V--2nd, Existentialist Sheriff; Profane reading, Pig Bodine recommended, p. 302 HP Classics edition

[alice wellintown]

from IEP
http://www.iep.utm.edu/heidegge/

from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15545


In the Spiegel interview Heidegger tells us that in order to begin
anew, we need to go to the “age-old” (i.e., pre-classical and
pre-metaphysical) traditions of thought. He invokes the concept of the
ancient polis. Yet, since he does not want to concern himself with the
question of ethics (beyond saying in the “Letter of Humanism” that the
word “ethics appeared for the first time in the school of Plato” and
thus implying that ethics does not think the truth of being and is
nihilistic), he does not consider the fact that even in pre-Platonic
and pre-Socratic times a Greek polis was an ethical community, in
which moral questions were raised and discussed. The Iliad and Odyssey
of Homer, the poems of Hesiod, and the tragedies of Sophocles, as well
as the other ancient Greek texts, including the monumental political
work of Thucydides, the History of the Peloponnesian War, express
concerns with ethical behavior at both the individual and community
levels. Furthermore, the strength of Western civilization, insofar as
its roots can be traced to ancient Greece, is that from its beginning
it was based on rationality, understood as free debate, and the
affirmation of fundamental moral values. Whenever it turned to
irrationality and moral relativism, as in Nazism and Communism, that
civilization was in decline. Therefore, Heidegger is likely to be
mistaken in his diagnosis of the ills of the contemporary society, and
his solution to those ills seems to be wrong. Asking the question of
being (and, drawing our attention to this question is certainly his
significant contribution) is an important addition to, but never a
replacement for asking moral questions in the spirit of rationality
and freedom.


S. J. McGrath's trim little book offers us an overview of Heidegger's
life-work, with special emphasis on his political activities and his
relationship to theology. The book is part of a religious series
originating from the Centre of Theology and Philosophy, and McGrath is
up front in announcing that he is a Christian humanist and a
personalist. Though he is highly impressed by Heidegger (this is his
second book on the subject), his religious commitments incline him to
be "very" critical of Heidegger. The book is divided into five
chapters. After a short introduction, there are chapters on
phenomenology, ontology, axiology, and theology, with a brief
conclusion on "Why I Am Not a Heideggerian."