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Letters
Letters
Judging Heidegger • Hail & Hurricanes • Being & Appearance • Could A Philosopher Be Conscious? • The Ex-Freedom Files • Off-Balance In Translation
Judging Heidegger
Dear Editor: I much enjoyed your edition featuring the thought of Martin Heidegger (125). But it seems nowadays one cannot have a sensible account of his ideas without making some reference to the fact that he was for a time a member of the Nazi Party. Indeed, it has been a longstanding obsession of many commentators on Heidegger, and both Anja Steinbauer’s Editorial and the article ‘The Trouble with Martin’ played into this obsession. However, I have never believed that an individual’s biography should influence our assessment of her/his artistic, scientific or philosophical achievement. I may dislike Wagner’s anti-Semitism or even that he had a penchant for pink silk underwear, but that has nothing to do with the wonder of the opening bars of Parsifal.
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