Stanford University Press Heidegger's Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence

In treating Heidegger's Black Notebooks as central to his philosophical project, this book shows how his philosophy emerges from the same combination of anti-Semitism and ethno-nationalism that produced National Socialism. Review [Heidegger's Fascist Affinities] raises grave questions about Heidegger's thought, politics and continuing reception, as well as their relation to the intellectual foundations of Nazism, and the relationship between philosophy and authoritarianism. The book deserves and will reward critical debate.--Matt Sharpe "Marx & Philosophy"Adam Knowles integrates a rigorous reading of Heidegger's published writings and lecture courses with a nuanced discussion of the notorious Black Notebooks. The result is a new and challenging approach to the philosopher's silence about the Holocaust that cannot be ignored.--Robert Bernasconi "Pennsylvania State University"Adam Knowles's innovative and elegantly written book invites everyone concerned about the impact of authoritarian regimes to ponder the past--and the present--anew. Knowles illuminates the integral nature of Heidegger's politics and philosophy with amazing clarity, never losing sight of the big-picture question: how the humanities respond to totalitarian rule.--Debórah Dwork "Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies"Heidegger's insistence on the authority of the silent led him to view National Socialism as a panacea for modernity's technological attempt to render transparent all that is spoken and known. Adam Knowles's exceptional book opens up a new window onto the philosopher's embrace of Nazism and its attack on World Jewry.--Michael Meng "Clemson University"This game-changing book delivers a profound assessment of Martin Heidegger's anti-Semitism and Nazism. Combining painstaking historical research with astute analysis, Adam Knowles raises key questions about philosophy's resolve to resist complicity in oppressive politics.--John K. Roth "Claremont McKenna College" About the Author Adam Knowles is Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Drexel University.