Philipse’s book on Heidegger — David Auerbach’s review

Professor Kevin Hill drew my attention to Auerbach’s review of Herman Philipse’s Heidegger’s Philosophy of Being (Princeton, 1998) and this excerpt from Philipse in particular:

Heidegger’s individualistic notion of authenticity, according to which Dasein has to liberate itself from common moral rules in order to choose one’s hero freely, tends to collapse into a collectivist notion, according to which the choice is not made by an individual at all, but is predetermined by the destiny of the Volk to which one belongs.

And this on the persistently religious core of Heidegger’s thought, as he attempts to salvage religion after the death of God:

The core of the postmonotheist leitmotif is the idea that traditional monotheism died because Being was misinterpreted as a being, God. The postmonotheist strategy purports to destroy monotheism and to rescue religion by arguing that monotheist faith, which died, is not the true religion. True and authentic faith is the thinking of Being. This strategy faces a dilemma. On the one hand, postmonotheology should resemble traditional monotheism sufficiently for satisfying similar religious cravings. Indeed, we saw that the meaning of Heidegger’s postmonotheist thought is parasitic on the Christian tradition. On the other hand, postmonotheism should not resemble traditional monotheism too closely. For in that case, it could be interpreted as just another variety of the deceased monotheist tradition, as a watered-down and more abstract version of Christianity, a substitute religion, and the postmonotheist strategy will fail altogether.

Related:
Heidegger and World War One — Altman’s book.
My other posts on Martin Heidegger, postmodernism, National Socialism, the Fuehrer Principle, and more.

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