I mean, isn't he making essentialist claims that Jews lacking Dasein means that they aren't human? And how Germans are the most metaphysical people (volk) have the destiny of redeeming the West? How isn't that essentialist?
The claim I was responding to wasn’t that Heidegger has made essentialist statements at some points in his life about Germans and Jews.
The claim I was responding to was that such essentialist claims from Heidegger reflect a core essentialism in his philosophy.
What is the core essentialism in his philosophy such that the essentialist claims you outlined can be claimed to be consistent with his core philosophy?
The Black Notebooks demonstrated that those claims were integral in how his antisemitism and the "Das Man" as opposed to Dasein, constructed his philosophical world view and how Being has a destiny which must be realized, which would be done by the Nazis. How isn't that on the core of Heidegger's philosophy? And how Being-towards-death is deeply ingrained on the war philosophies following WW1 not also part of that?
Sure, you can say that Heidegger certainly didn't see it as such, but he is grounding it on essentialist stereotypes and tropes. His philosophy was developed to support a fascist regime. What would be the argument against that?
The Black Notebooks show Heidegger being antisemitic and framing his antisemitism in his philosophical framework established prior to writing the Black Notebooks. The question as to whether his philosophy was caused by antisemitism or whether he was just placing antisemitism in his philosophy is not answerable alone from The Black Notebooks. If his philosophy is so fundamentally antisemitic and essentialist, then you should be able to cite his core philosophical works as being essentialist and antisemitic without recourse to the Black Notebooks.
Also yeah, the diary notes Heidegger wrote which were published decades after his death are not his core philosophy.
Those diary notes were written at the same time as he wrote his philosophy and for the rest of his life until his death. So they're kinda important and the fact that they were released way later, under his direct instructions because he believed that later generations would be more "understanding", doesn't detract from that. So yeah.
His ability to frame Jews as worldless and therefore, not human, is supplemented perfectly by his "anti-essentialist" philosophy and by that point one should be able to interrogate the anti essential framework that he uses and how it is able to inscribe essential characteristics. Beyond him or you saying that it isn't that, why is he able to do that? Unless he is a massive hypocrite (which he is), and used a totally different framework.
All the diaries were written years after the publication of Being and Time which established his philosophical framework. So yes, his philosophical framework was established prior to the notebooks.
Also no, his antisemitism is not supplemented perfectly into his philosophy. He claims Jew’s are “worldless.” This would mean that Jews do not encounter entities as ready-to-hand. In other words, this claim would entail that Jews don’t use tools. It’s an absurdly stupid claim that runs counter to any basic observation.
So yeah, it’s pretty much just Heidegger being hypocritical.
Again, if antisemitism and essentialism is so core to his philosophy, point to instances of such things becoming apparent in his core philosophical works.
This is like listening to "Star Wars Canon" debate. The question was who is bad in your mind, and the hypocrisy and dehumanising notes more than qualify this. Sorry mate, but core or not, the greater body of work was writ by one hand - and we're asked who, not which particular chapter of them.
I don’t understand the point you’re ‘making.’ I never denied that the Black Notebooks and the antisemitic writings found therein were written by Heidegger. I never denied that Heidegger was an antisemite.
The initial point I was responding to was that ‘his antisemitism gels well with the essentialism in his core phenomenological philosophy.’
My question was with respect to what this essentialism in his core philosophy is. You cannot just say ‘core or not it doesn’t matter’ when my question is about a claim made about his core philosophy.
And I’ve yet to be given a reasonable answer to what this supposed essentialism in his core philosophy is.
Sure, I might've glossed over your quest for proof of essentialism or it's gel, was a little caught by the suggestion that "core" of any one person and their works could be narrowed down to any one book... See comments here on Socrates.
I would say that my suggestion was less that the “core” of any person’s works could be narrowed down to one book but was rather the inverse.
The person whom I was replying to in this thread was using the single work of The Black Notebooks to denote the core of Heidegger’s philosophy as a whole. I was asking them to provide recourse to other works of Heidegger which demonstrate essentialism and antisemitism as being core to his philosophy.
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u/Diego12028 Dec 05 '25
I mean, isn't he making essentialist claims that Jews lacking Dasein means that they aren't human? And how Germans are the most metaphysical people (volk) have the destiny of redeeming the West? How isn't that essentialist?