Heidegger and the Nazis (Postmodern Encounters)

Martin Heidegger’s enthusiastic advocacy of Nazism has left discordant traces in the political culture of postmodernity. As a philosopher, he proposed an extraordinary thinking calculated to ‘overcome’ Western philosophy. A major resource for the counter-philosophies, anti-essentialisms and deconstructive movements of the postmodern era, his work has proved attractive to thinkers such as Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, Deleuze and Baudrillard. Critics, however, have seen in their work some dangerous failures of political judgement and responsibility. Their applause for Heidegger seems crucially symptomatic. "Heidegger and the Nazis" reviews the facts and arguments surrounding Heidegger’s politics, and situates them within critical political debates as we move into the 21st century. Reason, modernity, humanism, subjectivity and identity – as well as the futures of Marxism and social democracy – are among the issues. At stake are not only philosophical reputations, but also the possibility of successful opposition to the resurgent nazisms of our own time.