No. 73 (2025): Septiembre-diciembre
Articles

Heidegger and the Public Sphere

PDF
  • Humberto Beck

Published 2025-08-22

Keywords

  • Martin Heidegger,
  • public sphere,
  • humanism,
  • truth,
  • ontology,
  • intellectuals,
  • politics,
  • political theory,
  • genuine thinking,
  • Nazism,
  • Being and Time,
  • Letter on Humanism
    • ...More
    Less

Copyright (c) 2025 Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Beck, H. (2025). Heidegger and the Public Sphere. Tópicos, Revista De Filosofía, 73, 295-324. https://doi.org/10.21555/top.v730.3004
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

Abstract

Martin Heidegger posited a fundamental contrast between genuine thinking and the realm of opinion of the public sphere. This conflict is expressed in Being and Time’s critique of the phenomenon of the “they” as an inappropriate setting for true philosophizing, and in the Letter on Humanism’s denunciation of Western metaphysics as based on a technification of thought. Exploring possible links between these ideas and Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism can refine the discussion on the relationship between politics and philosophy in Heidegger’s thinking. Specifically, it can lead to the identification of an implicit notion of the political in Heidegger’s thought. 

PDF

References

  1. Arendt, H. (1969). What Is Freedom? In H. Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (pp. 143-172). Viking Press.
  2. Arendt, H. (1971). The Life of the Mind. II. Harcourt.
  3. Beiner, R. (2018). Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812295412
  4. Bourdieu, P. (1991). The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger. P. Collier (trans.). Polity Press.
  5. Chartier, R. (1990). Les origines culturelles de la Révolution française. Éditions du Seuil.
  6. De Tocqueville, A. (2004). Democracy in America. A. Goldhammer (trans.). The Library of America.
  7. Farías, V. (1987). Heidegger et le nazisme. Verdier.
  8. Faye, E. (2009). Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy. Yale University Press.
  9. Gordon, P. E. (2017). Prolegomena to any Future Destruction of Metaphysics: Heidegger and the Schwarze Hefte. In A. J. Mitchell & P. Trawny (eds.), Heidegger’s Black Notebooks: Responses to Anti-Semitism (pp. 136-151). Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/mitc18044-012
  10. Habermas, J. (1987). The Undermining of Western Rationalism through the Critique of Metaphysics: Martin Heidegger. In J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (pp. 131-160). F. G. Lawrence (trans.). MIT Press.
  11. Habermas, J. (1989). Work and Weltanschauung: The Heidegger Controversy from a German Perspective. J. McCumber (trans.). Critical Inquiry, 15(2), 431-456. https://doi.org/10.1086/448492
  12. Habermas, J. (1991). The Structural Transformation of the Bourgeois Public Sphere. T. Burger (trans.). MIT Press.
  13. Heidegger, M. (2000). Betr. die Notiz “Hanfstaengl contra Heidegger“ in der Münchner Süddeutschen Zeitung vom Mittwoch, den 14. Juni 1950. In M. Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe. I. Abteilung. Veröffentlichte Schriften 1910-1976. Band 16. Reden und Andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges (1910-1976) (pp. 452-453). Vittorio Klostermann.
  14. Heidegger, M. (2008a). [BT]. Being and Time. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson (trans.). Harper Perennial.
  15. Heidegger, M. (2008b). Introduction: The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being. In M. Heidegger, Basic Writings (pp. 41-87). J. Stambaugh & J. G. Gray (trans.). Harper San Francisco.
  16. Heidegger, M. (2008c). [LH]. Letter on Humanism. In M. Heidegger, Basic Writings (pp. 213-267). F. A. Capuzzi & J. G. Gray (trans.). Harper San Francisco.
  17. Heidegger, M. (2008d). On the Essence of Truth. In M. Heidegger, Basic Writings (pp. 111-138). J. Sallis & J. G. Gray (trans.). Harper San Francisco.
  18. Heidegger, M. (2014). Introduction to Metaphysics. G. Fried & R. Polt (trans.). Indiana University Press.
  19. Heidegger, M. (2016). Ponderings II-VI. Black Notebooks 1931-1938. R. Rojcewicz (trans.). Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2979/11281.0
  20. Heidegger, M. (2017a). Ponderings VII-XI. Black Notebooks 1938-1939. R. Rojcewicz (trans.). Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2979/11393.0
  21. Heidegger, M. (2017b). Ponderings XII-XV. Black Notebooks 1939-1941. R. Rojcewicz (trans.). Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2979/11393.0
  22. Heidegger, M. (2024). Introduction to Philosophy. W. McNeill (trans.). Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.11288869
  23. Kant, I. (1996). An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? In J. Schmidt (ed.), What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions (pp. 58-64). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520916890-005
  24. Käufer, S. (2021). Publicness (Öffentlichkeit). In M. A. Wrathall (ed.), The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon (pp. 615-616). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511843778.167
  25. Ott, H. (1993). Martin Heidegger: A Political Life. A. Blunden (trans.). Harper Collins.
  26. Pöggeler, O. (1993). Heidegger’s Political Self-Understanding. In R. Wolin (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader (pp. 198-244). S. Galt Crowell (trans.). MIT Press.
  27. Polt, R. (2017). Inception, Downfall, and the Broken World: Heidegger Above the Sea of Fog. In A. J. Mitchell & P. Trawny (eds.), Heidegger’s Black Notebooks: Responses to Anti-Semitism (pp. 74-97). Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/mitc18044-008
  28. Rabinbach, A. (1997). In the Shadow of Catastrophe: German Intellectuals between Apocalypse and Enlightenment. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520926257
  29. Rorty, R. (2000). On Heidegger’s Nazism. In R. Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (pp. 175-200). Penguin.
  30. Safranski, R. (1998). Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil. E. Osers (trans.). Harvard University Press.
  31. Sheehan, T. (1988, June 16). Heidegger and the Nazis. The New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1988/06/16/heidegger-and-the-nazis/
  32. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822385806
  33. Trawny, P. (2015a). Freedom to Fail: Heidegger’s Anarchy. I. A. Moore & C. Turner (trans.). Polity.
  34. Trawny, P. (2015b). Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy. A. J. Mitchell (trans.). The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226303871.001.0001
  35. Villa, D. (1996). Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400821846
  36. Wolin, R. (1990). The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/woli93972
  37. Wolin, R. (2022). Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology. Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv36rk1cf