July 17, 2025
There’s an eerie parallel between the ECHS mandate to “rejuvenate” Heidegger studies and Tom Sheehan’s distorted need to “re-write” Heidegger.
I’ll get to that shortly (see “epilogue on Thomas Sheehan” below). Firstly, though, the ECHS “About us” credibly notes “the decline of the study of Heidegger’s thought in Europe.” But inasmuch as there is such a decline, that might be because the mid-century philosopher has succeeded in contributing to new beginnings. Academia has moved on?
So, the “ECHS aims to safeguard and to rejuvenate the study of Heidegger both within Europe and worldwide.” What a calling!—presuming that study has been unsafe or risks further decline, which is not credible in the U.S., at least, I would argue—except insofar as…
“The publication of the first three volumes of the so-called Black Notebooks was…handled very poorly” and “the ramifications of this can be felt worldwide,” which is notable.
But the bad handling as been largely forgotten by academia because the ramifications have become what “They” say (for scholars as well as for mass media), while the calling of the ECHS is evidently not to address the poor handling, i.e., not to show appropriate handling, It’s not for these folks to provide “careful analysis of the suspected antisemitism contained within” the notebooks. It’s not for them to do “a sober consideration of the textual evidence.”
Rather, they’re moving on, as if the “media storm” of bad faith warrants ECHS activity. Go with the flow, you know. That is, others’ bad faith reading is a motivator (presumably valid), not a reason to face there being “found” incrimination which may be invalid. (It is invalid, I would argue.)
So, how is “the publication of the first three volumes of the so-called Black Notebooks…an important event in the study of Heidegger’s life and work” other than as a motive for splitting (a) allegedly bad faith exemplification of “we” Germans by Heidegger from (b) much usefulnes ”we” can profitably make of who’s not altogether “in ruins” (as Richard Wolin would self-servingly have it) for ECHS business?
Inasmuch as “the ECHS recognizes the importance of a careful study of the antisemitic statements found in some of his writings,…” No, no, no: the importance of a careful study of the statements in some of his writings which are found to be antisemitic, then regarded as presumably so by readers trusting the “scholarship” they don’t understand anyway.
ECHS exemplifies “idle chatter,” a common theme in Heidegger’s attitude toward ideology recorded in his workbooks, I would argue, as well as exemplifying “concerned” life, a theme of inauthenticity in Being and Time.
So, don’t lose sight of the fact that the Überlegungen were coniderations as workbooks (according to F.-W. von Herrmann).
The notebooks have the same textual format as Heidegger’s unpublished monographs. The notebooks belong with all of the writing of that period. Indeed, they belong with “The Origin of the Work of Art” because the entire Contributions to Philosophy period is an artistry of work, the working of his Incesptive art toward present works (though unpublished). The notebooks, the Considerations, are the outtakes of what came to be “enowned” Contributions to Philosophy and other collections of that period bound as monographs.
I’ve begun to indicate how Heidegger, via his notebooks, was creating critical phenomenology in light of articulating German-“Christian” ideology which served his deconstruction of “gigantic” pretenses in academic conceptuality.
(A main purpose for this posting is to merge it with my earlier “Heidegger is not antisemitic” [revised today]. Read there from mid-page: “A psychiatrist wants..“ to the end.)
But the real issue is: Why do incriminating readers “find” what they do?
Why, for example, was Tom Sheehan eager to promote Heidegger as a nazi, beginning in 1978? (Rahner was influenced by a nazi! Not. But “Heidegger” had to be purified, separating “the man” from “the thinker” whom Rahner so admired as his True “teacher.”)
Why did Sheehan jump to endorse others’ readings of Heidegger as antisemitic, but not accept their “Heidegger”? Because Sheehan needed another “Heidegger” in order to warrant exemplifying Rahner “philosophically.”
Christians don’t scapegoat?! Well…Karl Rahner wasn’t an unwitting nazi sympathizer, so Sheehan needed to keep Rahner’s Heideggerian aspect admirable. .
“God preserve the Vatican Magisterium”? (Rahner’s mission.) Farias was a very Catholic socialist in exile, certainly needing a career boost. Fortunately, the Historikerstreit came along, late 1980s, then Farias’s 1987 book—in France? (Unpublishable Spanish in Germany?) Sheehan was a very Catholic scholar of religion, certainly interested in selling his 1987 Rahner book (cleansed of the wrong “Heidegger”).
But I’m just guessing, of course. In any case, incriminating readers have made careers out of easy-to-understand scandal (Wolin, Charles Baumbach, Richard Polt, Gregory Fried, Peter Trawny, Emmanuelle Faye, and more), all of whom find constructiveness in the other “Heidegger” post facto, serving career advancement.
That’s part of a general attitude toward phenomenological thinking which sanitizes it as topic for intellectual history.
But actually, phenomenological thinking can be dangersou as astute reading, because it is about close attention, which can become threatening “unconcealment” (like a therapist who mirrors a client’s implicature too soon). Phenomenological thinking details learner-centered teaching (beyond instructional lecturing) which can be very difficult to follow.
Phenomenological skill is integral for good journalism (albeit in their own idioms of professional competence); integral for field work in the human sciences (e.g., as clinical and ethnomethodological engagements); and integral for philological humanities (as close attention to questions of a text, be that enhancing illumination or framing self-undermining implicature). Close reading can be diagnostic of systematically distorted reasoning.
In any case, scholars often show little tolerance (or is it little competence?) for close reading of Heidegger’s own exemplifications of rigorous philology and careful teaching. Typically, one sprinkles their discourse with extracted quotes from Heidegger texts, for the sake of their own project—fine!. But they want to make claims about what Heidegger was doing, exhibited with scant attention to his discursive paths.
Anyway, the ECHS business isn’t about showing subscribers of its bulletin board how close reading can work—certainly not showing interest in a non-split-off Heidegger whose thinking coheres with his life (they can’t do it?), a devotion to emancipatory (“unconcealing”) and evincive (pro-Inceptive) teaching—in all its complex worldliness—which implicitly calls for good-faith regard for there not being adequate evidence for incrimination. But concerned reading becomes bad faith scapegoating of the danger in thinking critically.
Good faith reading can work more credibly, though relying on reasonable-person stances toward living in very dangerous times. (But surviving nazism constructively is a complex topic.)
What is suffered is shared among intimates. What’s done to help others in one’s life is not for display.
epilogue on Thomas Sheehan
At the ECHS forum on Heidegger at Facebook, Sheehan recently endorsed a recent biography of Heidegger which is regarded dismissively by other serious students of Heidegger’s writings. At the forum, he defended that endorsement by saying that the biographer “provides abundant evidence of Heidegger’s antisemitism.”
I replied: “Well, since Heidegger wasn't antisemitic, the distinction between evidence and ‘evidence’ calls to mind why there is epistemology in philosophy, criticism in hermeneutical philology, and projection in psychodynamics. But of course, you're confident that Heidegger was ‘a contemptible anti-Semite throughout his life (L'affaire Faye,” 2016), which is apparently the backdrop (going back to 1978 at least) for your calling to "re-write" him recently [as a neo-Aristotelian preliminary to publishing an annotated intervention into “paraphrasing” Being and Time]. You're deeply invested in that belief. I think it's about preserving your reading of Karl Rahner[, 1987 book by Sheehan, his legacy as scholar of religion].“
Sheehan replied: “Thanks, Gary. (1) Simply declaring that Heidegger was not an antisemite does not of itself make the claim be true; evidence is required. (2) The "Rewriting Heidegger" essay attempts a close reading of some crucial texts. If the essay gets those wrong, I would welcome your critique. (3) The Rahner book stands or falls on its own. Since you have read it, could you let me know where it goes wrong or what it has to do with Heidegger's antisemitism?“
I replied at length, which Sheehan probably read. Then I shortened my comments, but with overtone now (I hope) that I would gladly offer detail if he wants the conversation:
[1] Simply declaring that Payen has evidence that Heidegger was an antisemite does not of itself make the claim credible; evidence is required. But wanting evidence that proves a negative is silly.The same week that I sent Sheehan my detailed attention to his reading of Aristotle in “Re-writing Heidegger,“ I avowed by separate email that Heidegger was not a nazi sympathizer. Tom replied that he would “love to believe that Heidegger wasn’t a nazi.“ So, I replied with a beginning for our conversation. He never replied.
I’ve seen abundant instances of what is claimed to be evidence of antisemitism. It is not evidence. It is Heidegger's [a] articulation of German ideology—often as in-line framing, via quote-marked text, of what the They say (i.e., recording the so-called “whatever”), done for the sake of working notes—but mistakenly regarded as if [b] he's secretly confessing endorsement of awful views.
Heidegger mocked the charge of antisemitism in his Annotations (quoted at the back of Mindfulness).
His workbooks don’t show intances of antisemitism. He’s working with linguistic phenomenality of German ideology. (My sense of the notebooks is supported by F.-W. von Herrmann’s expert view.)
So, what’s the hand in Payen’s game? So, what. I really don’t care what Payen claims, because I know what Heidegger’s doing. I know that others' “evidence” misreads context: Richard Polt, Gregory Fried, Peter Trawny, Richard Wolin, Emanuelle Faye, Donatella di Cesare, etc.
You defer to others (Farias, Wolin, Faye, now Payen) who show no genuine engagement with Heidegger’s work. You just assert bad-faith attitude. I’m comfortable ignoring it, because I can read in good faith without splitting, finding a cohering, integrated, and astute career.
Generally, I have no problem with persons reading differently than I do. Pluralism in reading is inevitable—and important apart from (while importanlty initiated by) the Reader-Response school of literary criticism. But I have no more gracioussness toward bad-faith reading based on ill-informed senses of context, which invalidly associate Heidegger with the worst of dispositions.
[2] The "Rewriting Heidegger" essay attempts a close reading of Aristotle, but gets it wrong, which I argued (relying on expert Aristotle scholarship), sent that to you; and you ignored it.
[3] Indeed, your Rahner book had nothing to do with your unwarranted projections of antisemitism later. But it presents a reading of Heidegger which provides insight into what split-minded “Heidegger” (“man and thinker”) you want in order to make theology “philosophical.”
There seems to be nowhere beyond deflecting that you provide evidence against your split-off straw man.
No biggie.
