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Heidegger's Philosophy of Being

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Although poignant at times, criticisms of Heidegger's way of thinking by analytical philosophers has been predictable and stale. More often than not, Rudolf Carnaps dismissal of Heidegger's thought as nonsense, has been endorsed wholeheartedly and uncritically by philosophers raised in the Anglo-American analytical tradition. The supposedly nonsensical character of his work, serves them as a ready excuse not to read it at all, except as an illustration of the ghastly depths to which a deluded mind can plummet. Of course, Heideggers short-lived but well-publicized involvement in Nazi cultural politics from 1933-1934 has not been much of a help. Not so with Dutch philosopher Herman Philipse. Albeit an analytical philosopher, well-trained in theology-bashing on the Op-ed pages of Dutch newspapers, Philipse takes Heidegger seriously as a philosopher. He meticulously traces the origins and intentions of Heidegger's central philosophy of "Being", from Aristotle and Catholic metaphysics to Kant, the German Romantics and Husserl. Philipse dissects Heideggers thinking earnestly and professionally, not as an insignificant intellectual aberration in the history of philosophy, but as a theologically inspired way of overcoming Western nihilism. According to Philipse, Heidegger followed a "Pascalian strategy" in order to create a new German religion which would rescue European civilisation from the depravities of the modern age, more specifically from the hegemony of science and technology. Only a thinking which would open itself to "Being" would make this European renaissance possible. Heidegger, Philipse maintains, did not experience a dramatic "Kehre, or turning-point, in the way most of his commentators believe. On the contrary, he stayed loyal to his "Pascalian strategy": first, in his major work "Sein und Zeit", he depicted human life as essentially bleak and without comfort, then, after his so-called "Kehre", the philosophy of Being was expounded as the only viable remedy for this condition. In Nazism, according to Philipse, Heidegger found a historical manifestation of this new way of thinking. Athough the Allied victory forced him to cleanse his publications of obvious Nazi content after 1945, Philipse argues that Heidegger remained loyal to the intentions and "potential' of the national-socialist movement all his life. Philipse's study is scrupulously thought-out, thoroughly researched and well written and will no doubt surprise many students of modern philosophy who thought of Heidegger as just another obscurantist, and provoke many others who dismiss his involvement with Nazism as not essential to his philosophical legacy. One question on which Philipse does not offer a final point: is Heidegger's philosophy still relevant, and if not, why write a 600 page book on him?

Readers who come to this text hoping for a breezy summary of a Great Dead Philosopher's thought will be disappointed. This is a sophisticated and somewhat demanding study by a scholar who doesn't shy away from detailed analysis of primary texts, or for that matter, detailed analysis of works which influenced Heidegger (primarily Aristotle's METAPHYSICS, Husserl's LOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS, and Kant's first CRITIQUE). Also, throughout this book Philipse compares and contrasts the interpretation he is proposing with those of other contemporary commentators such as Hubert Dreyfus, Richard Rorty, and John Caputo. In short, if you are going to get anything from this study you had better already know your Heidegger, have some acquaintance with the history of Western philosophy, and already be familiar with some recent American Heidegger scholarship.

Anyone who meets these grim qualifications will probably conclude, as I have, that this book is a remarkable achievement. In less than four hundred pages of text Philipse manages to articulate and examine five themes which run through Heidegger's corpus, illustrate how these themes intertwine and diverge, and clarify what problems they solve and what problems they create. This study is critical in tone, but not mean-spirited. And I think this tome exemplifies a kind of admirable intellectual rigor notably absent in much of what passes for Heidegger scholarship these days.

Warning: Ignore the blurb and summary on this book's back cover. This is not yet one more discussion of Heidegger's Nazism (Philipse devotes only thirty pages to this tedious topic).

This book is an excellent example of how to devastate an opponent by using a hidden straw man approach. You summarize his position, thereby giving your book a borrowed richness while demonstrating your knowledge of the topic, then you reduce your opponent's position to five restatements of your own that you say are equivalent of his position. Of course, you have already secretly occluded your opponent-he has slipped your grasp. You then systematically show that each of these five positions is valueless and a mere misunderstanding, not really philosophy at all. Then you sadly announce how you were deceived by the author's rhetoric into believing he had anything to say, but upon examination, it all disappeared. Then in the last part of the book, you advance your own view, which is, amazingly, opposite of your so-called devastated opponent. You say that your opponent secretly wanted religion but could not find it. You hope that your naïve, unsupported psychologizing won't be noticed. The only problem is that the last part of the book is boring, and the book's only real interest and energy is the first part, which was borrowed from your superior opponent. The technique is masterful, and should be learned by all who want to deconstruct rather than construct.

Professor Philipse has managed to write a book on Heidegger's entire intellectual career which is both sensitive to the unique way in which Heidegger tries to solve the philosophical problems with which he saw himself confronted, and highly critical to these solutions. By carefully studying the historical context of Heidegger's writings, Philipse comes up with five main threads that run through them. Furthermore, he combines these threads to come up with an innovative hypothesis on the strategy behind all of Heidegger's enigmatic texts. Clear in its broad lines and meticulous in its details, this study is an important contribution to the ever growing field of Heidegger interpretation, as well as a stimulating read for anyone interested in the ideas of this landmark figure of 20th century philosophy.

Hegel once accused the philosopher Schelling of "Educating himself in public." Herman Philipse, in his excellent "Heidegger's Philosophy of Being," does something like this, but does it in a rather endearing way. He starts out in his introduction indicating how inspired he was by Heidegger's writing and why the youth of his generation were so drawn to Heidegger's philosophy and how earthshaking Heidegger's thought seemed to be to his generation. Through the course of the book, Philipse's close reading and analysis of Heidegger becomes more and more critical; and by the time of his summation at the end of the book, Philipse has concluded that Heidegger's philosophy is essentially worthless. Along the way, he uses phrases like "Nazism by other means," although he also suggests that Heidegger's philosophy is Lutheranism by other means, Pascalism by other means, and above all, hogwash by other means. Philipse's book reminds one of the guy who gets madder and madder as he goes along until his head finally explodes. It makes for a fun read.

To be fair, Philipse is sometimes overly critical. Heidegger could be clear and insightful when he wanted to be (which was not very often); see, for example, the first volume in his Nietzsche series regarding Nietzsche's aesthetic philosophy. He can even be interesting, as when he discusses what the meaning of "is" is in his "Introduction to Metaphysics." But the fact that Heidegger was capable of penetrating and lucid analysis may ultimately be all the more problematical -- if he was capable of cogent explanation, why did he not use it in expounding his own philsophy? Philipse makes an excellent case (citing some of Heidegger's own texts) that the man was being deliberately obscure and that Heidegger felt if a philosopher could be understood, he was not doing his job. Philipse goes on to suggest, correctly, that such a strategy is dishonest.

Philipse seems to come from the analytic school of philosophy and thus subjects many of Heidegger's assertions to logical analysis. This is extremely helpful to any ready of Heidegger, because it provides a perspective rare in continental critques. The usual question in Heideggerian interpretation is "What does he mean"? Granted that this is a very important question, given the murkiness of his writings (other philosophers have characterized Heidegger as everything from a pragmatist to a theologian). But Philipse's further question, "Given that Heidegger means such-and-such a thing, is what he means right?" This latter question is not asked often enough. It is if interpreters are so transfixed by the daunting project of figuring out the text that, having accomplished it to their satisfaction, they often end their analysis in exhausted triumph. Philipse, by contrast, subjects Heidegger's texts to the further question, "Is he right?" and finds Heidegger's claims to be wanting.

Where Philipse manages to squeeze meaning out of Heidegger's late texts, the propositions Heidegger seems to be advancing are often contradictory, shifty, nasty, rhetorical and simplistic. Philipse concludes that the greatest value in reading Heidegger (besides an education in how not to do philosophy) may be that of a Rorschach test -- it stimulates the mind by permitting it to read into the text anything that one chooses.

I cannot believe the other two reviews for this book. It is awful! Turgid, unreflective prose, unscholarly treatment of the most important feature of Heidegger's philosopher - namely the Being of animal life - and, perhaps most worryingly, a curious distaste for philosophers in general. A question to Prof Philipse --- why continue with philosophy if it dries out the old questions which you claim are now no longer valid?

Philipse clarifies all the murkiness of Heidegger's thinking and what emerges is so creepy, you'll want to get all you Heidegger books out of the house. He first clearly analyzes Heidegger's ideas then evaluates them. The result is devastating: not only did Heidegger never apologize for his involvement with the Nazis, but even after their fall, he longed for a way to restore many of their ideals. His philosophy emerges as a disguised attempt to revive various creepy Germany-as-the-great-world-culture kind of ideas. My thanks to the author for clearing all this up so I did not waste more time trying to make out what the fuss was about.