Heidegger's Black notebooks

Responses to anti-semitism

Edited by
Peter Trawny, Andrew J. Mitchell

Columbia University Press

2017

Abstract

From the 1930s through the 1970s, the philosopher Martin Heidegger kept a running series of private writings, the so-called Black Notebooks. The recent publication of the Black Notebooks volumes from the war years have sparked international controversy. While Heidegger’s engagement with National Socialism was well known, the Black Notebooks showed for the first time that this anti-Semitism was not merely a personal resentment. They contain not just anti-Semitic remarks, they show Heidegger incorporating basic tropes of anti-Semitism into his philosophical thinking. In them, Heidegger tried to assign a philosophical significance to anti-Semitism, with “the Jew” or “world Judaism” cast as antagonist in his project.

Reviews

• Joeri Schrijvers, "A. Mitchell, P. Trawny, Heidegger's Black notebooks" Phenomenological Reviews 4, 2018, pp. 4-4
• Megan Altman, "Andrew J. Mitchell and Peter Trawny (eds), Heidegger's Black notebooks" Human Studies 42 (4), 2019, pp. 717-723

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin