Heidegger et les modernes

by Luc Ferry

"Heidegger and Modernity is an intervention in the Heidegger debate in France which many may see as decisive. Its central claim is that the responses of left Heideggerians to continuing disclosures regarding Heidegger's Nazi affiliations fail to come to terms with central ambiguities in his philosophical responses, both early and late, to modernity and technology. . . . Incisive and hard hitting, Luc Ferry and Alain Renault have condensed in a short and tightly organized book both a judicious and well-informed account of the Heidegger question and an implicit defence of humanism which has a strong political resonance."Liam O'Sullivan, Political Studies

Genres: Philosophy

234 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 1988

About the author

Luc Ferry (born January 1, 1951) is a French philosopher and a notable proponent of Secular Humanism. He is a former member of the Saint-Simon Foundation think-tank.

He received an Agrégation de philosophie (1975), a Doctorat d’Etat en science politique (1981), and an Agrégation de science politique (1982). As a Professor of political science and political philosophy, Luc Ferry taught at the Institut d'études politiques de Lyon (1982–1988) — during which time he also taught and directed graduate research at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University —, at Caen University (1989–96). He was a professor at Paris Diderot University (since 1996) but did not teach there.

From 2002 and until 2004 he served as the Minister of Education on the cabinet led by the conservative Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. During his tenure, he was the minister in charge of the implementation of the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools. He received the award of Docteur honoris causa from the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada). He is the 2013 Telesio Galilei Academy of science Laureate for Philosophy. He was enthroned to Chevalier De La Dive Bouteille De Gaillac on the 20 march 2012 together with Max Karoubi and Francesco Fucilla.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Lucy]

agree generally with the thesis that to ignore heidegger’s relation with the nazis is a real issue, but have a real issue with the assumption of the saving grace of liberal humanism that is meant to somehow negate the real presence that his work on technology has? heidegger, more rightly for now than perhaps his own times, recognises that the ontological status of the machine needs to be considered and how that affects Being.

there’s also a lot to be said about the relation of fascism and capitalism that at least obscures the argument ferry and renault are making but this is a goodreads review so I’m not getting into that!

[David]

Another entry in Ferry and Renault's questionable interpretation/understanding of Heidegger that goes to enormous (and unpersuasive) lengths to politicize the concepts of Being and Time. Ferry and Renaut read B&T through the lens of the Heidegger of the mid-1930s, trying to (re)interpret him through his own politicization of his thought. But neither Heidegger's friends at the time nor his subsequent interlocutors have found his pathetic, temporary Nazification of his philosophy to be (philosophically) serious or the inevitable consequences of his thinking prior to 1933.

For example, Being and Time is constantly and pervasively explicit about the meaning of "fallenness," that it is a constitutive aspect of all (even authentic) human existence, that it is not a "moral" concept, and that it can only be modified, not overcome. Ferry and Renaut spend a significant portion of the book mis-understanding fallenness this way, insisting that B&T was advancing a latent thought of an authentic Aryan nation that would resist the "fallenness" of Europe.

Another problem is their attempt to castigate Lacoue-Labarthe and Derrida for attributing Heidegger's Nazism to humanism. One could make a solid argument that this interpretation (in Derrida's "Of Spirit," for example) is a bit overly theoretical, gives too much weight to a concept like humanism. But Ferry and Renault seem to think they can dismiss French Heideggerians just by labeling them anti-humanist, without any serious attempt to engage a robust version of what that anti-humanism was and how they came to embrace it. Ferry and Renault seem to think they can just pick up the dusty old traditional concept of humanism and then point fingers at anyone who (quite rightly) sees humanism traditionally understood as problematic.