Heidegger’s unrepentant 1953 publication of his Nazi-era lecture shocked Habermas into political engagement

Evidence

Until Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics was published, my political and philosophical confessions, if you like, were two completely different things. They were two universes that barely touched on another. Then I saw that Heidegger, whose philosophy I used to live in, had given this lecture in 1935 and was publishing it nowthis was what really shook mewithout a word of explanation. So I wrote one of my first articles in the Frankfurter Allgemeine about it. I was naïve, and I thought, how can one of our greatest philosophers do something like that? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2296

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to questions of intellectual complicity and unrepentant publication — parallels debates about other compromised philosophers of the era. — connects to: Heidegger’s uncommented 1935 lecture shattered Habermas’s separation of politics from philosophy; Heidegger hid career-damaging political judgments behind claims of truthfulness — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 300; Heidegger’s Nazi past and obscure late prose drove away former admirers — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 603 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Heidegger hid career-damaging political judgments behind claims of truthfulness #complicates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 300
• Heidegger’s Nazi past and obscure late prose drove away former admirers #expands (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 603
• Heidegger staged his lectures as controlled theatre and derided spontaneous discussion #expands (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 191
• Heidegger signaled compliance with Nazism to his shocked friend Jaspers in 1933 #exemplifies (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 281