response to ambivalent praise for Habermas

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German philosophy professor Ruth Edith Hegengruber, Director of the Center for History of Women Philosophers and Scientists in Germany, posted a memorial article on Habermas at her Facebook account and at a Heidegger forum which I discuss below.

The text of her German article is available below (“Europa heute”) along with a translation (“Europe Today”). My discussion doesn’t address her criticisms of recent history in Europe (I’m a U.S. reader) nor her praise for Habermas. Rather, I want to address her critical comments which seem based on misunderstanding.

This is also a chance to sketch what Habermas’s thinking might best be supposed to entail for progressive practice and practical thinking, though briefly, occasioned by Hegengruber’s discussion.

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Heidegger’s politics: from interpersonal lifeto new generationality

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My brief “beyond ‘God’: danger of authentic life” follows a lot of discussion (unmentioned) where a reader who was interested in political extremism associated that with theologian Judith Wolfe’s article on Heidegger as appar-
ently dangerous to neo-Scholasticism, as if—for the extremist—Heidegger shows solidarity with extremism because he’s supposedly anti-modern
(he isn’t), then also anti-Catholic (he isn’t).

My discussion with the extremist sympathizer evinced for me some constructive themes of Heidegger’s thinking which I want to share here.

These are extracted from comments elsewhere, so some of the passages here may seem to be non sequiturs:

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winter 2026

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See the site home page for the current update.

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Authoriality of ordinary days doesn’t grant immunity from short illness, but it’s good for soon being “on the mend,” a doctor says to me.

So, I’m “on the road again” (Willie Nelson) of literary venturing—more post cards home, coming soon.

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Jan. 17 | What’s upcoming will be despite mainstream views that literary interest is useless for economic times.

Authorship of authoriality (self-differentiation through writing in speech, self-withholding in writing for an audience through an appropriate degree of candor, etc.); receptiveness as “reading” another person; writing the author of a silent text: Is it perceptive, creative, projective? Is it some weird mirror of one’s capability, preference, self-begetting?—all of this is happening in non-“literary” life. Literary sensibility can be like the silence of a psychoanalyst who is yet unknown to be an analyst (which easily causes another person to clam up, as if the analyst doesn’t have an ordinary life); or a priest yet unknown to be that; or a professor who doesn’t flaunt it in conversation.

“What are they hiding?”

Just being with “you” mutually can seem duplicitous.

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purposive rationality

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Being pretty old has given me confidence that I’ve lived a good life—not to be much remembered, I guess, but who is?

Narrative traces can leave a mark on Earth worth another’s time—not like stone, but better than unseen flowers.

Anyway, sentimentality doesn’t work.

Love your ownmost work, at best responding to resplendent horizonal appeals of Purpose.