The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader (European Perspectives: a Series in Social Thought & Cultural Ctiticism)

This anthology is a significant contribution to the debate over the relevance of Martin Heidegger's Nazi ties to the interpretation and evaluation of his philosophical work. Included are a selection of basic documents by Heidegger, essays and letters by Heidegger's colleagues that offer contemporary context and testimony, and interpretive evaluations by Heidegger's heirs and critics in France and Germany. In his new introduction, "Note on a Missing Text," Richard Wolin uses the absence from this edition of an interview with Jacques Derrida as a springboard for examining questions about the nature of authorship and personal responsibility that are at the heart of the book. Richard Wolin is Professor of Modern European Intellectual History and Humanities at Rice University. He is the author of Walter Benjamin, The Politics of The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger, and The Terms of Cultural The Frankfurt School, Existentialism and Poststructuralism.

Victor Farias ( Heidegger and Nazism , LJ 12/89) started it; Jean-Francois Lyotard ( Heidegger and the "Jews , " LJ 7/90) and Gunther Neske ( Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and Answers , LJ 11/15/90), among others, continued it; and now this book keeps the dialectic of "L'affaire Heidegger" alive and well. It is divided into three parts: Heidegger's own writings pertinent to his association with and attitudes toward Nazism (several of which, being basic, appear also in the aforementioned books); writings by his contemporaries; and, finally, essays by recent European critics. Editor Wolin, a professor at Rice University, provides an exceptionally perceptive introduction and a final essay entitled "The Heidegger Debate in France."-- Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, D.C.
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