Taking the measure of the Beiträge: Heidegger, national socialism and the calculation of the political

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 35-56

  Elden, Stuart ^a,b  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Calculation; Descartes; Heidegger; National Socialism; Politics; Technology

Indexed keywords

EID: 28844478276     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885103002001278     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. Though I make extensive use of this translation, because of its problems, translations in what follows are often revised.
2. This appears on the dust-jacket of the German version, and has been picked up by e.g. Parvis Emad (1991) 'The Echo of Being in Beiträge zur Philosophie - Der Anklang: Directives for its Interpretation', Heidegger Studies 7: 15-35.
3. George Kovacs (1996) 'An Invitation to Think through and with Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie', Heidegger Studies 12: 17-36.
4. On the Beiträge generally, see also Jean Greisch (1989) 'Études Heideggeriennes: Les "Contributions à la philosophie (A partir de l'Ereignis)" de Martin Heidegger', Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 73(4): 529-48.
5. Kenneth Maly (1991) 'Soundings of Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)', Research in Phenomenology 21: 169-83.
6. Reiner Schürmann (1999) 'Ultimate Double Binds', in James Risser (ed.) Heidegger Toward the Turn: Essays on the Work of the 1930s, pp. 243-67. New York: State University of New York Press.
7. George Kovacs (1999) 'The Power of Essential Thinking in Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)', in Babette E. Babich, From Phenomenology to Thought, Errancy and Desire: Essays in Honor of William J. Richardson, S.J., pp. 37-53. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
8. Richard Polt (1999) Heidegger: An Introduction, pp. 140-52. London: UCL Press.
9. Charles E. Scott, Susan M. Schoenbohm, Daniela Vallega-Neu and Alejando Vallega (eds) (2001) Companion to Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
10. In a marginal note to the 'Letter on "Humanism"', Heidegger suggests that the work of the Beiträge speaks 'another language' to that of metaphysics, but that it remains in the background of published writings such as the Letter. See Martin Heidegger (1976) Wegmarken, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 9, p. 145 n. a. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
11. (1998) Pathmarks (ed.) William McNeill, p. 239 n. a. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12. Among many others, see Richard Wolin (ed.) (1993) The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
13. Victor Farías (1989) Heidegger and Nazism, tr. Paul Burrell and Gabriel R. Ricci. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
14. Hugo Ott (1993) Martin Heidegger: A Political Life, tr. Allan Blunden. London: HarperCollins.
15. Hans Sluga (1993) Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16. See e.g. Dominique Janicaud (1990) L'Ombre de cette pensée: Heidegger et la question politique. Grenoble: Jérôme Millon.
17. Julian Young (1997) Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18. Miguel de Beistegui (1998) Heidegger and the Political: Dystopias. London: Routledge.
19. On Heidegger and the Four Year Plan, see Theodore Kisiel (2001) 'Heidegger's Philosophical Geopolitics in the Third Reich', in Richard Polt and Gregory Fried, A Companion to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 242-3, 324-5 n. 22. New Haven: Yale University Press.
20. Equally, though there are some important related themes developed in two other of Heidegger's manuscripts, treatment of them will also be withheld. See (1997) Besinnung, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 66. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
21. (1998) Die Geschichte des Seyns, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 69. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
22. See Martin Heidegger (1967) Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer,
23. 11th edn. Tr. Edward Robinson and John Macquarrie as Heidegger (1962) Being and Time, e.g. p. 127. Oxford: Blackwell.
24. 'Séminaire du Thor 1966', in (1966-76) Questions, vol. 4, p. 371, for his disdain of 'publicity'. Paris: Gallimard, 4 vols.
25. For discussions of Gleichschaltung, see Victor Klemperer (2000) The Language of the Third Reich: LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist's Notebook, tr. Martin Brady, pp. 154-8. London: Athlone.
26. Berel Lang (1990) Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide, p. 93. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
27. Henry Friedlander (1980) 'The Manipulation of Language', in Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton (eds) The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy and Genocide: The San José Papers, p. 108. Millwood, NY: Kraus International Publishers.
28. Gordon A. Craig (1982) The Germans, p. 326. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
29. David Farrell Krell (2000) The Purest of Bastards: Works of Mourning, Art, and Affirmation in the Thought of Jacques Derrida, p. 118. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
30. Jacques Derrida (1991) Donner le temps, vol. 1, La Fausse monnaie, p. 33. Paris: Éditions Galilée;
31. see (1987) 'Le Retrait de la métaphore', in Psyché: Inventions de l'autre, p. 76. Paris: Éditions Galilée.
32. See Polt, Heidegger (n. 1), p. 146.
33. See Stuart Elden (2001) Mapping the Present: Heidegger, Foucault and the Project of a Spatial History, ch. 2. London: Continuum.
34. William McNeill (1999) The Glance of the Eye: Heidegger, Aristotle and the Ends of Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press.
35. Heidegger, Wegmarken (1976, in n. 3), p. 148 n. a.;
36. Pathmarks (1998, in n. 3), p. 241 n. b.
37. Klemperer (n. 9), p. 15. See Lang (n. 9), ch. 4. Friedlander (n. 9). Craig (n. 9), pp. 322-8. George Steiner (1967) 'The Hollow Miracle' and 'A Note on Günter Grass', in Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966, pp. 117-32, 133-40. London: Faber & Faber.
38. John Wesley Young (1991) Totalitarian Language: Orwell's Newspeak and its Nazi and Communist Antecedents. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
39. Heidegger (1962, in n. 8), p. 1.
40. Descartes (1954) The Geometry of René Descartes, French-Latin-English edn, tr. David Eugene Smith and Marcia L. Latham, pp. 2-3. New York: Dover.
41. Descartes (The Geometry of René Descartes, Ibid. pp. 216-17.
42. See Martin Heidegger (1992) Platon: Sophistes, Gesamtausgabe vol. 19. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
43. Tr. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer as Heidegger (1997) Plato's Sophist, §15. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
44. René Descartes (1964ff.) Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in Oevres de Descartes, (ed.) Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, vol. 7, pp. 85-6. Paris: Vrin, 13 vols.
45. For a more detailed account, see Stuart Elden (2001) 'The Place of Geometry: Heidegger's Mathematical Excursus on Aristotle', The Heythrop Journal 42(3): 311-28.
46. See Plato, Theaetetus, in (1900) Platonis Opera, (ed.) Johannes Burnet, vol. 1, 152a. Oxford: Clarendon.
47. See Plato (1987) Theaetetus, tr. Robin A.H. Waterfield. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
48. (1992) Theaetetus, tr. M.J. Levett, revised by Myles Burnyeat. Indianapolis: Hackett.
49. Of course, the German Ich is often translated, as in Freud, as the Latinate ego.
50. For a discussion, see David Farrell Krell (1971) 'Nietzsche and the Task of Thinking: Martin Heidegger's Reading of Nietzsche', pp. 53-9.
51. PhD thesis, Pittsburgh, Duquesne University. On Heidegger's reading of Descartes generally, see Robert Bernasconi (1987) 'Descartes in the History of Being: Another Bad Novel?', Research in Phenomenology 17: 75-102.
52. Immanuel Kant (1956) Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.
53. Kant (1993) Critique of Pure Reason, (ed.) Vasilis Politis, Bvxi. London: J.M. Dent.
54. See Stuart Elden (2003) 'Reading Genealogy as Historical Ontology', in Alan Rosenberg and Alan Milchman (eds) Foucault and Heidegger: Critical Encounters. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
55. Martin Heidegger (1978) 'Wissenschaft und Bessinung', in Vorträge und Aufsätze, p. 54. Pfullingen: Günther Neske, 4th edn.
56. Heidegger (1977) 'Science and Reflection', tr. William Lovitt in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 169. New York: Harper & Row.
57. Heidegger (1977) Holzwege, Gesamtausgabe vol. 5, p. 35. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
58. Heidegger (1993) Basic Writings, (ed.) David Farrell Krell, p. 172. London: Routledge, revised and expanded edn. See GA 65, 275-6.
59. Heidegger's 1938 lecture 'The Age of the World Picture' is clearly central here. While this contemporaneous piece remains Heidegger's clearest presentation of the ideas, to my mind it never quite reaches the depth or potential of the discussion in the Beiträge. See Heidegger (1977a) 'Die Zeit des Weltbildes', in Holzwege (n. 28).
60. Heidegger (1977b) 'The Age of the World Picture', in The Question Concerning Technology (n. 27).
61. Jacques Derrida (1987) 'On Reading Heidegger: An Outline of Remarks to the Essex Colloquium', summary by David Farrell Krell, Research in Phenomenology 17: 178.
62. Greisch (n. 22), p. 605. Specifically, it was Farías (n. 4) that initiated the recent furore, and, Greisch suggests, the publication of the Beiträge. The original plan had been to publish the Beiträge only when all the lecture courses had appeared. See Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrman, 'Editor's Epilogue', GA65, 512-13.
63. A contrary view of the political importance of the Beiträge is taken by George Kovacs (1992) 'The Leap (der Sprung) for Being in Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)', Man and World 25(1).
64. Martin Heidegger (1988) Vom Wesen der Wahrheit: Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet, Gesamtausgabe vol. 34, p. 100. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
65. Anonymous referee's report on this paper, undated.
66. See also Martin Heidegger (1996) Correspondance avec Karl Jaspers, (ed.) Walter Biemel and Hans Saner, tr. Claude-Nicolas Grimbert,
67. followed by Correspondance avec Elizabeth Blochmann, tr. Pascal David, pp. 271-2. Paris: Gallimard. For a more detailed discussion see Elden (n. 13), pp. 68-9.
68. See the uses made of Plato in the Rectoral Address itself: Heidegger (1983) Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität; Das Rektorat 1933/34: Tatsachen und Gedanken, (ed.) Herman Heidegger. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann;
69. Tr. William S. Lewis in Wolin (n. 4).
70. See Graeme Nicholson (1987) 'The Politics of Heidegger's Rectoral Address', Man and World 20(2).
71. Michael Allen Gillespie (2000) 'Martin Heidegger's Aristotelian National Socialism', Political Theory 28(2): 140.
72. See Kathryn Brown (1990) 'Language, Modernity and Fascism: Heidegger's Doubling of Myth', in John Milfull (ed.) The Attractions of Fascism: Social Psychology and the Aesthetics of the 'Triumph of the Right', p. 147. New York: Berg.
73. For a more penetrating analysis of Heidegger's relation to the movement, see Charles Bambach (2003) Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
74. Gillespie (n. 36), p. 140.
75. See e.g. the suggestion that the Germans 'only limp behind these metaphysical times. The English Empire was there long ago and was entangled in its essential phases'. Martin Heidegger (1990) 1. Nietzsches Metaphysik 2. Einleitung in die Philosophie: Denken und Dichten, Gesamtausgabe vol. 50, p. 82. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
76. On the continued appeal of the idea of National Socialism, see the notorious interview with Der Spiegel, published only after his death: 'Only a God Can Save Us', in Wolin (n. 4).
77. See e.g. GA65, pp. 191-4, 207-8, 371-88.
78. See Elden (n. 13), chs 1-3.
79. See Kisiel (2001) 'Heidegger's Philosophical Geopolitics in the Third Reich' and 'Measuring the Millennial Moment of Globalization against Heidegger's Summer Semester 1935, and Other Politically Incorrect Remarks', Current Studies in Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 1(1), http://ereignis.org/csph/ Vol_01_winter01/kisiel.htm.
80. Ernst Jünger (1960) 'Die Totale Mobilmachung', in Werke, vol. 5. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 10 vols.
81. Tr. Joel Golb and Richard Wolin as 'Total Mobilisation' in Wolin (n. 4).
82. The notions of 'military service' and 'labour service' play a central role in Jünger's Der Arbeiter (in Werke, vol. 6). Heidegger utilizes them and sets up the idea of 'knowledge service' in his Rectoral Address.
83. I have in mind particularly the scandalous comparison of mechanized agriculture with the Holocaust, famine and hydrogen bombs. Heidegger suggests they share the same essence (not that they are in essence the same). What they share is the essence of modern technology; what distinguishes the first from the subsequent is a particular conception of the political - although Heidegger does not make this at all clear. See Martin Heidegger (1994) Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge, Gesamtausgabe vol. 79, p. 27. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. For a discussion, see Elden (n. 13), pp. 74-8.
84. Martin Heidegger (1992) Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt - Endlichkeit - Einsamkeit, Gesamtausgabe Band 29/30. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
85. Tr. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker as Heidegger (1995) The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
86. Heidegger (1980) Hölderlins Hymnen 'Germanien' und 'Der Rhein', Gesamtausgabe vol. 39. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
87. Heidegger (n. 39), p. 101.
88. Heidegger, 'Letter to the Rector of Freiburg University', in Wolin (n. 4), p. 64.
89. Heidegger's view, throughout the Nietzsche lectures and elsewhere, is that that value-philosophy - putting a value on something - is another version of calculation, and remains within metaphysics.
90. Heidegger (1980, in n. 46), p. 254.
91. See Stuart Elden (2002) 'The War of Races and the Constitution of the State: Foucault's "Il faut défendre la société" and the Politics of Calculation', boundary 2 29(1), 125-51.
92. Michel Foucault (1997) 'Il faut défendre la société ': Cours au Collège de France (1975-1976). Paris: Seuil/Gallimard.
93. Robert Bernasconi (2000) 'Heidegger's Alleged Challenge to the Nazi Concepts of Race', in James E. Faulconer and M.A. Wrathall (eds) Appropriating Heidegger, p. 52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
94. Robert Bernasconi (Appropriating Heidegger, p. Ibid. p. 52.
95. On the problem of Geist, see also Jacques Derrida (1990) Heidegger et la question: De l'esprit et autres essais. Paris: Flammarion.
96. Bernasconi (n. 52), p. 54.
97. Heidegger (n. 32), p. 100.
98. Heidegger (n. 48), p. 65.
99. On the new order and the state, see also GA38, p. 143.
100. This seems a more plausible reading than that of Dennis J. Schmitt, 'Strategies for a Possible Reading', in Scott et al. (n. 2), p. 40, who suggests that in the Beiträge 'the critique of Nazi racial policy is clear and unmistakable'.
101. See Klemperer (n. 9), pp. 98, 142-3. Young (n. 15), p. 71.
102. A few pages on he writes 'Machination (poiesis - tekhne - kinesis - nous) has a correspondence which was long held back and only now finally emerges with
103. "Lived-experience"' (GA65, p. 132).
104. Klemperer (n. 9), p. 244: 'The word utilised most powerfully and most commonly by the Nazis for emotional effect is "Erlebnis {experience}"'.
105. On life in the Beiträge
106. see David Farrell Krell (1992) Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life Philosophy, ch. 6. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
107. On the use of 'es gibt' in the Kriegsnotsemester,
108. see Theodore Kisiel (1993) The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time, esp. p. 42. Berkeley: University of California Press.
109. The term appears in Sein und Zeit; Being and Time (n. 8), p. 212; and numerous other places in Heidegger's work.
110. See Sein und Zeit; Being and Time (n. 8), p. 211.
111. Friedrich Hölderlin, 'In lovely blueness . . .', in (1961) Selected Verse, tr. Michael Hamburger, German-English version, pp. 245-6. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
112. See Werner Marx (1987) Is there a Measure on Earth? Foundations for a Nonmetaphysical Ethics, tr. Thomas J. Nenon and Reginald Lilly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
113. See, however, Laurence Paul Hemming (2002) Heidegger's Atheism: The Refusal of a Theological Voice. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
114. See also GA65, p. 249: 'Overflow (Das Über-maß) is no mere abundance of quantity, but the self-withdrawing of all estimating and measuring (Schätzung und Ausmessung). But in this self-withdrawing (self-sheltering) being (Seyn) has its nearest nearness in the clearing of the there (Da), in that it pro-priates Da-sein'.
115. See GA65, p. 20 for a linking of this to the Augenblick.
116. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1973) The Dialectic of Enlightenment, tr. J. Cumming. London: Allen Lane. Foucault (n. 51).
117. Zygmunt Bauman (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity. See also Craig (n. 9), p. 327: 'Much of the correspondence of Rudolph Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, was concerned with quotas and rates of disposal and sounded as if he were the manager of a synthetic firm of a factory for the conversion of waste materials'.
118. However, Berel Lang (1996) Heidegger's Silence, p. 98. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, describes taking Heidegger's analysis of technology 'as a basis for understanding the Holocaust itself as 'a formulation that seems as dramatically revisionist as any other in Holocaust historiography'.
119. See also Lang (n. 9) Act and Idea.
120. Berel Lang (1999) The Future of the Holocaust: Between History and Memory. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.