, had given a speech entitled ""The University in the New Reich."" Heidegger's involvement in Nazism has always been, and will remain, an indelible scandal, but what is its real relation to his work and thought? And what are the responsibilities of those who read this work, who analyze and elaborate this thought? Conversely, what is at stake in the wholesale dismissal of this important but compromised twentieth-century philosopher? In 1988, in the wake of the recent publication of Victor Farias's Heidegger and Nazism, and of the heated debates that ensued, these questions had become more pressing than ever. The reflections presented by three of the most prominent of Heidegger's readers, improvised in French and transcribed here, were an attempt to approach these questions before a broad public, but with a depth of knowledge and a complex sense of the questions at issue that have been often lacking in the press. Ranging over two days and including exchanges with one another and with the audience, the discussions pursued by these major thinkers remain highly relevant today, especially following the publication of Heidegger's already notorious ""Black Notebooks,"" which have added another chapter to the ongoing debates over this contested figure. The present volume recalls a highly charged moment in this history, while also drawing the debate toward its most essential questions.

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9780823273669

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Reviews

In light of the renewed debates about Heidegger and Nazism, Heidegger, Philosophy, and Politics is a timely book. Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe and Gadamer tackle Heidegger's thinking head on, providing new insights into his legacy. -Leonard Lawlor, Penn State University

<em>Heidegger, Philosophy, and Politics</em> gives us fresh insights from Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe and Gadamer on Heidegger. In fact, it presents the culmination of Derrida's reflections on Heidegger during the 1980s. But what makes this book truly important is the discussion of Heidegger's association with Nazism. In relation to the legacy of Heidegger's thinking Derrida in particular raises the question of responsibility, a question to which he returns again and again in the 1990s. --Leonard Lawlor, Penn State University

Heidegger, Philosophy, and Politics gives us fresh insights from Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe and Gadamer on Heidegger. In fact, it presents the culmination of Derrida's reflections on Heidegger during the 1980s. But what makes this book truly important is the discussion of Heidegger's association with Nazism. In relation to the legacy of Heidegger's thinking Derrida in particular raises the question of responsibility, a question to which he returns again and again in the 1990s. --Leonard Lawlor, Penn State University

Author Information

Jacques Derrida was the single most influential voice in European philosophy for the last third of the twentieth century. His many books include Of Grammatology, Specters of Marx, and The Animal That Therefore I Am. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe was Professor of Philosophy at the Universite Marc Bloch, Strasbourg. His many books include Poetry as Experience; Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics; and, with Jean-Luc Nancy, The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism. Jeff Fort is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Imperative to Write (2014) and translator of more than a dozen books, by Jean Genet, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy, and others. Jean-Luc Nancy (1940–2021) was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Strasbourg and one of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century’s foremost thinkers of politics, art, and the body. His wide-ranging thought runs through many books, including Being Singular Plural, The Ground of the Image, Corpus, The Disavowed Community, and Sexistence. His book The Intruder was adapted into an acclaimed film by Claire Denis.

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