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Encounters and Dialogues with Martin Heidegger, 1929-1976
Despite his predominance in twentieth-century philosophy, no intellectual biography of Martin Heidegger has yet appeared. This account of Heidegger's personal relations, originally published in German and extensively corrected by the author for this translation, enlarges our understanding of a complex figure.
A well-known art historian and an intimate friend of Heidegger's, Heinrich Wiegand Petzet provides a rich portrait of Heidegger that is part memoir, part biography, and part cultural history. By recounting chronologically a series of encounters between the two friends from their meeting in 1929 until the philosopher's death in 1976, as well as between Heidegger and other contemporaries, Petzet reveals not only new aspects of Heidegger's thought and attitudes toward the historical and intellectual events of his time but also the greater cultural and social context in which he articulated his thought.
A well-known art historian and an intimate friend of Heidegger's, Heinrich Wiegand Petzet provides a rich portrait of Heidegger that is part memoir, part biography, and part cultural history. By recounting chronologically a series of encounters between the two friends from their meeting in 1929 until the philosopher's death in 1976, as well as between Heidegger and other contemporaries, Petzet reveals not only new aspects of Heidegger's thought and attitudes toward the historical and intellectual events of his time but also the greater cultural and social context in which he articulated his thought.
284 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2024
Does a man whose philosophical musings are considered epochal - but whose personal past is so indelibly tarnished by his youthful Nazism - deserve a retrospective memoir?
Many of us nowadays don’t think so.
The undead ghoul of the Nazi régime has so damaged our sensibilities that buying a book like this seems a bit like feeding the Beast.
Yet that’s exactly what I unwittingly did soon after I retired, nearly 20 years ago - for the bug of tradition had infected me.
Blame it on my past.
You see, the sheer profundity of this misguided man’s thinking was once a youthful inspiration for me in my efforts to escape the Plastic, disposable kind of thinking that had become part and parcel of our daily lives.
Part and parcel of his profundity, for me as well, was his nostalgia for a simpler time when the past was honoured and valued.
But he linked this noble feeling - alas - to the lost Nazi cause, though he doesn’t voice that connection freely. It’s a tacit factor. And we see similar things today.
Today, times have changed. Personal freedoms are as rare as personal integrity. There’s not much that we do that’s still private. We have now to scramble for workarounds.
For better or worse, we must face the present head-on and do our part to at least reinstate in it the true values of the Heart. For without compassion we are doomed.
And, similarly, without a real measure of freedom we are doomed.
The emotional depth of much early twentieth century thought is of course, dangerously cthonic. One need only consider the most dangerous passages in D.H.Lawrence to see that.
Betrand Russell once famously remarked that such unbridled earthiness led straight to the gas chambers. Maybe we could say the same of the worst Heavy Metal.
But we don’t want a tighter leash for our world.
Heidegger remains metaphysically valid in spite of his unpleasant personal leanings. The primacy of Being, so much in line with ancient and oriental thought, deserves to be preserved as a Metaphysical constant in these still-unsettled times.
The concept of the Primacy of Being gave me, personally, a new life!
And stressing individual, personal experience over the valueless void has never been more important.
But traditional thinking has disappeared, and so we must use the remnants to make a patchwork quilt out of the concept of Value, for our friends.
As Eliot said, we cannot beat “an antique drum, or ring a backward bell.” And Heidegger’s direction is backward.
In summing up, this afterthought contains no new information on Heidegger’s philosophical influences. It is an extension of the man’s persona, and a best-forgotten celebration of his deep, but wrong-headed mystique.
The content, too, is to some degree trite and uninteresting, to anyone but the specialist, historian and (perish the thought) aficionado.
Three and a half grateful stars, though.
Many of us nowadays don’t think so.
The undead ghoul of the Nazi régime has so damaged our sensibilities that buying a book like this seems a bit like feeding the Beast.
Yet that’s exactly what I unwittingly did soon after I retired, nearly 20 years ago - for the bug of tradition had infected me.
Blame it on my past.
You see, the sheer profundity of this misguided man’s thinking was once a youthful inspiration for me in my efforts to escape the Plastic, disposable kind of thinking that had become part and parcel of our daily lives.
Part and parcel of his profundity, for me as well, was his nostalgia for a simpler time when the past was honoured and valued.
But he linked this noble feeling - alas - to the lost Nazi cause, though he doesn’t voice that connection freely. It’s a tacit factor. And we see similar things today.
Today, times have changed. Personal freedoms are as rare as personal integrity. There’s not much that we do that’s still private. We have now to scramble for workarounds.
For better or worse, we must face the present head-on and do our part to at least reinstate in it the true values of the Heart. For without compassion we are doomed.
And, similarly, without a real measure of freedom we are doomed.
The emotional depth of much early twentieth century thought is of course, dangerously cthonic. One need only consider the most dangerous passages in D.H.Lawrence to see that.
Betrand Russell once famously remarked that such unbridled earthiness led straight to the gas chambers. Maybe we could say the same of the worst Heavy Metal.
But we don’t want a tighter leash for our world.
Heidegger remains metaphysically valid in spite of his unpleasant personal leanings. The primacy of Being, so much in line with ancient and oriental thought, deserves to be preserved as a Metaphysical constant in these still-unsettled times.
The concept of the Primacy of Being gave me, personally, a new life!
And stressing individual, personal experience over the valueless void has never been more important.
But traditional thinking has disappeared, and so we must use the remnants to make a patchwork quilt out of the concept of Value, for our friends.
As Eliot said, we cannot beat “an antique drum, or ring a backward bell.” And Heidegger’s direction is backward.
In summing up, this afterthought contains no new information on Heidegger’s philosophical influences. It is an extension of the man’s persona, and a best-forgotten celebration of his deep, but wrong-headed mystique.
The content, too, is to some degree trite and uninteresting, to anyone but the specialist, historian and (perish the thought) aficionado.
Three and a half grateful stars, though.
July 4, 2023
As someone familiar with most of Heidegger's books - and especially with “Ponderings” - there is not much substance to this one. What is new and interesting here are: the details of Bremen Club and other private lectures deliveries when Heidegger was banned from teaching, some private and little known friends - especially in the arts, some favorite books and authors, behind the scene details from the two TV interviews (including the piquant fact that the monk from Bangkok left his monastic order and joined an American TV station one year later; this after hearing from Heidegger about the enframing and other dangers of technology), and Heidegger's disenchantment and turn against academia.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews