Martin Heidegger's Aristotelian National Socialism - Department of

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Martin Heidegger's Aristotelian National Socialism
Author(s): Michael Allen Gillespie
Source: Political Theory, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 140-166
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192232 .
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MARTIN HEIDEGGER'S ARISTOTELIAN
NATIONAL SOCIALISM
MICHAELA LLENG ILLESPIE
Duke University
SINCE THE PUBLICATIONo f Farias's Heidegger et le Nazisme, the
question of Heidegger's commitmentt o National Socialism has assumed a
central position in the debate about the significance and meaning of his
thought.' We now know that Heidegger's Nazism began earlier and lasted
longer than he and his supportersh ad previously led us to believe and that
Heideggerh imself hadn o doubtst hath is earliert houghtw as compatiblew ith
at least some idealized version of Nazism.2T here are also clear indications
thatH eideggern evera bandonedh is supportf or the ideals of NationalS ocial-
ism. The referencet o "thei nnert rutha nd greatness"o f the NationalS ocialist
movementi n the 1953 publicationo f An Introductiont o Metaphysicsi s one
clear example of this, and Heidegger's mendacious attemptt o conceal the
meaningo f this phrasew ith his latera dditiono f an "explanatory"p arenthesis
only confirms suspicions about his real intentions.3M oreover,e ven in his
1966 Spiegel interview,h e still claimedt hatt he Nazis hadf ailed only because
the leaders of the partyw ere too limited in their thinking( i.e., because they
were not radical enough).4C oupled with his unremittingc riticism of other
contemporaryp olitical possibilities, therei s little doubtt hatH eideggerc on-
tinuedt o regardt he Nazi movementa s the most promisingp olitical develop-
ment of his time.
It is the purposeo f this articlet o explainH eidegger'sa ttractionto National
Socialism througha n analysiso f his encounterw ith the thoughto f Aristotle.I
will show thatf rom 1919 to 1933, Heideggerd evelopeda vision of praxisa nd
politics on an Aristotelian foundation that he believed would reverse the
dominationo f theory and technology in moder life and put in its place the
rule of practicalw isdom or phronesis that was rooted in a historicalu nder-
standingo f the world and thatp ut humanb eings and humana ction ahead of
values, ideological imperatives,a nd the process of production.I will show
POLITICALT HEORY,V ol. 28 No. 2, April 2000 140-166
? 2000 Sage Publications,I nc.
140
Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANN ATIONALS OCIALISM 141
furthert hatH eideggerb elieved the Nazi movementw as bringings uch a poli-
tics into being andt hate ven when he recognizedt his was not the case, he con-
tinuedt o believe such a politics was both necessarya ndd esirable,m odifying
only his conception of the means by which such an end could be attained.I
will theni ndicatei n conclusionh ow andw hy Heidegger'sv ision ofphronesis
is fundamentallyf lawed.
HEIDEGGER'SV ISIONO F THE CRISISO F THE WEST
Heidegger was attractedt o Nazism because he believed it offered a solu-
tion to the crisis of Westernc ivilization.H e saw this crisis as resulto f the for-
getfulness or withdrawalo f the questiono f Being. In Heidegger'sv iew, exis-
tence at its core is mysterious.B eing as such in the most fundamentals ense is
always only as a question.W e become humant o the extent thatw e are struck
by this question and thereby come to think and dwell in language. Our
encounterw ith the question of Being, however,p roducesa nxiety and pain,
for it involves an encounter with not being, with nothingness and death.
Being itself thusr epels us from the questiont owarda nswers,t owarda n inter-
pretationo f Being as something,a s some being. In ourf light from the pain of
Being, we fall into a realmo f beings, into what Heideggeri n Being and Time
called everydayness.
Such fallenness takes two different forms. In the first instance, it is a
fallenness into the everydayw orldo f our concerns,t he daily business of life,
what Heidegger in Being and Timec alls the ready-to-hand.T he other and
deeper form of fallenness is a fallenness into theory,i nto presence-at-hand.
Heideggerb elievedt hats uch a falling away fromB eing had characterizedt he
West since Plato. Being itself therebyc ame to be experiencedn ot as a ques-
tion but only in and throughb eings, as the Being of beings. Westernt hought
is nothingo thert hana continuinge laborationo f this answera nd thus an ever
more distant flight from Being itself as a question.
The steps in this process are relatively straightforwardT. he West began
with the pre-Socratice xperienceo f the questiono f Being. Plato, by contrast,
interpretedB eing as eternalp resence,a ccessible only by means of a long and
difficult dialectical ascent. Being was projectede ven furtheri nto the unat-
tainable transcendenceo f eternity by Christianity.H uman beings could no
longer experience Being immediately or even reach it througha dialectical
ascent. Being was attainableo nly through grace. The final withdrawalo f
Being thatc haracterizest he Westernm etaphysicsp roducest he deatho f God
thatl ies at the hearto f modernity,a withdrawalo f Being thatl eaves man him-
142 POLITICALT HEORY/ April 2000
self as the foundationo n which to establish the world. Man in this sense
becomes the groundo r subiectumt hat makes possible the transformationo f
naturei nto a universalo bject. The modern world for Heidegger is thus the
ever more encompassing attempt to objectify nature,t o convert it into an
object that can be mastered and controlled. This process Heidegger calls
technology.I t culminatesi n a will to converte verything,i ncludingh umanity
itself, into a raw materialt hatc an be exploited and used up in the production
of the means of production( i.e., in the service of technology).5
Heidegger argued that the most dangerous forms of this technological
impulse were Americanism and Marxism.6E urope, he felt, was being
crushedb etween these two forces thata imed at the universalo rganizationo f
everydaym an for the unlimitede xploitationo f the eartha nd all otherh uman
beings. In Heidegger'sv iew, neitherp rovidesm an with the means to come to
termsw ith technology because both are undert he illusion thatt echnology is
merely a tool. This notionm akesi t impossiblef or humanb eings to recognize
or amelioratet heiro wn degradationT. he salvationo f the West thus depends
on raisinga newt he questiono f Being as the questiono f technology.T his was
the task thatH eideggers et for himself andt hath e believed,a t least for a time,
was also vouchsafedt o National Socialism.
What,t hen,d id Heideggers ee in NationalS ocialism thats eemed to afford
an answert o this problem?H e told KarlL owith in 1936 thath is partisanship
for National Socialism lay in the essence of his philosophy, asserting that
"'historicity'w as the basis for his political 'engagement.'"I7n a lettert o Mar-
cuse afterW orldW arI I, he suggestedt hath e "expectedf romN ationalS ocial-
ism a spiritualr enewalo f life in its entirety,a reconciliationo f social antago-
nism anda deliveranceo f WesternD asein fromt he dangerso f communism."8
Heideggerc learly felt thatr esolutea ction was needed to deal with the social
and spiritualc risis and was attractedt o the Nazis because of theird etermina-
tion for action. This fact has led critics such as Karl Lowith and Richard
Wolin to arguet hatH eidegger'sp olitical thoughtw as decisionistic and thus
indifferentt o the content of the Nazis' political program.9W hile this factor
certainlyp lays an importantr ole in explainingH eidegger'sa ttractiont o radi-
calism, it cannot accountf or his attractiont o National Socialism rathert han
Bolshevism or anarchism.
A second and more importanta ttractiono f Nazism was the centralityo f
the idea of Heimat and GemeinschaftA. s CatherineZ uckerth as shown, Hei-
degger believed that Germanc ommunall ife could only be reconstitutedo n
the basis of a new aestheticr eligion. Heideggers aw in the early Nazi move-
ment the seeds of such a community,r eflected in the notion of Blut und
Boden. While Heideggeru ses this phrasea t least once, he more typicallyu ses
only the term Boden, which reflects his clear and longstandingr ejection of
Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANN ATIONALS OCIALISM 143
racisto r biological NationalS ocialism. The nationalf ocus of his Nazism was
thus centered on the idea of the German tradition, focused and filtered
throught he transformativele ns of H6lderlin'sp oetry."W' hile there is much
to be said for this explanation,i t still does not explain Heidegger'sa ttraction
to Nazism rathert han any of the other nationalisticm ovements.
I want to suggest that what distinguished Nazism and particularly
attractedH eidegger was its rejectiono f theory in favor of leadership.A s we
will see in what follows, Heideggers aw in the Nazi idea of leadershipa n idea
of knowledge and action that was akin to what Aristotle called phronesis or
practicalw isdom. Moreover,i t was precisely this form of knowing that his
earlier work on Aristotle had led him to believe would alone make possible
the humanizationo f technology. To understandH eidegger's attractiont o
Nazism, we thus must examine the interpretationo f Aristotle he developed
duringt he early 1920s.
THEOLOGYH, ISTORYA, ND PHENOMENOLOGY:
THEB ACKGROUNDO F HEIDEGGER'S
RECEPTIONO F ARISTOTLE
Heidegger's reception of Aristotle was shaped by his earlier encounters
with medieval theology, Dilthey's historicism, and Husserl's phenomeno-
logical investigationsH. eideggerg rew up in a deeply religiousl ower-middle-
class Catholic family. His educationw as supportedb y the Churchw ith the
understandingt hat he would become a defendero f Catholic orthodoxy,a nd
in the period before WorldW arI , Heideggerw as seen as a promisingy oung
Catholic academic. His brief experience at the front and a crisis of faith in
1918, however, propelled him away from the system of Catholicism. He
came to believe that the conceptualf rameworko f scholastic theology jeop-
ardizedt he immediacya ndi ntensityo f life thatw ere essential to truep hiloso-
phy and religion.1
Heideggerh ad neverb een a simple neo-scholastic.T he young Heidegger,
for example, had never accepted the imposition of Thomism as official
Church dogma.12 His choice of the protonominalistD uns Scotus for his
Habilitationr eflectedh is desire to cut throughc onceptualismt o the concrete
realityo f ordinarye xperience.H is crisis of faitht husd id not lead him to athe-
ism but towarda more immediatec onception of religiosity that grew out of
his reading of Schleiermacher,S cotus, Eckhardt, and Luther.13 He had
alreadyp ointed out in his Habilitationt hat in comparisont o medieval man,
modernm an faced the dangero f a growing uncertaintya nd complete disori-
144 POLITICALT HEORY/ April 2000
entationb ecause he lackeda n immediatet ie to an ultimateg round.1B4 ecause
scholastic theology destroyedt he immediacyo f such feeling, religion as the
contemplationo f the universumt hus had to give way to a quasi-mystical
meditationo n the infinite.15
While Heideggerw as movedb y theologicalq uestionsf romt he beginning,
he soon developeda more secularv oice. He begant o look for the intensityh e
believed medieval man had found in religious experience in the concrete
experienceo f contemporaryli fe. Drawingo n Eckhardta ndL uther,h e sought
a relationshipt o his own life thatw as akint o the relationshipt he mystic hadt o
God.16 In this effort, he drew heavily on Dilthey and Husserl. Dilthey be-
lieved thatt he ultimatelyr eal was to be foundn ot in transcendenceb uti n con-
crete historicale xperience.H usserlt oo was convincedt hatp hilosophyh ad to
come to termsw ith concretee xperience,b uth e thoughtt hatt he real was to be
discoveredi n the process of consciousness,t he fundamentailn tentionalityo f
all experience.T he aim of phenomenologyt husw as to breakt hrought o a true
reality, to "the things themselves." In his phenomenology, Husserl thus
sought to set aside theory and mere perceptioni n pursuito f the underlying
intentionalr eality of life itself.17
Whatw as particularlya ttractivet o Heideggeri n both Dilthey andH usserl
was the possibility they held out for coming to terms with the immediate
experience. Heidegger attemptedt o conceptualizet his "life" in which one
found oneself and which one "had"u nder a series of names from "primal
something"t o "life in and for itself,"" facticl ife,"t he "historicalI ,"t he "situ-
ated I," "facticall ife experience,"" facticity,"" Dasein" and "Being."1U8 ntil
1922, this undertakingh ad an explicitly religious significance, but at that
time Heidegger decided that there could be no theological philosophy and
thereafterc onsideredh imself a philosophical( althoughn ot a personal)a the-
ist.'9 Heidegger's philosophicala theism, however,w as not the result of his
determinationt hatp hilosophyw as at odds with religion.F arf romi t. Philoso-
phy had to separatei tself from religion to break throught o an immediate
experience of primall ife because it was only on the basis of such an experi-
ence thatt he realmf or truer eligiosity,t he realmo f the holy, could be opened
* 2(
up again.2
In contrast to Husserl, Heidegger believed that this primal something
could not be understoodt hroughc onsciousness, but only througha n under-
standingo f the I in its historicala nd social context.21H ere Dilthey's thought
was of cardinali mportance.T he concernw ith the historical,h owever,m eant
a concern with praxis. Heidegger hoped to find the concrete immediacy he
found missing in currentp hilosophy and theology in praxis. On this point,
however, neither Dilthey nor Husserl were of much help.22I n pursuito f a
solution to this problem,H eideggert urnedt o Aristotle.
Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANN ATIONALS OCIALISM 145
HEIDEGGER'SA RISTOTLEH: UMANB EING
AS THEP LACEO F TRUTH
Aristotle played a decisive role in the development of Heidegger's
thought.H eideggerf irstb ecamei nterestedi n Aristotlew hen his Gymnasium
teacher gave him a copy of Franz Brentano'sO n the Manifold Meaning of
Being in Aristotle (1862). Heidegger himself indicates that the question of
Being thatt his book firstr aisedr emainedc entralt o his thinkingf or the rest of
his life. Between 1915 and 1930, he taught or lectured on Aristotle fifteen
times.23I n the mid- 1920s, he beganp reparinga comprehensiveb ook on Aris-
totle as the culminationo f his previousw ork,a nda s TheodoreK isiel and oth-
ers have shown, in the processo f revision,t his book becameB eing and Time.
What distinguishes his interpretationo f Aristotle in the 1920s is his
approach to the question of Being through an examination of Aristotle's
account of humanB eing, or Dasein. Dasein for Heidegger is the place, the
there (Da-) at which Being (Sein) comes to be, the place at which Being is
opened up or uncovered.T he Greekw ordf or 'uncovering'i s aletheia, which
we translatea s 'truth.'T he principala ctivity that constitutes us as human
Being is thus aletheuein, 'uncovering.'2T4 his is the topic of book VI of Aris-
totle's Nichomachean Ethics. Uncovering beings in their Being means
revealing them as somethingi n and throughl anguage or logos. As the place
of the uncoveringo f beings, man is thus the zoon logon echon, 'life having
speech,' or, as we typically translatei t, the 'rationala nimal.'
Accordingt o Heidegger,t he Greeksb elieved thatb eforet he naturalw orld
was opened up, it was merely the realmo f naturaln eeds.25H umanb eings and
the world botha re, butt hey aren ot yet there.I t is in andt hroughl ogos thatt he
world is opened up, thath umanb eings and the world are therei n theirB eing,
that they are Da-sein. Thus, Being from the beginningf or the Greeks is Da-
sein, and the real question is aboutt he charactero f the Da-, the there.26A ni-
mals orientt hemselvest hroughp erception( aisthesis) andt hus seem to have a
kind of practicalw isdom (phronesis),b ut it is a wisdom that has no part in
intellectual intuition (nous) and is thereforen ot authentic.27It does not par-
ticipate in nous because while nous transcendss peech, it is only accessible
through speech. Animals make sounds (phone) that coordinatea ction, but
they do not speak or have a notion of the whole. Animals such as bees may
even in some sense be political, buti f this is the case, then man is more politi-
cal because he has logos.28M an'sB eing-in-the-worldi s fundamentallyd eter-
mined by logos.29
Speaking as uncovering or revealing, according to Heidegger, always
means for Aristotle speaking and revealing the world to other human
beings.3"A s the rationala nimal,m an is thus the political animal.A ccording
146 POLITICALT HEORY/ April 2000
to Heidegger,t he Being of those having logos, for Aristotle,i s a Being-with-
one-another,a communiono r fellowship (koinonia).3'F or Aristotle, Being-
with-one-anotheris thus equiprimordiawl ith Being-speakingi n Dasein.32I n
and throughl ogos, we make the world our own as a theret hat we have (Da-
Habe).33H eidegger thus argues that for Aristotle, the beginning is not the
Cartesian" I am"b ut "I am one (das Man)"o f many,a membero f the polis.34
To say that the world is opened up in and throughl anguagei s to say that it is
revealed in its fundamentallyt emporal charactera s a from-which and a
toward-which.H umanB eing is thus a stretchingf rom birtht o death and is
fundamentallyc haracterizedn ot by its ultimateg oal butb y the way it moves
towardo r with respectt o thatg oal. The end of life is thusn ot a whatb uta how,
the 'well' (eu-) of living well (euzoia) or being happyo r well spirited( eudai-
monia).35 In andt hroughl ogos, humanb eings areg atheredi nto a community
in which they can have the good (agathon)t ogether.3B6 ecause man'sB eing is
Being-with-one-anothert,h e good is not relateds imply to the individuala nd
is thus not primarily intended for solitary philosophers. Indeed, Dasein
includes the Being of one's parents,c hildren,w ife, friends, and fellow citi-
zens.37T he community'se stablishmenta nd pursuito f the good life are thus
primarilyp racticala ndo nly derivativelyt heoreticala ctivities.38T hey depend
decisively on conversationa nd discussion and thus, Heidegger argues, on
rhetoric.39
The very mentiono f rhetoric,o f course,r emindsu s thatw hile the world is
openedu p in responset o naturaln eeds in andt hroughl ogos, it is also covered
over immediatelyb y speech. All revealingi s also concealing.I ndeed,a s Hei-
degger following Aristotle argues, concealment (lethe) is more primordial
thanr evealing( a-le^theia)W. e are always falling back into concealmenta nd
thus constantlyn eed to struggle against concealment.4"T he preservationo f
our humanitya s the place or thereo f Being thus dependso n our capacityf or
what Aristotle calls aletheuein, 'revealing,'o r 'uncovering.'41
According to Aristotle, there are five modes of revealingi n and through
which we open up the world: techne, 'knowing one's way about' (Sich-
Auskennen); episteme, 'science' (Wissenschaft); phrone^sis, 'practical wis-
dom' or 'circumspectivei nsight' (Umsicht-Einsicht);s ophia, 'wisdom' or
'understanding('V erstehen);a nd nous, 'intellectuali ntuition'o r 'perceptual
thinking' (vernehmendes Vermeinen).42S ophia and episteme^a re theoretical
modes of revealing concerned with those things that do not change, with
ever-being (aei on). Technea nd phronesis are concerned with those things
that can be other than what they are and are thus practical forms of reveal-
ing.43N ous is presenti n all four because all are forms of noein, 'seeing with
the mind,' as forms of dianoein, 'thinking.'44
Gillespie / ARISTOTELIANN ATIONALS OCIALISM 147
The question for Aristotle that becomes central for Heidegger's under-
standing of Dasein is which of these modes of revealing is superior.I n the
theoreticalr ealm, sophia is superiort o episteme because episteme is really
only a higher form of techne that seeks to determinee xactly the principle
(arche^t)h at guides the productiono f the techniciano r artist.W ithoutn ous,
however, it cannot attain this arch.45 In the realm of praxis, phronesis is
superiort o techne because techne aims at and is thus always for the sake of
something beyond itself, while phronesis aims only at Dasein.46T he real
question then for Aristotle in Heidegger's view is whether phronesis or
sophia more fully reveals Being. Heidegger recognizes that for Aristotle,
sophia is highert hanp hronesis,b uth e himself is convincedo f the reversea nd
strives to make the strongestc ase possible on an Aristotelianf oundationf or
the superiorityo f phronesis.47M oreover,h e attemptst o show that it was the
one-sided Platonic interpretationo f Being as presence that led Aristotle to
nominallyd evaluep hrone^sise,v en thoughh e recognizedt hati t was centralt o
ethical and political life.
For Aristotle, according to Heidegger, phrone^sisis characteristicn ot
merely of humanb eings buto f all living things.I t is the organism'si nnateo ri-
entationt owardp reserving,o r abilityt o preserve,i tself.48P hronesisd iffersi n
animalsa ndm en, however,b ecause for animalsi t dependsm erely on instinct
andp erception,w hile in men it is boundu p with logos andt hus with nous. As
an orientationt owardt he good life (euzoia) and happiness( eudaimonia),i t
determinest he how of ourd oing well (eupraxia).4I9t achieves this as circum-
spection (Umsicht)a nd care (Sorge) or care-fullc ircumspection( Sorgenum-
sicht).50A s such, it is always practicala nd never theoretical.5A s Heidegger
puts it,
Phronesisb ringst he that-with-respect-to-whichof the dealings of humanl ife (and deal-
ings with humanl ife itself) andt he "How"o f these dealings in theiro wn Being into truth-
ful safe-keeping.T hese dealings are praxis:t he conductingo f one's own self in the how
of dealings which are not productive,b ut are rathers imply actional. Phronesis is the
illumination-of-dealingsw hich cotemporalizesl ife in its Being.52
The revelation of action that characterizesp hronesis is constantly con-
frontedb y the intrinsict endencyt o concealmenta nd forgettingt hat charac-
terizes Dasein.53W hat is seen in and throughp hronesis cannot be forgotten
because what one sees in this momento f vision is not a particularg oal or end
buta way or how of Being thatg uides action.5T4 he difficultyt hats tandsi n the
way of such phronetici nsight is thatt hinkingi s dominatedb y everydayness.
Phronetici nsightt hus is only possible on the basis ofproairesis, 'precommit-
ment' or 'resolve'( Entschlossenheit)t, hath olds one open for thatw hich shat-
ters the everyday appearanceo f things.55
148 POLITICALT HEORY/ April 2000
Sophia is the perfection of techn.56 Techne,l ike phronesis, is a form of
humand oing. It is a knowing one's way aboutt hata ims at production,t hus a
form of knowingt hati s dependento n its end or telos. Sophiag raspst he end in
its utmost generality,w ithoutr eferencet o particulars.5I7t is a way of reveal-
ing thato pens up the basic principlest hatg overnt echne,b uti ts goal is a kind
of quiescence that is fundamentallyd ivorced from care or concern. It thus
leads to no action.5 Sophiai n one sense is a phronetica ctivity,b uti t is a pecu-
liarp hronesist hata ims at a good but at a good thati s not aprakton.59In stead,
sophia longs for a puren oein. However,s uch a mode of Being is not possible
for humans.I t is thereforei n man always only as dianoeint hati s noein on the
groundo f logos in which somethingi s addresseda s something.6 Sophia is a
continual Being-by-the-eternal,a nd its object is thus not Dasein or nonhu-
man beings in the world but the theion, ever-being( aei on).61S ophia is thus
concernedw ith divine, not human,t hings.62B ecause such a theorizingt ran-
scends the way in which human Being is its time (zeitigt), humans cannot
really enduret his state and thereforen eed recreationf rom it.63
Both sophia andp hronesis aim at the good, but the goods at which they
aim are not identical. Sophia and theoreing enerally aim at the good per se,
while phronesis aims at the good for man.64F orA ristotlei n contrastt o Plato,
therei s no good thath oversa boveb eing. The highest good is a puren oein that
has itself as its object, but this is unavailablet o human beings because the
ultimatea rche cannotb e addresseda s something,t hroughl ogos.65 It is avail-
able only to puren ous. The humang ood, by contrast,i s always based on this
here andn ow andi s tied to the moment.66P hronesisr evealsn ot the archai, the
firstp rinciples,b utt he eschata, the particulars.6I7n consideringt he possibili-
ties of action,D asein finally runsi nto the given facts, the circumstanceso f its
particulart ime andp lace. Inp hronesis,t hese facts are graspedp urely,a s they
show themselves. All deliberationt hus ends in an aisthesis, and this percep-
tion withinp hronesisi s nous.8 Phrone^sitsh ereforei s a purek nowingt hatn o
longer falls into the realmo f logos. Ouru ltimated ecision abouta ction is thus
based not on logos or reasonb ut on phronetici ntuition.W hile phronesish as
the same structurea s sophia in being beyondl ogos, it is on the opposites ide-
nous in most extreme concretenessv ersus nous in its greatestg enerality.69
Heidegger recognizes that Aristotle thinks that sophia is higher than
phrone^sisb,u t he tries to show thatt his conclusion is at odds with Aristotle's
deeper insights. Heidegger develops three argumentst o drive home this
importantp oint. First,t he fundamentale xperienceo f Dasein for Aristotle is
not theoreticalb ut lies in the interactiono f life with the world.7"T herefore,
the theoreticall ife cannotb e the authenticp ossibility of Being for man.71I t is
a possible life only for a being thatt ranscendst he world (i.e., for the demiur-
gos). Plato attemptst o bridget his divide between Being andb eings with dia-