Heidegger and the Problem of Evil

332 Pages·2015·1.686 MB·English

by  Cezary Wodziński

Studies in Social Sciences, Philosophy 15 Studies in Social Sciences, Philosophy
and History of Ideas 15 and History of Ideas 15
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ISBN 978-3-631-66373-8
Studies in Social Sciences, Philosophy 15 Studies in Social Sciences, Philosophy
and History of Ideas 15 and History of Ideas 15
i
k
s
n´
i
z
d
o
W
y Cezary Wodzin´ski
r
Cezary Wodzin´ski a
z
e
C
Heidegger and the Problem of Evil
Heidegger
l
i
This book provides an encompassing and The Author v
thorough study of Martin Heidegger’s Cezary Wodzin´ski is Full Professor at the E and the Problem of Evil
thought. It is not only a presentation but Faculty of Artes Liberales at the Univer- f
o
also a profound critique of the thinker’s sity of Warsaw and Head of the Research m
beliefs. In the context of Heidegger’s co- Group of Metaphysical Transformations
e
operation with Nazism, the author reflects in Contemporary Philosophy at the Polish
l
on the reasons behind his inability to con- Academy of Sciences. His main interests b
o
front the problem of evil and vulnerability and objects of study are Greek philosophy r
to the threats of totalitarianism. (pre-Socratic and classic), modern and P
contemporary German philosophy, apo- e
h
phatic theology, and anthropology.
t
d
n
a
r
e
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Heidegger and the Problem of Evil
STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES, PHILOSOPHY
AND HISTORY OF IDEAS

Edited by Andrzej Rychard

Advisory Board
Joanna Kurczewska,
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Henryk Doma ski,
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Szymon Wróbńel,
Faculty of «Artes Liberales» of the University of Warsaw

VOLUME 15
Cezary Wodzi ski

ń

Heidegger and the Problem of Evil
Translated into English by Agata Bielik-Robson
and Patrick Trompiz
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche
Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in
the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic
data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wodziński, Cezary, author.
Title: Heidegger and the problem of evil / Cezary Wodziński ; translated
into English by Agata Bielik-Robson and Patrick Trompiz.
Other titles: Heidegger i problem zla. English
Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Peter Lang, 2016. | Series: Studies in
social sciences, philosophy, and history of ideas, ISSN 2196-0151 ; VOLUME
15 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044345 | ISBN 9783631663738
Subjects: LCSH: Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. | Good and evil.
Classification: LCC B3279.H49 W53713 2016 | DDC 193—dc23 LC record availa-
ble at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044345

This publication was financially supported by the Institute of Philosophy and
Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

ISSN 2196-0151
ISBN 978-3-631-66373-8 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-653-05837-6 (E-Book)
DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-05837-6
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Frankfurt am Main 2016
All rights reserved.
Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH.
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Contents
Introduction: The Debate ........................................................................7
Chapter 1: Meanings ...............................................................................17
1. The Ex-propriation ........................................................................................17
2. Language and Meanings................................................................................23
3. The Project of the Fundamental Reform of German University .............28
4. The New Claims of Knowledge ....................................................................37
5. Philosophers Interpreted the World in Many Ways… ..............................45
6. Philosopher and Leader ................................................................................50
7. The Holy Heart of Nations ............................................................................56
8. The Nation and Its Tongue ............................................................................65
9. Heidegger’s Delusion .....................................................................................72
10. The Delusion of Overcoming Metaphysics.................................................77
11. A Strategy for Saving Europe from “Stalinist Bolshevism” .......................90
Chapter 2: Second Meanings ................................................................97
1. On the trails of its own .................................................................................97
2. The Modalities of the Being of Dasein .....................................................101
3. Resoluteness and Revolution ....................................................................110
4. The Question about Dasein .......................................................................117
5. The Essence of Man ...................................................................................123
6. In the Sphere of the Polis ...........................................................................130
7. Political Philosophy or the Philosophy of Politics .................................137
8. The Problem of Historicity .......................................................................143
9. The Speech of Silence ................................................................................154
5
Chapter 3: Sense ....................................................................................165
1. Thinking Being ............................................................................................165
2. Thinking the difference ..............................................................................169
3. Difference and Dasein ................................................................................177
4. Difference and speech ................................................................................182
5. The Difference as Austrag ...........................................................................189
6. The Event of Being ......................................................................................192
7. Metaphysics: The oblivion of Being and of Difference ..........................201
8. Metaphysics as onto-theo-logy .................................................................209
9. The question of sense..................................................................................213
Chapter 4: Nonsense .............................................................................219
1. Keiner stirbt für bloße Werte ......................................................................219
2. Sollen or Sein? .............................................................................................225
3. Philosophy and worldview ........................................................................233
4. Gott ist tot ....................................................................................................243
5. The overturning of “Platonism” ................................................................250
6. Wertdenken as the essence of metaphysics .............................................254
7. A retrospective: metaphysics of the will to power and
National Socialism .....................................................................................265
8. Nullmeridian ...............................................................................................273
9. Thinking against values .............................................................................283
10. Towards evil ................................................................................................288
11. To be “beyond good and evil” ...................................................................296
The Opening ...........................................................................................309
Bibliography ...........................................................................................323
6
Introduction: The Debate
It is the power to challenge which decides about the greatness of a philosophical
work; the power – and sometimes it takes the form of unconditional imperative –
to make us think with it. If we answer this challenge, the work becomes part of
our thinking.
A philosophical work opens a new way for thinking – and it is precisely in this
opening that the power of the challenge constitutes itself. There is no opposition
between work and way. Quite to the contrary, a work exhorts us to go down the
road it has opened. Thinking together with a philosophical work means to go
with it. Its power of challenge depends on how far this new way diverts us from
the usual paths of our thinking. The bigger the diversion, the greater the power.
But this refers only to the very moment of initiation and our decision to par-
ticipate in the work. The act of going together down the same path depends on
two further factors: on how deep, significant and communicative are the traces
the work left on its way, and on how responsive we are to their meanings and
importance. In the case of a philosophical work, the traces it imprints on its way
are philosophical questions. The power of the challenge increases with the im-
portance of the questions the work left on its way as road-signs. The right answer
to the challenge of a philosophical work is to think together with it. The respon-
sibility of the response lies in this questioning together.
However, it is in the nature of such thinking-together to set up oppositions: to
think-together and to ask-together means always to think-against and in-spite-of.
By coming to us as a challenge, philosophical work wants us not only to sympa-
thize with the importance of its questions – in the sense that they become our
own questions – but also to stand apart from and distance ourselves from them.
The appropriation of questions, which constitutes the real thinking-together, is
possible only thanks to this dissent. Unless we disagree, our going-together is
nothing more than a passive following, never an active thinking-together on
the way. To be on the way means something more than just to follow, to step
into traces. Thinking-together will not tolerate imitation. The right answer to
the philosophical question is always another question. Asking-together is an act
of appropriation of the questions which are signs on the work’s road of think-
ing. An appropriated question is never the same question; its virtuality depends
on our participation in the work. The same question would be only a consent-
ing “question”, a question without the power to challenge. The appropriation of
a philosophical question is possible only on the basis of an understanding of
7
its importance. The measure of importance of a philosophical question which
defines the way of a work is its potential of being co-important: a potential it
would be impossible to keep up in the smooth atmosphere of consent. The dis-
sent which originates in the co-importance of philosophical questions is the real
act of thinking-together. The attempt to answer the challenge thrown at us by a
philosophical work fulfils itself in dissent.
Heidegger’s philosophical work has without doubt the power of a challenge
in all these senses. Taking up the challenge – an attempt to think-together, ask-
together and go-together down the way the work opens – requires dissent. In a
letter to one of his pupils Heidegger wrote:
“It is, I think, a high time that people stop writing “about” Heidegger. A substantial dis-
sent (eine sachliche Auseinandersetzung) would be far more important.” (in Pöggeler
1983, 355).
Philosophical dissent is of a peculiar nature. Its semantic structure is, in fact, far
more complicated than the common term “dissent”, which I used here only tenta-
tively, suggests. We need to reach for other definitions. It is worth looking closer
at Heidegger’s own concept of Auseinandersetzung. In Heidegger’s vocabulary it
fulfils a significant function whose many-layered meanings can be captured only
by a close inspection of the way it is presented by Heidegger himself. Dissent,
when understood as Auseinandersetzung, is not just a quarrel, disagreement or
even a confrontation which aims at conquering and disempowering the adver-
sary. It is an opposition in which two opposed sides reveal their true essence.
Such opposition is a form of unveiling, of disclosure. The adversary is here less
important that the nature of the opposites themselves. Moreover, philosophical
dissent does not consist in just setting one opinion against another; it does not
strive to replace one standpoint with another.
“Auseinanderstetzung – writes Heidegger in Beiträge – is not an opposition in a sense of
simple refusal or total overcoming of one standpoint by another.” (LXV, 187)
Dissent cannot, in addition, be reduced to “besserwisser” polemic or “conceit-
ed” critique. These both tend to reject the opposite standpoint as a collection of
“blunders” and “inadequacies” which they measure according to purely external
criteria known only to themselves.
“If Auseinandersetzung were nothing but a ‘critique’ in a sense of enumeration of def-
ficiencies and mistakes (Bemängelung)… But it is, in fact, something totally different:
it is all about choosing an adversary, bringing him to an opposite stand and forcing on
him a struggle for what is most essential (ein Kampf um das Wesentlichste).” (XLIII, 276)
8