Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks [Hardcover]

Charles R. Bambach (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2003

Despite a flood of recent works on Martin Heidegger and Nazism, there has been no sustained investigation of the shared themes that were the common ground between Heidegger’s thought and that of the ideologists of National Socialism. In this lucid and fair-minded book, Charles Bambach reads Heidegger’s writings from 1933 to 1945 in historical context. Bambach shows that Heidegger was engaged in a conversation with the National Socialists and others on the German right about the authentic mission of the German Volk, and that this theme was central to all of his thought.

Bambach depicts the development within Heidegger’s work of a philosophy marked by a belief in rootedness in the homeland, the ground of ancestral kinship, and a notion of a privileged, originary connection to the ancient Greeks. Bambach makes clear that Heidegger’s philosophical account of the history of the West is structured by a grand metaphysical vision of German destiny as something rooted in the soil. All of Heidegger’s post-1933 works can, Bambach maintains, be read as arguments for a German form of racial-political autochthony.

An essential reference in the debates over one of the twentieth century’s most influential—and controversial—philosophers, this book demonstrates the profound influence on Heidegger’s work of both historical context and the other thinkers with whom he engaged in dialogue. These latter include not only the ancient Greeks and such German predecessors as Hegel, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche, but also those contemporaries of the radical right from whom he would later try to distance himself.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Heidegger's Roots shows that Charles R. Bambach has an excellent awareness of the relevant political context--the German ideology of the early 1930s, when philosophers and others were jockeying for position in order to align themselves intellectually with Hitler's Brown Revolution. I know of no other work that shows so convincingly and in such relevant detail how, from 1929 on, Heidegger's philosophy was inextricably wedded to questions of contemporary politics and history. Bambach's writing style is uncommonly lucid and edifying--a rare and welcome virtue in Heidegger scholarship. Heidegger's Roots goes beyond the existing literature on 'Heidegger and the political' in ways that are refreshing and insightful. It is a book that will be taken seriously by political philosophers, intellectual historians, Germanists, and continental philosophers alike."-Richard Wolin, Distinguished Professor of History and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

About the Author

Charles Bambach is Associate Professor of the History of Ideas/Philosophy at the University of Texas, Dallas. He is author of Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism, also from Cornell.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801440726
• ISBN-13: 978-0801440724
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,255,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heidegger's Hut as Metaphysical Validation for His Work?, August 23, 2008

By 

Jomo K "Educator" (DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks (Paperback)

Martin Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party for one year. This much is fact. It raises an essential question, however: are we ever able, as modern scholars, to divorce great thinkers from the historical/social context in which they lived? Or, perhaps more profoundly, are we really able to divorce ourselves from the historical/social context in which we live and thrive?

Naturally, we would all like to believe that it is possible to read great philosophers, as well as our own thoughts and concerns, independently of the social milieu into which they (or we) are born. Yet, to what extent is this project really possible?

After reading Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, I honestly felt that, in line with Richard Rorty, we could, as modern students of philosophy, effectively pick and chose elements of Heidegger to use as philosophical tools in our postmodern academic readings of great thinkers.

Reading this phenomenal text by Charles Bambach, however, I realized how problematic that somewhat naive venture can be. Indeed, Heidegger himself, in Being and Time, seems to cast the individual as a creation of her/his historical unfolding, all but conflating ethics and self-hood with normative community standards.

To carry out his own project, i.e., placing Heidegger into his proper historical/political context, Bambach focuses on the "when" specific texts were written, those from 1933-1945 - obviously a time of chaotic social upheaval in Germany. Here, Bambach articulates a "singular metaphysics of the earth marked by autochthony" within Heidegger's thinking, a "philosophical geo-politics" if you will, based on the German notion of Volk, or a "rootedness of the homeland and ancestral kinship." (p. 10)

Yet, don't let his high-minded project scare you off: what I liked best about the text was its sheer "readability," or accessibility. Despite its somewhat dogmatic flare - say, in the preface, where he equates ecological concerns with conservative, right wing movements - the text flows easily and Bambach wins over most readers. For example, Bambach begins his work with a description of Heidegger's hut as symbolic of the philosopher's overall thinking and self-projected image.

Basically, this book is a gem. I recommended for anyone interested in philosophy or history. It really is THAT good!