Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil
"Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil" carries a German title borrowed from Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge." The phrase "Ein Meister aus Deutschland" translates as "A Master from Germany." When Rudiger Safranski chose those words for his 1994 biography, he was reaching for a particular charge. Heidegger had been both a profound philosophical presence and a figure whose past cast a shadow over every biography attempted since. What would it take to write about both at once, without flinching from either? And how did one philosopher come to make deliberate obscurity a feature of his thought rather than a failing?
Safranski frames Heidegger as someone who participated in a distinctly German way of approaching the question of being. According to Safranski, Heidegger took that tradition further than any predecessor had. What set him apart was not just ambition but a kind of principled refusal. Incomprehension in his work was a deliberate feature, not a by-product of poor writing or translation. It reflected a deep distrust of the active human mind as a reliable tool for understanding existence. Richard Rorty would be among the first prominent English-language critics to assess whether Safranski's account of that refusal held up.
Richard Rorty's review of the book for The New York Times arrived at an unusual conclusion. The biography, Rorty wrote, "manages to display both Heidegger's pettiness and imaginative power." That pairing of opposite qualities in one man was, Rorty suggested, not a contradiction Safranski had failed to resolve. It was something the biographer had honestly preserved. Rorty went further and called the book "the first comprehensive biography of the man." By that judgment, it had superseded earlier works by Victor Farias and Hugo Ott. Both Farias and Ott had focused their books on Heidegger and Nazism. Scholars working on Heidegger after 1994 would now need to begin with Safranski rather than Farias or Ott.
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Common questions
What is Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil about?
Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil is a 1994 biography of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, written by Rudiger Safranski. It examines Heidegger as a thinker who pushed a particularly German tradition of studying being further than any predecessor, making incomprehension a deliberate feature of his work due to a distrust of the active human mind.
Who wrote Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil?
Rudiger Safranski wrote the biography, published in 1994. The work presents Heidegger as someone who pushed a particularly German tradition of studying being further than any predecessor.
What does the German title of Safranski's Heidegger biography mean?
The German title "Ein Meister aus Deutschland" translates as "A Master from Germany." Safranski borrowed the phrase from Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge."
What did Richard Rorty write about Safranski's Heidegger biography in The New York Times?
Rorty called the book "the first comprehensive biography of the man" and wrote that it "manages to display both Heidegger's pettiness and imaginative power." He also declared it superior to earlier books on Heidegger and Nazism by Victor Farias and Hugo Ott.
How does Safranski's biography of Heidegger compare to the books by Victor Farias and Hugo Ott?
According to Richard Rorty's review in The New York Times, Safranski's biography superseded the books on Heidegger and Nazism by Victor Farias and Hugo Ott. Rorty described it as the first truly comprehensive biography of Heidegger.
Why did Heidegger make his philosophy deliberately incomprehensible according to Safranski?
According to Rudiger Safranski, incomprehension was a deliberate feature of Heidegger's work, rooted in a distrust of the active human mind. Heidegger believed the human mind could not serve as a reliable tool for understanding existence.
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2 references cited across the entry
- 1NewsMartin Heidegger1 February 1998
- 2NewsA Master From GermanyRichard Rorty — 3 May 1998