The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger [Paperback]

Martin Heidegger's overt alliance with the Nazis and the specific relation between this alliance and his philosophical thoughtthe degree to which his concepts are linked to a thoroughly disreputable set of political beliefshave been the topic of a storm of recent debate. Written ten years before this debate, this study by France's leading sociologist and cultural theorist is both a precursor of that debate and an analysis of the institutional mechanisms involved in the production of philosophical discourse.Though Heidegger is aware of and acknowledges the legitimacy of purely philosophical issues (in his references to canonic authors, traditional problems, and respect for academic taboos), Bourdieu points out that the complexity and abstraction of Heidegger's philosophical discourse stems from its situation in the cultural field, where two social and intellectual dimensionspolitical thought and academic thoughtintersect.Bourdieu concludes by suggesting that Heidegger should not be considered as a Nazi ideologist, that there is no place in Heidegger's philosophical ideas for a racist conception of the human being. Rather, he sees Heidegger's thought as a structural equivalent in the field of philosophy of the conservative revolution, of which Nazism is but one manifestation. Bourdieu is a sociologist with a remarkably wide range of competences, and his short book on Heidegger, published before the recent revelations of the philosopher's devoted commitment to Nazism through and beyond the defeat of the Third Reich, is a brilliant contribution to what is now called 'contextualization' (i.e., of Heidegger's thought). Richard Rorty dismissed Heidegger's Nazism on the ground that it had nothing to do with his philosophy; no reader of Bourdieu's book will be able to continue to believe this for a moment. Pierre Bourdieu is Professor of Sociology at the Coll?ge de France and Director of Studies at the ?cole des Hautes ?tudes en Sciences Sociales. Bourdieu's short studl“8