Heidegger's Roots by Charles R Bambach

Heidegger's Roots by Charles R Bambach

Despite a flood of recent works on Martin Heidegger and Nazism, there has been no sustained investigation of the shared themes that were the common ground between Heidegger's thought and that of the ideologists of National Socialism. In this lucid and fair-minded book, Charles Bambach reads Heidegger's writings from 1933 to 1945 in historical context. Bambach shows that Heidegger was engaged in a conversation with the National Socialists and others on the German right about the authentic mission of the German Volk, and that this theme was central to all of his thought.Bambach depicts the development within Heidegger's work of a philosophy marked by a belief in rootedness in the homeland, the ground of ancestral kinship, and a notion of a privileged, originary connection to the ancient Greeks. Bambach makes clear that Heidegger's philosophical account of the history of the West is structured by a grand metaphysical vision of German destiny as something rooted in the soil. All of Heidegger's post-1933 works can, Bambach maintains, be read as arguments for a German form of racial-political autochthony.An essential reference in the debates over one of the twentieth century's most influential—and controversial—philosophers, this book demonstrates the profound influence on Heidegger's work of both historical context and the other thinkers with whom he engaged in dialogue. These latter include not only the ancient Greeks and such German predecessors as Hegel, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche, but also those contemporaries of the radical right from whom he would later try to distance himself.

Bambach's account is a highly detailed and contextualized examination of the various links between the Nazi party and HeideggerAs a result, it places Heidegger's thought within a historical and sociopolitical perspective that will be essential to Heidegger scholars and those who see his work as relevant to contemporary hermeneutics.

-- Scott Greer, University of Prince Edward Island * Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences *

Charles Bambach is Professor of the History of Ideas/Philosophy at the University of Texas, Dallas. He is author of Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism, also from Cornell.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780801472664
ISBN 10	0801472660
Title	Heidegger's Roots
Author	Charles R Bambach
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cornell University Press
Year published	2005-09-29
Number of pages	384
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable