Malign Masters Gentile Heidegger Lukács Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Politics in the Twentieth Century

227 Pages·1997·22.923 MB·English

by  Harry Redner (auth.)

MALIGN MASTERS
GENTILE HEIDEGGER LUKACS WITTGENSTEIN
Also by Harry Redner
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE DEED
THE ENDS OF PHILOSOPHY
THE ENDS OF SCIENCE
A NEW SCIENCE OF REPRESENTATION
ANATOMY OF THE WORLD (with Jillian Redner)
AN HERETICAL HEIR OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT (editor)
Malign Masters
Gentile Heidegger
Lukacs Wittgenstein
Philosophy and Politics in the
Twentieth Century
Harry Redner
First published in Great Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-25709-6 ISBN 978-1-349-25707-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25707-2
First published in the United States of America 1997 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-17324-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redner, Harry.
Malign masters : Gentile, Heidegger, Lukacs, Wittgenstein
philosophy and politics in the twentieth century / Harry Redner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and inde1l.
ISBN 978-0-312-17324-1 (cloth)
I. Gentile, Giovanni, 1875-1944. 2. Heidegger, Martin,
1889-1976. 3. Lukacs, Gyorgy, 1885-1971. 4. Wittgenstein, Ludwig,
1889-1951. I. Title.
B3624.G5R43 1997
I 9O'.9'04--dc2 I 96-37665
CIP
© Harry Redner 1997
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1997
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced. copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright. Designs and
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the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road. London WIP 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97
To my mother, who survived the worst of
totalitarian terror
Contents
Foreword xi
Introduction
Part I Early and Late Philosophies 23
The Primary Masterworks 25
2 The Turning (Kehre) 53
3 The Secondary Masterworks 83
Part II Influences and Confluences 113
4 Fathers and Sons 115
5 Forefathers and Other Ancestral Figures 149
6 Friends and Followers 174
Notes 198
Personal Names Index 211
Subject Index 215
vii
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now ...
T.S. Eliot
Foreword
'Since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief,' promises prolix Polonius.
In this book I, too, promise to be brief. But brevity has its drawbacks -
the Poloniuses of philosophy will no doubt demand the lengthy exposi
tions and demonstrations of every point that I have deliberately avoided.
To them I can only reply, turn to some of my other, much longer works
if you want 'more matter with less art'. In particular, I can recommend my
recently published A New Science of Representation, which establishes the
overall background, both philosophical and historical, against which this
work must be seen. There they will also find some of the punctilious
presentations of arguments that can only be briefly adumbrated here. At
the very least, that should convince anyone that I can be as turgid and
tedious as the best of them.
If what I have lost through brevity I have gained in wit, then so be it.
Anyway, it has not been possible to provide complete accounts of four
such copious writers as the malign masters whose extant Nachlass, most
of it now in print, runs to tens of thousands of pages each. Anyone who
believes that this work should be more aptly entitled Maligned Masters
will easily be able to show that there are all sorts of things in these
writings I have missed, that there are hidden virtues in these authors I have
overlooked, and that there are many indispensable commentators I have
not read. I make no claims to omniscience regarding any of this. I simply
stand by the weight of my criticisms. Let those who disagree try to provide
the counterweight to balance these.
However, I should warn them in advance of any such attempts that I
have not yet finished with this chapter in the history of philosophy. I
intend to publish at least one more book, perhaps entitled Benign Masters,
for I, too, have my list of champions to set against those whom nearly
everyone else admires. Anyone too disheartened by the mainly negative
proscriptions in this book might take heart from the more positive pre
scriptions to come in the next.
What I wish to achieve with this 'negative' book is simply to spare
others, especially the young, all the painful effort I expended trying to
make profound sense of the temptingly fascinating works of the malign
masters. I wasted many of what should have been my best years on such
futile endeavours. However, if my experience, as condensed in this book,
saves some others from embarking on a similar quest, then perhaps my
blighted years might not have been so wasted after all. Though I hope this
xi
xii Malign Masters
book will be of use, I make no special claims on its behalf, nor do I wish
to use it to preach to others. I see myself merely in the role of the boy in
Hans Andersen's fairy tale who exclaimed that the emperor has no clothes.
Those who are in the emperor's entourage - the prudent Poloniuses of
philosophy, for whom a cloud can look as much like a weasel as a whale
- will no doubt continue to see him resplendently attired. I can only
reiterate that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in their
philosophies.