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Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse
Martin Heidegger is perhaps the twentieth century's greatest philosopher, and his work stimulated much that is original and compelling in modern thought. A seductive classroom presence, he attracted Germany's brightest young intellects during the 1920s. Many were Jews, who ultimately would have to reconcile their philosophical and, often, personal commitments to Heidegger with his nefarious political views. In 1933, Heidegger cast his lot with National Socialism. He squelched the careers of Jewish students and denounced fellow professors whom he considered insufficiently radical. For years, he signed letters and opened lectures with "Heil Hitler" He paid dues to the Nazi party until the bitter end. Equally problematic for his former students were his sordid efforts to make existential thought serviceable to Nazi ends and his failure to ever renounce these actions. This book explores how four of Heidegger's most influential Jewish students came to grips with his Nazi association and how it affected their thinking. Hannah Arendt, who was Heidegger's lover as well as his student, went on to become one of the century's greatest political thinkers. Karl Löwith returned to Germany in 1953 and quickly became one of its leading philosophers. Hans Jonas grew famous as Germany's premier philosopher of environmentalism. Herbert Marcuse gained celebrity as a Frankfurt School intellectual and mentor to the New Left. Why did these brilliant minds fail to see what was in Heidegger's heart and Germany's future? How would they, after the war, reappraise Germany's intellectual traditions? Could they salvage aspects of Heidegger's thought? Would their philosophy reflect or completely reject their early studies? Could these Heideggerians forgive, or even try to understand, the betrayal
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 31, 2019
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2021
During the 90s my best friend lived in Houston and when he wasn’t in grad school he worked at a Border’s. He recounted this story.
Customer: I’d like to return these books please
Me: return these books why this is Hannah Arendt you can’t return Hannah Arendt she’s necessary
Customer: I just can’t get through or put me to sleep every time I try.
Me: well you’ll have to fill out this store credit form as you have no receipt.
Customer: OK fine—he fills out form and signs ******* *****
Me: You’re ******* *****, who teaches philosophy at ****
Customer: Yes, and you don’t carry my books.
Me: Yes we do, and I’ve got them as well, just read your last one on Critical Theory! Wait, the whole center theory of your text is a reading of Arendt!
This survey fails it’s title, perhaps it should sport a more polemical subtitle, such as: more reasons we shouldn’t like this guy or ascribe to his wisdom. I can see how that option might be dissuaded. I felt the pieces about everybody but Marcuse appeared rushed or over simplified. The chief distinction of the book was whether Marcuse was successful in utilizing the factic existentialism of Heidegger in his efforts to construct a humanist Marxism.
The section on Arendt felt personal (read: vindictive?) and incomplete, not simply unfinished but woefully undocumented.
Customer: I’d like to return these books please
Me: return these books why this is Hannah Arendt you can’t return Hannah Arendt she’s necessary
Customer: I just can’t get through or put me to sleep every time I try.
Me: well you’ll have to fill out this store credit form as you have no receipt.
Customer: OK fine—he fills out form and signs ******* *****
Me: You’re ******* *****, who teaches philosophy at ****
Customer: Yes, and you don’t carry my books.
Me: Yes we do, and I’ve got them as well, just read your last one on Critical Theory! Wait, the whole center theory of your text is a reading of Arendt!
This survey fails it’s title, perhaps it should sport a more polemical subtitle, such as: more reasons we shouldn’t like this guy or ascribe to his wisdom. I can see how that option might be dissuaded. I felt the pieces about everybody but Marcuse appeared rushed or over simplified. The chief distinction of the book was whether Marcuse was successful in utilizing the factic existentialism of Heidegger in his efforts to construct a humanist Marxism.
The section on Arendt felt personal (read: vindictive?) and incomplete, not simply unfinished but woefully undocumented.
December 4, 2015
We definitely ought to take into account the possible underlying political motivations of Heidegger's ontological work. However, that is not a task that Wolin has taken on in this text. Rather, he cherry-picks data and skews facts to paint a dark picture about something he has not demonstrated an understanding about.
Notice that Wolin never actually explains Heidegger's philosophy itself in depth. Notice that he reverts to characterizing H.'s dis-ease with technology and modernity as a "forgetting of Being" (pg. 32), instead of explaining enframing in any rigorous detail. Notice that he never takes into account the various elements of Heidegger's thought that might have actual merit. For instance, how he acts like being skeptical of progress, or democracy, is in-itself a bad thing. As though democracy has no faults. As though we ought to never question our own systems. Like it is somehow heretical to be concerned about the exponential speed of technological development with no specific ends in sight.
If Wolin is actually an intellectual historian, one would think he would look at the ideas themselves alongside the lives of the thinkers, and not skew his reader's perspectives by giving deficient accounts of the thought behind the works. Wolin has made a career for himself slandering thinkers, rather than addressing their thoughts. This is not intellectual history, it is the art of polemic bio-ad-homineming (now that is a term).
Heidegger ought to be crtiqued, but this is not critique.
Notice that Wolin never actually explains Heidegger's philosophy itself in depth. Notice that he reverts to characterizing H.'s dis-ease with technology and modernity as a "forgetting of Being" (pg. 32), instead of explaining enframing in any rigorous detail. Notice that he never takes into account the various elements of Heidegger's thought that might have actual merit. For instance, how he acts like being skeptical of progress, or democracy, is in-itself a bad thing. As though democracy has no faults. As though we ought to never question our own systems. Like it is somehow heretical to be concerned about the exponential speed of technological development with no specific ends in sight.
If Wolin is actually an intellectual historian, one would think he would look at the ideas themselves alongside the lives of the thinkers, and not skew his reader's perspectives by giving deficient accounts of the thought behind the works. Wolin has made a career for himself slandering thinkers, rather than addressing their thoughts. This is not intellectual history, it is the art of polemic bio-ad-homineming (now that is a term).
Heidegger ought to be crtiqued, but this is not critique.
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May 18, 2020I still don't know how I feel about Heidegger. On the one hand, he was a trader in ugly ideas who set the tone for some of the worst tendencies in continental philosophy, and on the other hand achieved remarkable breakthroughs in perception – his Introduction to Metaphysics is one of the single most haunting texts you could imagine. Wolin's text is an attempt to explore his legacy and how one man's ideas and ideologies reverberated across postwar thought, and how his followers have sought to reconcile his ideas and his politics. Given the thin gruel of contemporary discourse in the English-speaking world, Wolin's explorations are a goddamn tour de force. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in how ideas become ideas – the chapter on Marcuse is particularly enlightening.
February 26, 2022
Richard Wolin has been actively pointing to what he perceives to be the academic and moral shortcomings of intellectuals throughout the twentieth century. With titles like “The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism” to “The Wind from the East: From Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s,” he has mostly focused on what some critics have called “left-fascism” (not a term I’d ever be accused of using) in books that usually tell the story of a controversial thinker, and then how that figure went on to influence writers in the same field. Mark Lilla’s “The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics” largely follows this same pattern and presentation. “Heidegger’s Children” looks at four of Heidegger’s students who themselves went on to become highly regarded and who were all Jewish: Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, Karl Lowith, and Herbert Marcuse.
However carefully scholars wanted to walk on eggshells around Heidegger, today there is absolutely no doubt that during his 1933 rectorship at the University of Freiburg was held under the auspices and in close collaboration with the National Socialist party. Above and beyond this, his sympathies with the party continued such that his students – some more than others, clearly – felt the need to distance themselves from him. His persistent metaphysical antisemitism is apparent to anyone who cares to read the Black Notebooks written over a period of nearly three decades from 1931 to 1959 but only published within the last decade. In any case, even his dimmest of students have realized the affinities between his special brand of obscurantist thought and the Volkisch that rested behind Nazi “thought.” Despite his opinions, Heidegger gained a reputation as a fascinating and charismatic teacher whose ideas offered the respite of hope from the failed project that was a democratic Weimar Germany.
The book proceeds in a predictable way. Wolin gives a brief biographical sketch of each of Heidegger’s four students, then discusses their work and why it was important. This is the strength of the book, oddly enough, as Hans Jonas and Karl Lowith get little to no attention of their own. Wolin then goes on to criticize and pick nits at each of the four for not having separated themselves from the Black Forest Sage. This is where a lot of the problematic whitewashing happens, and it’s unfortunate that it detracts from what would otherwise be such a useful introduction to Heidegger and his influence on four of his most popular students.
The one glaring problem with Wolin’s thesis is, of course, that not all his students’ work was equally haunted by Heidegger’s errors. We can see this mistake coming a mile away with the awkwardly inaccurate title of “Heidegger’s Children,” somehow denoting a thoroughgoing reliance on Heidegger’s thought, which simply isn’t the case. Perhaps the most disappointing behavior on display by any of Heidegger’s students is the excuse-making that Arendt engages in on the part of her former teacher for decades after the war. In the case of Hans Jonas and Karl Lowith, the connections with Heidegger’s thought are so tenuous they don’t even really need mention, but Wolin still insists on referring to the two as Heidegger’s “children.”
Hitching some of Heidegger’s most famous students onto his wagon of bad intellectual habits and a lifetime of regrettable political decisions and then artlessly declaiming “Biography is history!” falls short of the level of analysis that Heidegger’s students, and dare I say even Heidegger himself, deserve.
However carefully scholars wanted to walk on eggshells around Heidegger, today there is absolutely no doubt that during his 1933 rectorship at the University of Freiburg was held under the auspices and in close collaboration with the National Socialist party. Above and beyond this, his sympathies with the party continued such that his students – some more than others, clearly – felt the need to distance themselves from him. His persistent metaphysical antisemitism is apparent to anyone who cares to read the Black Notebooks written over a period of nearly three decades from 1931 to 1959 but only published within the last decade. In any case, even his dimmest of students have realized the affinities between his special brand of obscurantist thought and the Volkisch that rested behind Nazi “thought.” Despite his opinions, Heidegger gained a reputation as a fascinating and charismatic teacher whose ideas offered the respite of hope from the failed project that was a democratic Weimar Germany.
The book proceeds in a predictable way. Wolin gives a brief biographical sketch of each of Heidegger’s four students, then discusses their work and why it was important. This is the strength of the book, oddly enough, as Hans Jonas and Karl Lowith get little to no attention of their own. Wolin then goes on to criticize and pick nits at each of the four for not having separated themselves from the Black Forest Sage. This is where a lot of the problematic whitewashing happens, and it’s unfortunate that it detracts from what would otherwise be such a useful introduction to Heidegger and his influence on four of his most popular students.
The one glaring problem with Wolin’s thesis is, of course, that not all his students’ work was equally haunted by Heidegger’s errors. We can see this mistake coming a mile away with the awkwardly inaccurate title of “Heidegger’s Children,” somehow denoting a thoroughgoing reliance on Heidegger’s thought, which simply isn’t the case. Perhaps the most disappointing behavior on display by any of Heidegger’s students is the excuse-making that Arendt engages in on the part of her former teacher for decades after the war. In the case of Hans Jonas and Karl Lowith, the connections with Heidegger’s thought are so tenuous they don’t even really need mention, but Wolin still insists on referring to the two as Heidegger’s “children.”
Hitching some of Heidegger’s most famous students onto his wagon of bad intellectual habits and a lifetime of regrettable political decisions and then artlessly declaiming “Biography is history!” falls short of the level of analysis that Heidegger’s students, and dare I say even Heidegger himself, deserve.
April 4, 2015
A great overview of the noteworthy philosophers who were students of Heidegger. I especially liked the chapter on Herbert Marcuse.
July 4, 2024
Yes, there are very particular interpretative challenges related to Heidegger’s thought. These have been further exacerbated by the 2014 complete publication of The Black Notebooks, which disclosed the hitherto unrecognised extent of Heidegger’s reprehensible anti-semitism and his commitment to serve as a supporter, prop, and apologist of Nazism. However, I believe, that the extensive teleological reconstructions of authorial intentions practised by a segment of the scholarship are as misleading as they are harmful to the practice of the history of thought. These reconstructions have been marked by efforts to backtrace the bellicose, racist and exterminatory politics of the Nazi regime to Heidegger’s 1920s philosophy. Richard Wolin is, perhaps, the most prominent practitioner of this teleological anti-Heideggerianism.
Wolin argues that because the German philosopher embraced a far more radical “vision” of “the conservative revolution” in the 1930s than previously documented, his early thought, culminating in the publication of Being and Time (1927), must be read as a philosophic-historical enactment of that vision. While I recognise—as Heidegger’s letters to his interlocutors, including his “children” reveal—that his philosophy underpinned his politics, Wolin’s Heidegger’s Children reads more like a witch hunt than a serious account replete with historical arguments. It does not make sense chronologically and, more importantly, it wrongly imbues Heidegger’s contingent and historically singular political/personal choices—as the choices of all of us really in the end are—with pseudo-determinative predestination. Thought alone does not determine action and philosophical concepts are rarely embodied answers to concrete political problems. Rather, they are frameworks, picked up, discarded, and imbued with as many meanings as there are the thinkers thinking them. Their use and valence changes as the original “intention” is lost to “history” (hello, The Cambridge School!). How these frameworks interact with individual actions and the actors’ material reality presents a completely different set of problems which Wolin, in his self-satisfying register, completely ignores.
As a result, I much prefer the exegetical approach of Peter Gordon, who elucidated a case for a narrower conceptualisation of “context”. Gordon argued that by placing “undue emphasis” on Heidegger’s later politics, “one may miss” the most important aspects of his philosophy—what problems it sought to address at the time of its writing in the 1920s—and its broader relevance for the history of thought. An important illustration of this point is the concept of historicity, the treatment of which is very outrageous in Wolin’s account. For Wolin, “Heidegger’s decision for Nazism, […] was in fact based on the requirements of authentic historical commitment or ‘historicity’ as spelled out in Being and Time”. The argument on a “causal connection” between historicity and Nazism, or vice-versa, emerges as misconceived once we are reminded that other thinkers, such as the Frankfurt School’s Herbert Marcuse grounded “free” revolutionary action in the Heideggerain concept of historicity.
Other than that, I found the bits on the "children”, namely Löwith and Jonas, more palatable and sometimes engaging. I disliked Wolin’s reduction of Arendt, ofc construed as the impressionable young woman infatuated with the master, to Heidegger’s philosophical successor and his treatment of Marcuse was mid.
Wolin argues that because the German philosopher embraced a far more radical “vision” of “the conservative revolution” in the 1930s than previously documented, his early thought, culminating in the publication of Being and Time (1927), must be read as a philosophic-historical enactment of that vision. While I recognise—as Heidegger’s letters to his interlocutors, including his “children” reveal—that his philosophy underpinned his politics, Wolin’s Heidegger’s Children reads more like a witch hunt than a serious account replete with historical arguments. It does not make sense chronologically and, more importantly, it wrongly imbues Heidegger’s contingent and historically singular political/personal choices—as the choices of all of us really in the end are—with pseudo-determinative predestination. Thought alone does not determine action and philosophical concepts are rarely embodied answers to concrete political problems. Rather, they are frameworks, picked up, discarded, and imbued with as many meanings as there are the thinkers thinking them. Their use and valence changes as the original “intention” is lost to “history” (hello, The Cambridge School!). How these frameworks interact with individual actions and the actors’ material reality presents a completely different set of problems which Wolin, in his self-satisfying register, completely ignores.
As a result, I much prefer the exegetical approach of Peter Gordon, who elucidated a case for a narrower conceptualisation of “context”. Gordon argued that by placing “undue emphasis” on Heidegger’s later politics, “one may miss” the most important aspects of his philosophy—what problems it sought to address at the time of its writing in the 1920s—and its broader relevance for the history of thought. An important illustration of this point is the concept of historicity, the treatment of which is very outrageous in Wolin’s account. For Wolin, “Heidegger’s decision for Nazism, […] was in fact based on the requirements of authentic historical commitment or ‘historicity’ as spelled out in Being and Time”. The argument on a “causal connection” between historicity and Nazism, or vice-versa, emerges as misconceived once we are reminded that other thinkers, such as the Frankfurt School’s Herbert Marcuse grounded “free” revolutionary action in the Heideggerain concept of historicity.
Other than that, I found the bits on the "children”, namely Löwith and Jonas, more palatable and sometimes engaging. I disliked Wolin’s reduction of Arendt, ofc construed as the impressionable young woman infatuated with the master, to Heidegger’s philosophical successor and his treatment of Marcuse was mid.
May 28, 2007
How much should we divorce an idea from the one stating it? How much can we forgive of a philosophy that has motivated a man to support a movement that was decidedly murderous? How much should philosophy be accountable to its consequences and/or be able to play out in reality. I am really enjoying Wolin's analysis of the effect of Heidegger's 'fall' on four of his Jewish students and the ways in which they were able to explain/analyse/reconcile/reject Heidegger's teachings in their post war work. These are questions that have been nagging me in my own lay person's reading of philosophy and I am glad to have them touched upon in this very readable text.
March 21, 2025
I agree with other reviewers that Wolin has written this with a clear political agenda and prejudice; then again, he himself admits as much in the conclusion. However, I don't think that detracts from the points he makes, which to my mind are usually valid—if not sound—and thought-provoking. As someone who's been highly influenced by Heidegger's thought, I understand the impulse to leap to his defense, although I feel some of the other reviewers let this cloud their judgment, just as they rightfully accuse Wolin of the same thing.
Wolin basically takes Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis as an accepted truth: Liberal democracy is the apogee of history—and that's that, no questions asked. Personally, I, too, am an enjoyer of liberal democracy, which is why what's happening in America unsettles me. Yet I wish Wolin had stated this at the beginning rather than in his conclusion; we all have our biases, but he should be more explicit about where he's coming from for his readers. In response to his critics, he asks, "what better standard might there be to judge Heidegger's legacy—and that of his children—than a democratic one?" (233). To be sure, democracy is a historical reality; I agree with Wolin that it's a better standard than decisionist historicism, but to pretend it's objective is dishonest. As he surveys each of Heidegger's students—Arendt, Löwith, Jonas, and Marcuse—he basically has a checklist and enjoys putting a red "X" whenever he finds something critical of liberalism. Now, again, I find his criticisms valid and important—e.g., pushing back against Arendt's blaming the Jews for their persecution or Jonas' proto-eco-fascism—but you certainly get the sense that Wolin wants to appear righteous for having better sense than all of these thinkers. Other reviewers are correct, of course, to point out that one can be critical of liberalism without thereby being reactionary or dangerous. I think, for example, of someone like Michael Sandel, who's provided a compelling critique of Kant's deontological self as the basis of liberalism—precisely the rational, universal, cosmopolitan, autonomous self of which Wolin is so fond.
With this criticism out of the way, though, I did find this a nice overview of the lives and thoughts of these four thinkers. With the exception of Arendt, whom he spends more time criticizing than explaining, Wolin succinctly gets at each philosopher's major concern and major works. I'm not very familiar with Arendt, Löwith, or Jonas—especially Löwith—so I liked learning the gist of them all. Jonas I'll look more into, for example. I understand the other reviewers' frustrations about Heidegger's philosophy not being developed at length here, but that's because this book isn't about Heidegger per se. Wolin quotes Heidegger plenty and invokes the relevant concepts when necessary. He convincingly shows that Heidegger's philosophy set him up for, at least could justify, his Nazism, although Wolin could've stressed its inherent value more. It would be easy to walk away from this book with the idea that Being and Time is so Nazi-ridden that it ought to be thrown away or ignored. I say "easy" because, despite his occasional remarks that Heidegger should still be read and is valuable, Wolin seems to taint his philosophizing as rotten to the core; it is, as another reviewer called it, a form of teleological reading. Marcuse said that the connection between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics was only recognizable "ex post," yet Wolin seems to disregard this, seeing the 1927 author of Being and Time as the 1933 Nazi Rector. Although, to defend Wolin a bit, I do think he does a good job in the penultimate chapter showing how, as early as the 1910s, Heidegger's anti-modernist, Catholic origins were well-established. To put it simply, Being and Time is not a National Socialist text, but it can readily be read as one.
Wolin speaks of Heidegger's "linguistic authoritarianism" (226), particularism, irrationalism, and implicit nihilism, all of which he forcefully demonstrates. Over time, with age, Heidegger came to prize the particular over the universal, the unsayable to the rational, and the groundless to the grounded—this isn't intrinsically bad, as Wolin makes it out to be—but it is extrinsically bad. If everything becomes about private, incommunicable experience, as in mysticism, then disclosure becomes entirely self-enclosed, enabling irresponsibility. This, as opposed to Kant's universal validity. Thus, I think Wolin's argument is correct that, the more Heidegger tried to destroy the Western tradition intellectually, the more he contributed to—at least intellectually—its physical destruction.
Wolin basically takes Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis as an accepted truth: Liberal democracy is the apogee of history—and that's that, no questions asked. Personally, I, too, am an enjoyer of liberal democracy, which is why what's happening in America unsettles me. Yet I wish Wolin had stated this at the beginning rather than in his conclusion; we all have our biases, but he should be more explicit about where he's coming from for his readers. In response to his critics, he asks, "what better standard might there be to judge Heidegger's legacy—and that of his children—than a democratic one?" (233). To be sure, democracy is a historical reality; I agree with Wolin that it's a better standard than decisionist historicism, but to pretend it's objective is dishonest. As he surveys each of Heidegger's students—Arendt, Löwith, Jonas, and Marcuse—he basically has a checklist and enjoys putting a red "X" whenever he finds something critical of liberalism. Now, again, I find his criticisms valid and important—e.g., pushing back against Arendt's blaming the Jews for their persecution or Jonas' proto-eco-fascism—but you certainly get the sense that Wolin wants to appear righteous for having better sense than all of these thinkers. Other reviewers are correct, of course, to point out that one can be critical of liberalism without thereby being reactionary or dangerous. I think, for example, of someone like Michael Sandel, who's provided a compelling critique of Kant's deontological self as the basis of liberalism—precisely the rational, universal, cosmopolitan, autonomous self of which Wolin is so fond.
With this criticism out of the way, though, I did find this a nice overview of the lives and thoughts of these four thinkers. With the exception of Arendt, whom he spends more time criticizing than explaining, Wolin succinctly gets at each philosopher's major concern and major works. I'm not very familiar with Arendt, Löwith, or Jonas—especially Löwith—so I liked learning the gist of them all. Jonas I'll look more into, for example. I understand the other reviewers' frustrations about Heidegger's philosophy not being developed at length here, but that's because this book isn't about Heidegger per se. Wolin quotes Heidegger plenty and invokes the relevant concepts when necessary. He convincingly shows that Heidegger's philosophy set him up for, at least could justify, his Nazism, although Wolin could've stressed its inherent value more. It would be easy to walk away from this book with the idea that Being and Time is so Nazi-ridden that it ought to be thrown away or ignored. I say "easy" because, despite his occasional remarks that Heidegger should still be read and is valuable, Wolin seems to taint his philosophizing as rotten to the core; it is, as another reviewer called it, a form of teleological reading. Marcuse said that the connection between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics was only recognizable "ex post," yet Wolin seems to disregard this, seeing the 1927 author of Being and Time as the 1933 Nazi Rector. Although, to defend Wolin a bit, I do think he does a good job in the penultimate chapter showing how, as early as the 1910s, Heidegger's anti-modernist, Catholic origins were well-established. To put it simply, Being and Time is not a National Socialist text, but it can readily be read as one.
Wolin speaks of Heidegger's "linguistic authoritarianism" (226), particularism, irrationalism, and implicit nihilism, all of which he forcefully demonstrates. Over time, with age, Heidegger came to prize the particular over the universal, the unsayable to the rational, and the groundless to the grounded—this isn't intrinsically bad, as Wolin makes it out to be—but it is extrinsically bad. If everything becomes about private, incommunicable experience, as in mysticism, then disclosure becomes entirely self-enclosed, enabling irresponsibility. This, as opposed to Kant's universal validity. Thus, I think Wolin's argument is correct that, the more Heidegger tried to destroy the Western tradition intellectually, the more he contributed to—at least intellectually—its physical destruction.
November 19, 2020
Little insight of Heidegger, the conclusions about his thinking are therefore useless in this book, nevertheless it provides a quite unique view on some less philosophical subjects mostly neglected by other writers.
March 22, 2026
Mission 2026: Binge reviewing (and rereading on occasion) all previous Reads, I was too slothful to review, back when I read them.
The quartet at the heart of the book—Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse—are not treated as passive recipients of Heidegger’s thought but as fidgety interlocutors, each negotiating, revising, or outright rejecting the philosophical legacy of a man whose association with Nazism casts a long, unavoidable shadow.
What makes the book quietly unsettling is the realisation that intellectual formation is rarely pure; Arendt’s fierce independence, Marcuse’s radical critique, Jonas’s ethical seriousness, and Löwith’s historical scepticism all carry traces of Heidegger’s influence, even as they attempt to move beyond it, as if thought itself resists clean moral separation.
Wolin’s narrative, at times almost novelistic, captures this tension with precision, showing how ideas travel not in straight lines but through contradictions, affections, and disillusionments; and as a reader, you begin to sense that the real subject here is not just four thinkers but the troubling intimacy between philosophy and politics, between abstract thought and lived consequence.
There is also something intensely contemporary about this excavation: in an age where we are repetitively forced to reconcile genius with complicity, brilliance with moral failure, Heidegger’s presence feels less like a historical anomaly and more like a recurring pattern.
The book refuses easy verdicts; it neither absolves nor condemns outright, but instead lingers in the grey zones where admiration coexists with unease, where intellectual debts cannot be neatly repudiated.
By the end, what remains is a faint but persistent discomfort—the awareness that ideas, once absorbed, cannot be entirely disentangled from their origins, and that the task of thinking is always, in some sense, also a task of reckoning.
I can safely conclude by saying that reading this book feels like entering an intellectual family drama where brilliance and betrayal sit uncomfortably at the same table, presided over—silently, ominously—by Martin Heidegger. What Wolin does so interestingly is to trace not just influence but inheritance: how a teacher’s philosophy seeps into the moral and political consciousness of his students, even when they spend their lives resisting him.
A must read for students of philosophy.
The quartet at the heart of the book—Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse—are not treated as passive recipients of Heidegger’s thought but as fidgety interlocutors, each negotiating, revising, or outright rejecting the philosophical legacy of a man whose association with Nazism casts a long, unavoidable shadow.
What makes the book quietly unsettling is the realisation that intellectual formation is rarely pure; Arendt’s fierce independence, Marcuse’s radical critique, Jonas’s ethical seriousness, and Löwith’s historical scepticism all carry traces of Heidegger’s influence, even as they attempt to move beyond it, as if thought itself resists clean moral separation.
Wolin’s narrative, at times almost novelistic, captures this tension with precision, showing how ideas travel not in straight lines but through contradictions, affections, and disillusionments; and as a reader, you begin to sense that the real subject here is not just four thinkers but the troubling intimacy between philosophy and politics, between abstract thought and lived consequence.
There is also something intensely contemporary about this excavation: in an age where we are repetitively forced to reconcile genius with complicity, brilliance with moral failure, Heidegger’s presence feels less like a historical anomaly and more like a recurring pattern.
The book refuses easy verdicts; it neither absolves nor condemns outright, but instead lingers in the grey zones where admiration coexists with unease, where intellectual debts cannot be neatly repudiated.
By the end, what remains is a faint but persistent discomfort—the awareness that ideas, once absorbed, cannot be entirely disentangled from their origins, and that the task of thinking is always, in some sense, also a task of reckoning.
I can safely conclude by saying that reading this book feels like entering an intellectual family drama where brilliance and betrayal sit uncomfortably at the same table, presided over—silently, ominously—by Martin Heidegger. What Wolin does so interestingly is to trace not just influence but inheritance: how a teacher’s philosophy seeps into the moral and political consciousness of his students, even when they spend their lives resisting him.
A must read for students of philosophy.
March 3, 2020
Wolin always provides clear accounts of transmission. One can see how the likes of Arendt and Marcuse contaminated by pseudo profundity of the master charlatan continue in no small measure to coach their own misguided fancies in Heideggerian concepts. I had no familiarity with Jonas or Löwith before, and this I feel was a good introduction to their thought. The last two chapters on Heidegger's own follies repeat what Wolin has discussed more thoroughly in his other works like "The Politics of Being". I would have liked a few more of the children like Elisabeth Blochmann, Gadamer, Levinas, Shūzō Kuki, Hajime Tanabe discussed.
September 17, 2008
Wolin is a good scholar, but he doesn't give Arendt too much credit. I can speak as extensively on the other thinkers, but he sees Arendt as a Heidegger clone. And he argues this by using the controversial biography on Arendt, rather than the definitive one.
October 15, 2011
covers four of his students - Arendt, Lowith, Jonas and Marcuse
March 7, 2018
There’s no saltiness quite like that of an academic vindicated in a long-held, long-dismissed belief. Intellectual historian Richard Wolin had been beating the drum about the Nazi past of Martin Heidegger, the greatest (in the sense of being a big deal) philosopher of the twentieth century, for years. Heidegger is as big of a deal as he is because his influence goes well beyond philosophy departments into… well, other university departments- literature, architecture, etc. His phenomenological framework is sufficiently powerful, flexible, and more than anything else, glamorously incomprehensible, that he was useful and appealing to a lot of people. They all knew he was a Nazi party member. Most of them probably knew that his excuses for it — he felt pressure, he tried to avoid politicizing the university, etc etc — were specious at best. They must have noticed certain, shall we say, elective affinities between Heidegger’s critique of modernity and some of the “Völkisch” tendencies that went into Nazism. But it was all vague enough to be waved away, at least during Heidegger’s lifetime.
Wolin didn’t buy it in the nineties, when he became embroiled in the Heidegger Controversy (it gets caps- Wolin edited a collection on it) and when he was writing “Heidegger’s Children,” and his exasperation with the defenses of the Black Forest Sage shines through the text. It examines four of Heidegger’s major students – Hannah Arendt and Herbert Marcuse being the best known, though I’d say Löwith is also worth reading – all of whom were Germanized Jews, and their relationships with their teacher. Even his pre-Black Notebook defenders admit Heidegger had an anti-semitic streak (not that it stopped him from sleeping with his grad student Hannah Arendt, which, you know, not exactly what you want in a sage either). But evidently his charisma and philosophical powers were enough that it attracted these students. Wolin argues that the degree and kind of assimilation on the part of middle-class German Jews played a crucial role in allowing these relationships to take place despite the master’s distaste for Jews. I don’t know enough about German culture at the time to say, but it sounds both basically accurate and overstated, perhaps majorly so.
Wolin goes through each one, considers parts of their oeuvure, and in each case condemns the philosopher in question for not separating themselves far enough from Heidegger and his elitist anti-modernism. He attributes the flaws in Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem” and her bien-pensant liberal elitism to the same flaws that led her to play a weird double game for Heidegger even after their affair. Hans Jonas (whose work I don’t know) seeded the German Green movement with bizarre and unhelpful antimodern sentiments drawn from Heidegger, the master he abandoned decades before. Marcuse managed to escape his gravitational pull more — he had more independence from Heidegger, in large part due to his Marxist commitments – but still meandered through efforts to square the circle of reconciling Heidegerrian phenomenology and Marxism. Löwith… I don’t remember what his issue was and I haven’t got the book in front of me. He did something wrong, and it was the fault of whatever it was drew the guy to Heidegger.
All this, in 2001, before the Black Notebooks came to be published to the extent they have, and Heidegger’s genuine enthusiasm for Nazism became impossible to hide! My edition has an extended preface where Wolin relishes dunking on Heidegger’s assorted defenders. It’s hard not to appreciate his enthusiasm- even if you take something from the philosopher’s work, his academic defenders were a trendy lot (there’s a hipster architecture magazine called “Dwell,” a self-conscious nod to one of Heidegger’s later philosophical hobby-horses), their prevarication was pretty weak, and it’s satisfying to see the historical record get its due. That being said, it leaves a larger question – what do we do with important cultural figures with abhorrent political views? – unanswered.
Several times, Wolin insists on Heidegger’s brilliance and importance, while also condemning his work tout court as fruit of the poison tree of German reaction. We are left with no idea of how to reconcile that. For my money, he’s right- Heidegger is both brilliant and toxic. We make use of many toxic, dangerous substances, and the work and ideas of those who walked on the dark side of modernity – by no means restricted to fascism – should qualify, if radioactive materials do. Heidegger asked a lot of questions in a very provocative way, and helped break up the staid academic philosophy of the early twentieth century (with a lot of help, including from mentors he spited, like Husserl). He isn’t someone you should take moral (or political) advice from, and maybe this is just my materialism talking, but that seems to be the problem more than anything. Both Wolin and the Heideggerians he puts on the dock tried to get usable morals out of a twentieth century philosopher. Classic mistake! ***’
https://toomuchberard.wordpress.com/2...
Wolin didn’t buy it in the nineties, when he became embroiled in the Heidegger Controversy (it gets caps- Wolin edited a collection on it) and when he was writing “Heidegger’s Children,” and his exasperation with the defenses of the Black Forest Sage shines through the text. It examines four of Heidegger’s major students – Hannah Arendt and Herbert Marcuse being the best known, though I’d say Löwith is also worth reading – all of whom were Germanized Jews, and their relationships with their teacher. Even his pre-Black Notebook defenders admit Heidegger had an anti-semitic streak (not that it stopped him from sleeping with his grad student Hannah Arendt, which, you know, not exactly what you want in a sage either). But evidently his charisma and philosophical powers were enough that it attracted these students. Wolin argues that the degree and kind of assimilation on the part of middle-class German Jews played a crucial role in allowing these relationships to take place despite the master’s distaste for Jews. I don’t know enough about German culture at the time to say, but it sounds both basically accurate and overstated, perhaps majorly so.
Wolin goes through each one, considers parts of their oeuvure, and in each case condemns the philosopher in question for not separating themselves far enough from Heidegger and his elitist anti-modernism. He attributes the flaws in Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem” and her bien-pensant liberal elitism to the same flaws that led her to play a weird double game for Heidegger even after their affair. Hans Jonas (whose work I don’t know) seeded the German Green movement with bizarre and unhelpful antimodern sentiments drawn from Heidegger, the master he abandoned decades before. Marcuse managed to escape his gravitational pull more — he had more independence from Heidegger, in large part due to his Marxist commitments – but still meandered through efforts to square the circle of reconciling Heidegerrian phenomenology and Marxism. Löwith… I don’t remember what his issue was and I haven’t got the book in front of me. He did something wrong, and it was the fault of whatever it was drew the guy to Heidegger.
All this, in 2001, before the Black Notebooks came to be published to the extent they have, and Heidegger’s genuine enthusiasm for Nazism became impossible to hide! My edition has an extended preface where Wolin relishes dunking on Heidegger’s assorted defenders. It’s hard not to appreciate his enthusiasm- even if you take something from the philosopher’s work, his academic defenders were a trendy lot (there’s a hipster architecture magazine called “Dwell,” a self-conscious nod to one of Heidegger’s later philosophical hobby-horses), their prevarication was pretty weak, and it’s satisfying to see the historical record get its due. That being said, it leaves a larger question – what do we do with important cultural figures with abhorrent political views? – unanswered.
Several times, Wolin insists on Heidegger’s brilliance and importance, while also condemning his work tout court as fruit of the poison tree of German reaction. We are left with no idea of how to reconcile that. For my money, he’s right- Heidegger is both brilliant and toxic. We make use of many toxic, dangerous substances, and the work and ideas of those who walked on the dark side of modernity – by no means restricted to fascism – should qualify, if radioactive materials do. Heidegger asked a lot of questions in a very provocative way, and helped break up the staid academic philosophy of the early twentieth century (with a lot of help, including from mentors he spited, like Husserl). He isn’t someone you should take moral (or political) advice from, and maybe this is just my materialism talking, but that seems to be the problem more than anything. Both Wolin and the Heideggerians he puts on the dock tried to get usable morals out of a twentieth century philosopher. Classic mistake! ***’
https://toomuchberard.wordpress.com/2...
March 13, 2026
Published in 2001, Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse by the intellectual historian Richard Wolin examines the philosophical legacy of the German thinker Martin Heidegger through the intellectual trajectories of four of his most prominent students: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse. Wolin’s central aim is to explore the paradoxical influence of Heidegger’s philosophy on a generation of thinkers who, despite their deep engagement with his ideas, developed intellectual positions that often diverged sharply from his own political commitments.
The book situates Heidegger within the broader intellectual context of twentieth-century German philosophy. Following the publication of his major work, Being and Time in 1927, Heidegger rapidly emerged as one of the most influential figures in European philosophy. His emphasis on existential ontology, historical consciousness, and the question of Being reshaped philosophical discourse across multiple disciplines. Yet Heidegger’s intellectual reputation became deeply controversial following his association with the regime of Adolf Hitler and his membership in the Nazi Party during the early years of the Third Reich. Wolin’s study explores how Heidegger’s students responded to this tension between philosophical brilliance and political compromise.
The first major section of the book focuses on Hannah Arendt, whose intellectual relationship with Heidegger was both philosophically formative and personally complex. Wolin argues that while Arendt rejected Heidegger’s political commitments, she nevertheless retained key elements of his phenomenological method and emphasis on historical situatedness. In works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt developed a distinctive approach to political theory that emphasized the conditions necessary for genuine political freedom. Wolin suggests that her reflections on political action and plurality can be interpreted as an effort to redirect Heideggerian existential insights toward a democratic political framework.
The chapter devoted to Karl Löwith explores his critical engagement with Heidegger’s philosophy of history. Löwith became one of the earliest critics to highlight the political implications of Heidegger’s thought, particularly its emphasis on historical destiny and authenticity. In his later work, Löwith argued that modern philosophies of history often contained implicit theological assumptions, a theme developed in his influential study Meaning in History. Wolin interprets Löwith’s critique as an attempt to expose the ideological dangers inherent in certain strands of existential and historicist philosophy.
The intellectual development of Hans Jonas provides another important case study in the book. Jonas initially embraced Heidegger’s existential philosophy but later turned toward ethical and theological questions, particularly in response to the moral catastrophes of the twentieth century. His later work, especially The Imperative of Responsibility, represents an attempt to formulate an ethical framework capable of addressing the challenges posed by modern technological civilization. Wolin argues that Jonas’s philosophy reflects a profound effort to reconcile existential insights with a renewed emphasis on moral responsibility.
Finally, the book examines the intellectual trajectory of Herbert Marcuse, a major figure associated with the Frankfurt School. Marcuse’s early philosophical work was strongly influenced by Heidegger’s existential ontology, yet he later integrated these ideas with the critical theory of society developed by thinkers such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. Wolin argues that Marcuse’s synthesis of existential philosophy and Marxist social critique demonstrates the enduring intellectual influence of Heidegger’s thought, even among thinkers who strongly opposed his political views.
A central theme running throughout Wolin’s analysis is the complex relationship between philosophy and politics. The intellectual paths taken by Heidegger’s students illustrate the ways in which philosophical ideas can be appropriated, transformed, and reinterpreted in response to changing historical circumstances. Wolin suggests that the engagement with Heidegger forced these thinkers to confront fundamental questions about the ethical responsibilities of intellectuals in times of political crisis.
Stylistically, Wolin’s work reflects the strengths of intellectual history as a discipline. He combines detailed textual analysis with a careful reconstruction of the historical context in which these philosophers worked. The book is both accessible and analytically rigorous, offering readers a nuanced understanding of the philosophical debates that shaped twentieth-century European thought.
Some critics, however, have argued that Wolin occasionally emphasizes the negative political implications of Heidegger’s philosophy at the expense of its broader intellectual significance. Nevertheless, this interpretive emphasis reflects the book’s central concern: to examine how one of the twentieth century’s most influential philosophers could inspire such divergent intellectual and political responses among his students.
Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse represents a significant contribution to the study of modern intellectual history. Through his examination of the philosophical legacy of Martin Heidegger and the intellectual development of four of his most prominent students, Richard Wolin illuminates the complex relationship between philosophical ideas, historical experience, and political responsibility. The book offers valuable insights into the enduring influence of Heidegger’s thought and the ways in which it shaped the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century.
GPT
The book situates Heidegger within the broader intellectual context of twentieth-century German philosophy. Following the publication of his major work, Being and Time in 1927, Heidegger rapidly emerged as one of the most influential figures in European philosophy. His emphasis on existential ontology, historical consciousness, and the question of Being reshaped philosophical discourse across multiple disciplines. Yet Heidegger’s intellectual reputation became deeply controversial following his association with the regime of Adolf Hitler and his membership in the Nazi Party during the early years of the Third Reich. Wolin’s study explores how Heidegger’s students responded to this tension between philosophical brilliance and political compromise.
The first major section of the book focuses on Hannah Arendt, whose intellectual relationship with Heidegger was both philosophically formative and personally complex. Wolin argues that while Arendt rejected Heidegger’s political commitments, she nevertheless retained key elements of his phenomenological method and emphasis on historical situatedness. In works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt developed a distinctive approach to political theory that emphasized the conditions necessary for genuine political freedom. Wolin suggests that her reflections on political action and plurality can be interpreted as an effort to redirect Heideggerian existential insights toward a democratic political framework.
The chapter devoted to Karl Löwith explores his critical engagement with Heidegger’s philosophy of history. Löwith became one of the earliest critics to highlight the political implications of Heidegger’s thought, particularly its emphasis on historical destiny and authenticity. In his later work, Löwith argued that modern philosophies of history often contained implicit theological assumptions, a theme developed in his influential study Meaning in History. Wolin interprets Löwith’s critique as an attempt to expose the ideological dangers inherent in certain strands of existential and historicist philosophy.
The intellectual development of Hans Jonas provides another important case study in the book. Jonas initially embraced Heidegger’s existential philosophy but later turned toward ethical and theological questions, particularly in response to the moral catastrophes of the twentieth century. His later work, especially The Imperative of Responsibility, represents an attempt to formulate an ethical framework capable of addressing the challenges posed by modern technological civilization. Wolin argues that Jonas’s philosophy reflects a profound effort to reconcile existential insights with a renewed emphasis on moral responsibility.
Finally, the book examines the intellectual trajectory of Herbert Marcuse, a major figure associated with the Frankfurt School. Marcuse’s early philosophical work was strongly influenced by Heidegger’s existential ontology, yet he later integrated these ideas with the critical theory of society developed by thinkers such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. Wolin argues that Marcuse’s synthesis of existential philosophy and Marxist social critique demonstrates the enduring intellectual influence of Heidegger’s thought, even among thinkers who strongly opposed his political views.
A central theme running throughout Wolin’s analysis is the complex relationship between philosophy and politics. The intellectual paths taken by Heidegger’s students illustrate the ways in which philosophical ideas can be appropriated, transformed, and reinterpreted in response to changing historical circumstances. Wolin suggests that the engagement with Heidegger forced these thinkers to confront fundamental questions about the ethical responsibilities of intellectuals in times of political crisis.
Stylistically, Wolin’s work reflects the strengths of intellectual history as a discipline. He combines detailed textual analysis with a careful reconstruction of the historical context in which these philosophers worked. The book is both accessible and analytically rigorous, offering readers a nuanced understanding of the philosophical debates that shaped twentieth-century European thought.
Some critics, however, have argued that Wolin occasionally emphasizes the negative political implications of Heidegger’s philosophy at the expense of its broader intellectual significance. Nevertheless, this interpretive emphasis reflects the book’s central concern: to examine how one of the twentieth century’s most influential philosophers could inspire such divergent intellectual and political responses among his students.
Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse represents a significant contribution to the study of modern intellectual history. Through his examination of the philosophical legacy of Martin Heidegger and the intellectual development of four of his most prominent students, Richard Wolin illuminates the complex relationship between philosophical ideas, historical experience, and political responsibility. The book offers valuable insights into the enduring influence of Heidegger’s thought and the ways in which it shaped the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century.
GPT
December 26, 2023
Enjoyed the chapter on Marcuse.
July 27, 2015
He has done significant research and provided readers with suggestions for further reading. However, he pulls quotations out of their context and his analysis is often reductive and facile. He also appears to equate any criticism of any form of Zionism with anti-Semitism.
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August 20, 2016Very interesting journey through the period of fascism in Germany and the split in Existential and Phenomenological schools of philosophy based on the brutality of the Nazi regime, control of academia and Jewish heritage.
April 12, 2014
Interessant boek, maar de schrijver is zo nu en dan wel erg selectief in het gebruik en duiding van bronnen.
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