Introduction
Author(s): Jerome Kohn
Source: Social Research, Vol. 56, No. 4, Philosophy and Politics (WINTER 1989), pp. 789-794
Published by: New School
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Introduction
Starting in the winter and continuing into the spring of
1988, a large number of articles appeared in France prompted
by the publication there the previous year of Victor Farias's
Heidegger et le nazisme. The French articles (and indeed books)
were rapidly followed by others in German, Italian, English,
and other languages. Numerous international conferences
were and continue to be convened on the same matter, now
widely known as Vàffaire Heidegger. The great interest being
shown both inside and outside the university in one of the most
influential philosophers of this century who became, for a
time, an enthusiastic Nazi raises anew the age-old question of
the relation between philosophy and politics. This general
topic, which has been the subject of reflection and debate at
least since the days of Plato, is once again timely and calls for
fresh consideration.
It was never the intention of Social Research to devote a
special issue exclusively to an examination of Heidegger or any
other single philosopher. What we sought, rather, was a
broader historical and theoretical approach in order to
examine the complexity of the relations and even tensions that
obtain between philosophical activity and political commit-
ment. We solicited responses concerning philosophers and
schools of philosophy that addressed such questions as: How
have philosophical convictions, and the intensity with which
they are held, determined political activity? Conversely, what
effect have political opinions exercised on philosophical
thought? How have individual philosophers or schools of
philosophy construed and analyzed their own political posi-
tions, and what is their responsibility for the public articulation
of their views? What in fact constitutes a philosophical politics?
Is such a politics necessarily Utopian? To what extent is
philosophical reason capable of penetrating the realm of belief
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790 SOCIAL RESEARCH
and the contingency of human affairs? What effects have
historical changes in the conception of reason itself had on
politics?
Two of the papers in the present issue do deal directly with
Heidegger, the first of which, by Hans Sluga, is a consideration
of that philosopher "in relation to the philosophical field in
which he operated," a field composed of a diversity of schools
of philosophy all of which were influenced by Nazism.
Methodologically, Sluga considers the attempts of all members
of these schools to establish their work as the appropriate
philosophy of the new system- that is, to state the connection
between the philosophical and political realms- as neither
"plainly philosophical" nor "simply political" but metadiscursive.
However the link was made (Heidegger, for instance, made it
in terms of "knowledge" and "destiny"), it was, according to
Sluga, never shown in any case to be necessary, which, while
absolving individual philosophies from the charge of "complic-
ity" with the Nazis, leaves open the question of a possible
"affinity" between the discipline of philosophy itself and
totalitarian power. It is that very question, in regard to
Heidegger, that Dominique Janicaud takes up. In tacit
agreement with Sluga that there is no direct link between
Heidegger's politics and philosophy, Janicaud considers the
possibility of a "negative link," namely, that the absence of a
political or ethical philosophy in Heidegger is not itself
"external" to his thought. While locating "nothing politically
determinate" in what she calls Heidegger's "a-politics,"
Janicaud nevertheless holds that it contains a danger in "the
will to found a politics anew on the ontological difference
alone." It is not that Nazism can in any sense be derived from
Being and Time, but that that work led Heidegger to the
expression of an "exacerbated Platonism" in the Rectorial
Address and a belief in the possibility of an "ontological" or
"originary politics," whereas Janicaud holds, after Aristotle,
that politics, when it is not Utopian, is "mainly an ontical affair."
Turning to the case of Sartre, perhaps the most politically
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INTRODUCTION 791
active of twentieth-century philosophers, William McBride
finds ambiguity in the very meaning of the word "activism."
Sartre was indeed an activist in the sense that can be measured
by "the quantity of physical activity" exerted on specific
occasions; but he was also and "first and foremost a writer,"
who in a variety of genres politically influenced the public,
however skeptical Sartre himself may have been about the
power of literature to do that. McBride argues that in a
changing world the fact that Sartre's thought changed does not
entail an alteration in his basic "political projects," nor any kind
of revisionism or opportunism. Rather, by raising the question
of the lines of demarcation between a writer's "theory" and his
"opinion," McBride argues that conventional barriers between
philosophy and political writing, at least in the case of Sartre,
become eroded. Ina comparative analysis of the political essay
"The Communists and Peace" and The Critique of Dialectical
Reason, McBride concludes that, while the former may be
dated, it is not in any absolute sense separable from the latter.
In this reading of the case of Sartre, and particularly of the
mature Sartre, a breakdown of the traditional distinction
between philosophy as the search for eternal truth and the
search for a plurality of "human" truths embedded in
temporal flux- a distinction shared to some extent by Sartre
himself- is seen to occur.
The political responsibility of professional philosophers is
the subject of Larry May's essay. By looking at many examples
from the history of philosophy in conjunction with acknowl-
edged responsibilities of other professional groups- such as
those composed of journalists, physicists, physicians, psycholo-
gists, and lawyers- May argues that the public expectation that
"philosophers are trying to stimulate their societies in ways
which are, on balance, positive" is not irrelevant to their
acknowledged obligation to pursue wisdom. He argues, in fact,
for the heightened political responsibility of philosophers to be
vigilant in minimizing "the likelihood of harm produced by
their writings," citing the examples of Nietzsche, Rousseau,
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792 SOCIAL RESEARCH
and Hume. Such professional vigilance has parameters of
which ignorance is no excuse, since once "a philosopher decides
to publish his or her work, that philosopher is already
launched into the public arena where the political and moral
consequences of one's acts must be taken seriously." As all
professions are "pubic entities," so also the profession of
philosophy is "a politicized domain," and the higher the
reputation of any given philosopher the greater is his
responsibility "to prevent the abuse of philosophy."
A political theory that is not Utopian, according to Thomas
Nagel, is one that is both "desirable in itself" and "one to which
we can reasonably conform." Thus he perceives a delicate
balance between the ideal and persuasive functions of political
theories and analyzes their justification in terms of it. While
there is a notion of truth relevant to political theories, it is
different from that of science, for what human beings share
that permits "a political argument to be addressed to them at
all" is not only rationality but also certain moral values, such as
"mutual respect" or "equal regard" At the same time no
political theory can ignore "individual motives." While mutual-
ity and individuality overlap in part, political institutions offer
both more protection and greater threats to the individual
than principles of individual morality, and political theory is
viewed as distinctive in presenting an ethical and practical
demand. The theories of a classless society and of a liberal
system of individual rights illustrate the problem of double
justification- impersonal and individual- required of political
theories. Whereas the ideal of moral equality in the former
seems hopelessly 'itopian in terms of requiring a transforma-
tion of human nature, the persuasive function of the latter,
with its "limited morality" in support of "limited government,"
appears less than adequate in terms of realizing any sort of
egalitarian ideal. Thus Nagel faces the problem of the
(nonutopian) feasibility of devising "a more egalitarian set of
institutions . , . still liberal in spirit. ..."
George Kateb presents the case for liberal, rights-based
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INTRODUCTION 793
individualism, with its institutions of representative democracy
and capitalism, against its communitarian critics. His defense is
aimed at showing that Foucault's theory of "docility," which
purports to reveal that modernity's "liberation of the individ-
ual [is] only a new servitude," is in fact more appropriately
applied to communitarianism. Kateb's arguments consider
both people's needs, according to the communitarians-
togetherness, discipline, mutuality, and group identity -and the
communitarian critics' own needs, which he speaks of in terms
of religious and aesthetic "mentalities." He finds both sets of
needs are "retrogressive," entailing a distrust of freedom and a
threat to dignity, that they are "inhospitable to diversity and
disagreement," and that they require leadership and a
disposition to be led. Citing Emerson and others, Kateb
understands individualism not as self-expression or egotism (as
Foucault did) but as the awareness of the "cultivated inward
self" of others as equals. In this powerful defense of liberalism
the liberationist movements of the 1960s, the opposite of
docility, are seen to have grown from "the soil of rights-based
individualism," whereas the sources of docility are located in
anti-individualist practices such as fascism, socialism, and
power-statism.
The concluding essay, by Seven Smith, confronts the basic
problem of politics and rationality in terms of three historical
changes in the conception of rationality itself. The first "crisis"
comes when the classical conception, the proper adjustment of
the soul, is utterly rejected by Hobbes, a rejection that Smith
finds antipolitical from an Aristotelian perspective. The second
"crisis" comes when rationality is conceived, by Hegel, as
profoundly temporal. The central section of this essay is
concerned with Kojève's Marxian reading of Hegel and the
criticism of that reading by Leo Strauss. Their debate turns on
the notions of recognition, equality, dignity, and the end of
history. To Kojève the achievement of a rational society means
not only the end of history, but also the end of alienation and
the subject-object dichotomy, the end of man, and, in the
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794 SOCIAL RESEARCH
absolute knowledge of the philosopher, the end of philosophy.
To Strauss, since the exercise of political power is necessarily
"at odds with the philosophical life," such a rational society, or
utopia, is not in accord with political reality, hence not feasible
nor even desirable, since if it were the goal of history, then
history is a tragedy without the possibility of human happiness.
Smith revises Hegelianism by making his own distinction
between reason as "operative in history" as opposed to "history
as a rational process," thereby replacing the notion of historical
truth with that of rational beliefs subject to change. The
postmodern critique of reason itself, the suspicion that all
forms of rationality are forms of domination (as in Foucault),
represents the third "crisis" of rationality facing us today.
It is clear that this collection of essays, while frequently
joining common issues and referring to some of the same
materials and figures, represents different perspectives on the
common theme of the relations of philosophy and politics,
which was our goal. When a journal plans a special issue it
typically asks more writers to contribute papers than it can
possibly print in a single issue, knowing that not all potential
contributors will be free to write at the same time. In this case
the response was so overwhelmingly positive that the next issue
of Social Research will continue the discussion of philosophy
and politics, including more material on Heidegger, essays on
Hannah Arendt and Richard Rorty, and a hitherto unpub-
lished essay by Arendt.
Jerome Kohn
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