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To be clear all editors are agreed that Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party and was anti-Semitic. All editors are further agreed that material which states this should be in the article. There is another article that specifically addresses this which is linked. The disputes relate to questions of weight, how much should they be mentioned.
Heidegger is not notable as an Anti-semite or a Nazi, he is notable as a Philosopher which is the focus of this article.
The constant edit waring is getting us now where so I suggest we stop all potentially controversial edits while we agree to some principles to determine what should or should not be included. If we can't do that then we JOINTLY formulate the issues and call a RFC to get other editors involved. We would also call in a dispute resolution editor.----- Snowded TALK 09:24, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Heidegger is not notable as an Anti-semite or a Nazi, he is notable as a Philosopheris one of the points in contention. I know you disagree; I'm asking you not to beg the question. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 10:42, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
- there seems to be a concerted effort to maximize the negative aspects of Heidegger - there have been repeated calls to merge this article with the Heidegger and Nazism article, his life has been called "ugly", there has been a push to caracterize his philosopy as nonsense, a quote was recently added to the article that implied his philosophy was "diabolical" while removing a cited quote that said Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century - there seems to be a campaign to right a great wrong ( WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS) and let the world know the Truth about Martin Heidegger and all done by taking the moral high ground and gaming the system by claiming that is in the service of a neutral point of view - there are other controvertial figures from the same era such as Ezra Pound who was a poet and also a fascist and antisemite, Gertrude Stein was a writer who worked for the Petain government during WWII, and T.S. Eliot who was a poet and antisemite; perhaps their articles could be used as examples of how to balance their positive achievements with their negative political views - we do need to work towards a neutral point of view and it is important to note Heidegger's Nazism and important to cite criticism of his philosophy, but we don't want to make the article predominantly about his Nazism and criticism of his philosophy; Heidegger is most notable as a philosopher and other aspects of his life must be given due weight ( WP:DUE), although there seems to be tendentious disagreement about what that due weight is - Epinoia ( talk) 22:13, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Sbelknap ( talk) 23:32, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
I think (since you ask) that the question both misrepresents the argument and detracts from the real point. The argument is not that reproducing quotations is the point of scholarly work; the argument is that scholarly work already produces impartial analysis, and therefore it does not breach WP:IMPARTIAL to reproduce such analysis verbatim.
But the real point is that the lengthy quotations were only introduced in the first place because, when material taken from these scholarly sources was summarized instead of directly quoted, it was then insta-reverted on the grounds of not being representative of the scholarly sources (or sometimes on no grounds at all). Direct quotes were deemed the only way of demonstrating that the material was indeed a faithful reproduction of the writers' position – and now direct quotes are getting reverted for being direct quotes.
Can you see what that looks like from our perspective?
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 05:02, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Snowded TALK 06:14, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
There are still a ton of unclear, false, and both unclear and false claims in the lead as it is now written.
I could go on. I shudder to think of all the terrible undergraduate term papers that are about to be written quoting these misleading or incoherent passages. I don't have the energy to deal with this right now but I really hope fellow editors can restore the lead to the level of quality it had previously, and that much (but not all) of the rest of the article has. CCS81 ( talk) 01:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
It's refreshing that we can make progress towards improvement rather than getting into revert-wars. But I'm afraid the current lede is again a bit too technical. I can figure out what "or the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities" means if I take a good run at it, but it's definitely an uphill effort. I don't think "the instrumentalist understanding of modern technology" is as transparent as it could be either. And I'm sure we can express the point about "the treatment of all Nature as a standing reserve on call for human purposes" without introducing the technical term "enframing" which then doesn't actually get used. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 08:17, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Taking a look at the most recent changes – I'm sorry, CCS81, I think it was clearer when phrased as a question (the misagreement of course can be corrected). Here's a go at making those paragraphs easier to read:
In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger considered the meaning of "being": what do all entities have in common that makes them entities? To address this question, Heidegger analysed Dasein, his term for the specific type of being that humans possess, which he associated closely with what he called "being-in-the-world". This conception of the human is in contrast with Rationalist thinkers like René Descartes, who understood human existence most basically as thinking, as in Cogito ergo sum ("I think therefore I am").
Heidegger's later work criticized the instrumentalist understanding of modern technology in the Western tradition, whereby all of Nature is treated as a "standing reserve" on call for human purposes.
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 11:06, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
"Entities." Is that the right word? Because my cup and my slipper, which I am looking at now, are entities. They've got something in common. But later in the paragraph the content appears to assume we are talking about human beings. Improved phrasing required. - Chumchum7 ( talk) 04:48, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
I communicate unfamiliar concepts for a living. My job is to write lecture notes for students with disabilities. As well as exposing me to subject matter from all over the academe, this gets me practice in writing things down that I don't have full background on.
You're right, CCS81. I don't have the beginning of an understanding of Heidegger. But I should, because I've read the Wikipedia page about him many times in the last few months.
That is what we are trying to fix here.
My style guides are people who can write and be understood. They come from a variety of different starting-points and would probably robustly disagree with each other on a number of things if they were to meet (which would require time-travel in some cases). But they agree on one thing: the purpose of all writing is communication. Therefore, the purpose of any rules of writing is communication. Any "rule" of grammar or style that impedes clarity of communication is a pseudo-rule and should be dropped.
No-one, reading "The Bible instructs us not to kill", or "Plato's Republic argues that society should be run by a philosophical elite", or "Heidegger's later works criticized the instrumentalist understanding of modern technology", hallucinates that the books in question have become agents and are talking and having arguments out of little papery mouths. I promise.
I can't be bothered right now to look up whether this is called "metonymy" or "metathesis" or something else, but it's a perfectly legitimate form of expression.
In my experience, it's beginner writers trying to sound academic who write like the philosophy sections of this article. It's easy to pile concept upon concept, to think of clarificatory metaphors and examples as you go but then allude to them in passing rather than laying them out, so that they mystify where they should illuminate. That's lazy writing. Or, to be more charitable, that's time-pressured college essay writing.
The work of writing is untangling what came out of your keyboard in the first burst of ideas so that it communicates something to someone who doesn't share a brain with you and doesn't know what all those piled-up allusions and technicalities mean.
"Questions that should be phrased as statements..." If you mean that an encyclopaedia is not the place for rhetorical questions, I agree. An encyclopaedia's job is to set out facts in plain language. But in this case we are not talking about a rhetorical question. The offending passage is
Heidegger considered the meaning of "being": what do all entities have in common that makes them entities? To address this question, Heidegger analysed Dasein...
which you think should be
Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being", the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities. Heidegger approaches this question through an analysis of Dasein...
Now you're telling me that the problem is that a statement has been phrased as a question. But
the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities
isn't a statement. It doesn't have a main verb; it has a participle (regarding) and a verb in a relative clause (that which is common). It is a noun phrase, and it's there to elaborate upon the word "being" in the previous sentence. As I said, I got what it meant – after a couple of goes.
The word regarding is ill-chosen, I think. If I announce that I have a question for you "regarding your maiden aunt in Cheshire", I could follow it with any inquiry on the topic I have just announced. What could it mean to say I'm asking "the question regarding your maiden aunt in Cheshire"? I imagine you would reply "Which question is that?" Of would be better than regarding in this context.
On top of that, my mental sentence-parsing software glitches when it runs into the words the question regarding that which is common. It takes a second go before I can pick out the semantic units (entities – what makes them entities – that which is common to all entities that makes them entities – the question regarding that which, ah, got you.) No such glitch happens when "the question" is phrased as a question in the first place.
The rule against "phrasing statements as questions" (including ones that aren't actually statements) has impeded clarity of communication. That makes it a pseudo-rule, and it should be dropped.
Of course writers who over-use the device of introductory questions, as some college students indeed do, should be encouraged to vary up their style a little. But that doesn't make all use of the device illegitimate.
And as for "alleged unreadability" – you can drop the "alleged". We are talking about a man who said "Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy." It says so right there in the article.
Now if you're so sick of inaccuracies in this article, you can do one thing that will fix them forever:
Re-write the damn thing so it's readable.
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 10:05, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
"But I should, because I've read the Wikipedia page about him many times in the last few months."I'm really not sure that's very likely. Martinevans123 ( talk) 10:15, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm— Jim Morrison, in
Sbelknap ( talk) 17:36, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Here's a source. [1] Sbelknap ( talk) 18:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being", or the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities. Heidegger approaches this question through an analysis of Dasein.... You omitted the 'or,' which carries over the grammatical force from the first clause and, I think, addresses much of what you're saying in your analysis. But that doesn't matter, and I am by no means suggesting that my way of phrasing the sentence is the best. Far from it, and your points about words like 'regarding' are fine with me and well taken. But, in any case, this version of the sentence is more conceptually precise than agentially and grammatically misleading phrasings like those for which you and your editor friend were advocating. And I'm sorry, but when you start defending principles of composition like agency assertions of non-agents that I have been trained as a college professor to teach the students in my classes not to use, I simply need to excuse myself from the situation. Like you, I make my living explaining (or doing my best to explain) complicated concepts to young people. But just because a claim is easily understood by young people does not mean that it is true, conceptually precise, or valuable. To put the same point differently, your claim is that writing about communication only, but this is incomplete and potentially dangerous. Writing is about communicating truth, and we have many bad habits of communicating that preclude our speaking truthfully. Some of these are easily addressed, like agency assertions of non-agents. For example, it is very easy to change "Plato's Republic argues..." to "Plato argues in the Republic...", and in so doing we have constructed a sentence that is closer to indicating the truth of the matter, or who exactly is doing what exactly. Your insisting that the former is fine because it is easily understood, by contrast, entails missing that communication is about more than simply making oneself understood. The danger of saying things that are easily understood but not true is one about which Heidegger is deeply concerned, but probably that point is beyond the scope of our current discussion. CCS81 ( talk) 06:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
and in so doing we have constructed a sentence that is closer to indicating the truth of the matter...So you are concerned that people may think the book has become an agent. I promise you that's not how language works. People will understand you to be referring to the content of the text, not to the action of speaking, because this is a natural way of expressing the idea.
And I'm sorry, but when you start defending principles of composition like agency assertions of non-agents that I have been trained as a college professor to teach the students in my classes not to use, I simply need to excuse myself from the situation.
And I'm sorry...Are you really? What is the cause of your sorrow?
...but when you start defending principles of composition...When I start defending those principles? I started defending those principles hours to days before you read my completed comment. I started defending these again several minutes ago, and I don't expect you will see it for some time after I hit "Publish". Did you feel the effects of my writing as some kind of psychic tremor before reading this?
...principles of composition like agency assertions of non-agents...Principles like agency assertions of non-agents? Like them in what way? What points of resemblance and what degree of resemblance causes the psychic tremor that warns you I have started to defend them?
...that I have been trained as a college professor...Trained, like a performing seal?
...to teach the students in my classes not to use...Your classes, are they? You own them? How much did you pay for them? And if the students are in them, does that make them physical spaces?
...I simply need to excuse myself from the situation.You need to? You mean you'll suffer some kind of harm if you don't? Oh, but wait. To excuse yourself, which would mean pardoning yourself from wrongdoing – that's what to excuse means, isn't it?
Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being", or the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities.
We don't vote on Wikipedia we look at the evidence. So assertions will get us nowhere fast. I started this thread to break the log jam but if it doesn't work I will go to ANI with a request for a topic ban. We don't use primary sources, we don't assert positions, we don't do personal attacks and we don't compromise unless it is within the context of the sources and with due attention to weight. That means involved editors should present evidence from third-party sources on this subject - please get started ----- Snowded TALK 07:13, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Assert facts, not opinionsWP:ASSERT. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:49, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
The article characterizes Heidegger as a “a seminal thinker” and a (now deleted) quotation called him “one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century” – I don’t believe there is a source that says he was “a seminal Nazi” or “Heidegger was one of the most influential Nazis of the 20th century.” His Nazism should be given approximately the same proportional weight as Ezra Pound’s fascism is given in the Ezra Pound article. Heidegger’s philosophy is not overtly fascist or promoting Nazism. George Pattison says of Emmanuel Faye’s book “Heidegger, the Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy” that “Faye finds some sort of reference to Nazism in just about every line Heidegger ever wrote and I think that most people think that’s clearly that’s an exaggeration and sometimes even perhaps rather stupid and forced.” Pattison goes on to say, “we can’t avoid knowing a little bit about the life, but in this case it’s not going to be decisive for how we really engage with the thought.” So I think we need to note that there is a debate on how far Nazism influenced Heidegger, but we should report on the debate and not produce a flurry of sources that weigh the argument one way or another and not take sides trying to prove that his philosophy was fundamentally a Nazi philosophy, in accordance with a neutral point of view. Heidegger was the son of a sexton, at university he first studied Catholic theology, he wrote his Phd thesis on the scholastic theology of Duns Scotus and worked with Rudolph Bultmann on the Gospel of John. He wrote on medieval mysticism and gave lectures on St Paul, so given this background one could make a case that Heidegger’s philosophy is fundamentally Christian. Heidegger had many influences, only one of which was Nazism. So his Nazism should be covered in the article, but he is most notable as a philosopher - Epinoia ( talk) 17:17, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Heidegger never apologized nor publicly expressed regret for his involvement with his affiliation with Nazism, [1] in private he called it "the biggest stupidity of his life" (die größte Dummheit seines Lebens). [2] In his book From the Experience of Thinking (Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens), Heidegger states, Great thoughts, great errors (Wer gross denkt, irrt gross Perhaps this should be reflected in this article? Sbelknap ( talk) 05:00, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica are not the same. They do not have the same goals. Their content need not be the same. However, it is interesting how Britannica handles this issue: "In the months after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany in January 1933, German universities came under increasing pressure to support the “national revolution” and to eliminate Jewish scholars and the teaching of “Jewish” doctrines, such as the theory of relativity. In April 1933 Heidegger was elected rector of Freiburg by the university’s teaching staff. One month later he became a member of the Nazi Party; until he resigned as rector in April 1934, he helped to institute Nazi educational and cultural programs at Freiburg and vigorously promoted the domestic and foreign policies of the Nazi regime. Already during the late 1920s he had criticized the dissolute nature of the German university system, where specialization and the ideology of academic freedom precluded the attainment of a higher unity. In a letter of 1929 he bemoaned the progressive “Jewification” (Verjudung) of the German spirit. In his inaugural address, “Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität” (“The Self-Assertion of the German University”), he called for reorganizing the university along the lines of the Nazi Führerprinzip, or leadership principle, and celebrated the fact that university life would thereafter be merged with the state and the needs of the German Volk. During the first month of his rectorship, he sent a telegram to Hitler urging him to postpone an upcoming meeting of university rectors until Gleichschaltung—the Nazi euphemism for the elimination of political opponents—had been completed. In the fall of 1933 Heidegger began a speaking tour on behalf of Hitler’s national referendum to withdraw Germany from the League of Nations. As he proclaimed in one speech: “Let not doctrines and ideas be your guide. The Führer is Germany’s only reality and law.” Heidegger continued to support Hitler in the years after his rectorship, though with somewhat less enthusiasm than he had shown in 1933–34." [3]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbelknap ( talk • contribs)
Discussion here seems to consist of little more than interminable wrangling and rambling comments. Nothing concrete is being achieved, and no progress is apparently being made in resolving disagreements, leading me to suspect that protection of the article may accomplish nothing. Does anyone want to actually discuss the content issues that led to the article being protected, or to place a suitably worded request for comment? Freeknowledgecreator ( talk) 05:37, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Can we please stay on topic? How much weight should be given to Heidegger's Nazism as it bears upon his philosophy? That's something Heidegger scholars themselves don't agree on. So the Wikipedia article should report both sides of the controversy instead of, as it currently does, favouring the low-weight side by default.
I'm still not clear what previous disputants meant by "third party" sources. It's not the same as "tertiary" sources, because secondary sources are preferred on Wikipedia. At face value, I would take it to mean that if two scholars are having a dispute, you use a source by a third scholar reporting on them to determine the status of the dispute within the field (though of course it's fine to use the disputing scholars' own writings as sources to describe their individual positions). But since some of the sources we've used have been of other scholars reporting on people criticizing Heidegger, it's unclear how they fail to qualify.
Call me suspicious, but I can't suppress the thought that perhaps in some people's minds, any scholar who criticizes Heidegger even in the context of reporting other people criticizing Heidegger thereby ceases to be "third party".
Which would mean that "use third party sources" reduces to "use only sources that are not critical of Heidegger".
To which the answer is "No."
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 23:42, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere.
References
There is no requirement for other editors to continue a discussion forever. All involved editors have now made their positions clear and there is a clear consensus that Heidegger is notable as a philosopher not as a Nazi. The question of how much weight should be given to his nazism can be next up but only this is now accepted. Sbelknap and VeryRarelyStable, if you do not accept this then you have to invoke a dispute resolution process ON THIS QUESTION. Other questions stay open but we need to forward one question at a time ----- Snowded TALK 09:00, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
While I would be willing to include mention that Heidegger is a philosopher, as many secondary and tertiary sources state that this is so, it should be noted that there is not universal agreement that Heidegger was a philosopher. Would Kant have considered Heidegger a philosopher? In his book, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, the author, Emmanuel Faye argues that Martin Heidegger was not a philosopher, and that his works should not be classified under "philosophy" because they were entirely based on National Socialism. Faye argues that Heidegger's work should be classified under "hate speech". Sbelknap ( talk) 18:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
Sbelknap ( talk) 20:06, 17 December 2019 (UTC)That is precisely what Mr. Faye says he wants. In his view teaching Heidegger’s ideas without disclosing his deep Nazi sympathies is like showing a child a brilliant fireworks display without warning that an ignited rocket can also blow up in someone’s face.
At the first page of Sein und Zeit, the one piece of work that has secured Martin Heidegger’s place in the philosophy of history, the author declares that the purpose behind the work is to explicate the “meaning of being”,or”dem Sinn von Sein”.There is however no clear consensus among Heidegger scholars of what this is supposed to be. Indeed, there is not even a clear consensus of what Heidegger means by “meaning”, or “Sinn” as the German term is. On the contrary, the interpretations have little in common except being about Heidegger.
Sbelknap ( talk) 20:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
References
At the moment we have Sbelknap and VeryRarelyStable against the rest. From my perspective, they are ignoring third party sources and focusing on the interpretation of primary sources - worse they argue that is legitimate. There is no prospect of this changing. I've lived through enough such issues on Wikipedia to know this could go on forever. To everyone who is not Sbelknap or VeryRarelyStable as long as you allow this to carry on, it will get worse.
We have a first issue resolved as a consensus by involved editors in favour of Heidegger being notable as a philosopher. Yes was also a member of the Nazi Party but his notability does not come from that. Sbelknap and VeryRarelyStable are entitled to disagree with that, but in order to do that, they have to invoke one of several possible dispute resolution processes that involve other editors. They need to be left to get on with this and when has that resolved we can go onto the next issue one by one, ideally with some time limit. I seriously suggest leaving them to themselves until then engage properly. ----- Snowded TALK 07:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
The task here is to find a way forward. I suggest that we follow the policies and standards of wikipedia: rely (mostly) on secondary sources, respect the diversity of views among these secondary sources, and stop substituting ones own opinion for that of experts. Sbelknap ( talk) 16:06, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
I think the editors here are enacting what should be stated simply in the article, that there are controversies about Heidegger's obscure writing style, and about whether his political and philosophical views are related. At the moment the talk page is degenerating into an obscure mish mash of personal remarks and entrenched opinion. It perfectly shows the controversy which Heidegger's work arouses, and is best summarised in the article itself rather than being endlessly rehearsed and mulled over here publicly. My penny's worth.
TonyClarke ( talk) 06:23, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
TonyClarke ( talk) 20:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
VeryRarelyStable, let me repeat the question you've persistently avoided answering: do you, in fact, intend to revert Snowded as soon as the article is unprotected? Such an edit might be "allowable" in the sense that Wikipedia's policies would permit it, but it would still be heavily discouraged as a form of edit warring. Remember that an edit that may be "allowable" simply taken in itself can become a form of prohibited edit warring if endlessly repeated. Resumption of such edit warring would leave it looking doubtful that article protection has accomplished anything. Instead of reverting, why not see what version of the article a majority of editors active on the talk page would prefer? Freeknowledgecreator ( talk) 09:02, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I have no intention of answering your question. We have resolved the question of Heidegger's notability. You (and your companion) either accept that decision in which case we can move on, or, you can use one of the many dispute resolution processes. If you fancy appealing to ANI feel free. If you will not take either option then I will make a case to the wider community for some restriction on your editing on this and related subjects.----- Snowded TALK 05:22, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
From the Paris Review:
Not that Heidegger has had to apologize, either. For the past seventy years, his many apologists and acolytes have gone to astounding lengths in trying to prove that his philosophical oeuvre exists independent of what was, they avowed, a mere weakness of character, an instance of momentary opportunism. In 2014, a group of French philosophers even tried to halt the publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, his philosophical diaries. But if antisemitic references in his philosophy are oblique and, as some would have it, coincidental to his critique of modernity, the Notebooks leave little room for such charitable reading. Even after the war he would bemoan the Jewish “drive for revenge,” with their aim consisting in “obliterating the Germans in spirit and history.”
And yet, the Black Notebooks haven’t lain to rest one of the more irksome debates around continental philosophy. Perhaps that’s what the release of Heidegger’s correspondence with his lifelong confidante, his brother Fritz, will achieve. His heirs, having held back these letters for many years, have finally caved to the pressure that began to mount following the release of the Black Notebooks. The excerpts released in advance by Die Zeit and Le Monde last weekend show Heidegger for what, apparently, he was: the real deal, a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi who bought into Hitler’s ideology wholesale. And he wasn’t a particularly sophisticated one. In his letters, the forefather of deconstruction voices his impassioned belief in Volk and Führer, perpetual German victimhood, “world Jewry,” the threat of Bolshevism, and American decadence.
Perhaps it’s inconvenient, but it’s hardly shocking: Heidegger was not just a member of the Nazi party, but also a Nazi. Nor was he just a “metaphysical antisemite”—he also just really disliked Jews. Let’s hope this settles the matter. [1]
Sbelknap ( talk) 20:03, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Sbelknap ( talk) 07:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC)Like the famous optical illusion in which the same figure is both a duck and a rabbit, then, we keep twisting and turning our image of Heidegger, trying to see in him both the Nazi and the philosopher at the same time [2]
References
Wikipedia works on consensus and the consensus on this article is that Heidegger is notable as a philosopher not as a Nazi; consensus is not unanimity. If a minority do not choose to accept that consensus view then there are various dispute resolution progresses they can adopt, none of which you have invoked. Accept or invoke or have your behavior taken to ANI for resolution, and it will be your behaviour which will be examined not the content. ----- Snowded TALK 07:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text. For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or make the wording more neutral.
As of now WP:DRN's submission link is not working. I have noted this on their Talk page. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 23:46, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
This noticeboard is for content disputes only. Comment on the contributions, not the contributors. Off-topic or uncivil behavior may garner a warning, improper material may be struck-out, collapsed, or deleted, and a participant could be asked to step back from the discussion. Sbelknap ( talk) 23:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Successfully posted to WP:DRN. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 01:50, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
on top of the above last subject 'masked shrew', obviously a prank or a hack, which has nothing to do here, I noticed right now what seem a weird technical bug (?), when clicking on 'Deutch' in languages, one ends up in an article in German obviously wrong, about Thomas Assheuer https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Assheuer -tried to check quickly the link in the settings, but couldn't see anything to be corrected- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cestmoicestmoi ( talk • contribs) 21:04, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
A Neutrality-disputed template in the lead of the article serves no purpose. It is too much like trying to perpetuate a disagreement that appears to have sputtered out. If anything, given the large number of people who have altered the article's content recently, a template about basic factual accuracy would be more appropriate. Freeknowledgecreator ( talk) 03:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
@ Sbelknap: & @ VeryRarelyStable:, open up an Rfc, if you're so concerned. GoodDay ( talk) 16:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 |
To be clear all editors are agreed that Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party and was anti-Semitic. All editors are further agreed that material which states this should be in the article. There is another article that specifically addresses this which is linked. The disputes relate to questions of weight, how much should they be mentioned.
Heidegger is not notable as an Anti-semite or a Nazi, he is notable as a Philosopher which is the focus of this article.
The constant edit waring is getting us now where so I suggest we stop all potentially controversial edits while we agree to some principles to determine what should or should not be included. If we can't do that then we JOINTLY formulate the issues and call a RFC to get other editors involved. We would also call in a dispute resolution editor.----- Snowded TALK 09:24, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Heidegger is not notable as an Anti-semite or a Nazi, he is notable as a Philosopheris one of the points in contention. I know you disagree; I'm asking you not to beg the question. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 10:42, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
- there seems to be a concerted effort to maximize the negative aspects of Heidegger - there have been repeated calls to merge this article with the Heidegger and Nazism article, his life has been called "ugly", there has been a push to caracterize his philosopy as nonsense, a quote was recently added to the article that implied his philosophy was "diabolical" while removing a cited quote that said Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century - there seems to be a campaign to right a great wrong ( WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS) and let the world know the Truth about Martin Heidegger and all done by taking the moral high ground and gaming the system by claiming that is in the service of a neutral point of view - there are other controvertial figures from the same era such as Ezra Pound who was a poet and also a fascist and antisemite, Gertrude Stein was a writer who worked for the Petain government during WWII, and T.S. Eliot who was a poet and antisemite; perhaps their articles could be used as examples of how to balance their positive achievements with their negative political views - we do need to work towards a neutral point of view and it is important to note Heidegger's Nazism and important to cite criticism of his philosophy, but we don't want to make the article predominantly about his Nazism and criticism of his philosophy; Heidegger is most notable as a philosopher and other aspects of his life must be given due weight ( WP:DUE), although there seems to be tendentious disagreement about what that due weight is - Epinoia ( talk) 22:13, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Sbelknap ( talk) 23:32, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
I think (since you ask) that the question both misrepresents the argument and detracts from the real point. The argument is not that reproducing quotations is the point of scholarly work; the argument is that scholarly work already produces impartial analysis, and therefore it does not breach WP:IMPARTIAL to reproduce such analysis verbatim.
But the real point is that the lengthy quotations were only introduced in the first place because, when material taken from these scholarly sources was summarized instead of directly quoted, it was then insta-reverted on the grounds of not being representative of the scholarly sources (or sometimes on no grounds at all). Direct quotes were deemed the only way of demonstrating that the material was indeed a faithful reproduction of the writers' position – and now direct quotes are getting reverted for being direct quotes.
Can you see what that looks like from our perspective?
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 05:02, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Snowded TALK 06:14, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
There are still a ton of unclear, false, and both unclear and false claims in the lead as it is now written.
I could go on. I shudder to think of all the terrible undergraduate term papers that are about to be written quoting these misleading or incoherent passages. I don't have the energy to deal with this right now but I really hope fellow editors can restore the lead to the level of quality it had previously, and that much (but not all) of the rest of the article has. CCS81 ( talk) 01:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
It's refreshing that we can make progress towards improvement rather than getting into revert-wars. But I'm afraid the current lede is again a bit too technical. I can figure out what "or the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities" means if I take a good run at it, but it's definitely an uphill effort. I don't think "the instrumentalist understanding of modern technology" is as transparent as it could be either. And I'm sure we can express the point about "the treatment of all Nature as a standing reserve on call for human purposes" without introducing the technical term "enframing" which then doesn't actually get used. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 08:17, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Taking a look at the most recent changes – I'm sorry, CCS81, I think it was clearer when phrased as a question (the misagreement of course can be corrected). Here's a go at making those paragraphs easier to read:
In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger considered the meaning of "being": what do all entities have in common that makes them entities? To address this question, Heidegger analysed Dasein, his term for the specific type of being that humans possess, which he associated closely with what he called "being-in-the-world". This conception of the human is in contrast with Rationalist thinkers like René Descartes, who understood human existence most basically as thinking, as in Cogito ergo sum ("I think therefore I am").
Heidegger's later work criticized the instrumentalist understanding of modern technology in the Western tradition, whereby all of Nature is treated as a "standing reserve" on call for human purposes.
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 11:06, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
"Entities." Is that the right word? Because my cup and my slipper, which I am looking at now, are entities. They've got something in common. But later in the paragraph the content appears to assume we are talking about human beings. Improved phrasing required. - Chumchum7 ( talk) 04:48, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
I communicate unfamiliar concepts for a living. My job is to write lecture notes for students with disabilities. As well as exposing me to subject matter from all over the academe, this gets me practice in writing things down that I don't have full background on.
You're right, CCS81. I don't have the beginning of an understanding of Heidegger. But I should, because I've read the Wikipedia page about him many times in the last few months.
That is what we are trying to fix here.
My style guides are people who can write and be understood. They come from a variety of different starting-points and would probably robustly disagree with each other on a number of things if they were to meet (which would require time-travel in some cases). But they agree on one thing: the purpose of all writing is communication. Therefore, the purpose of any rules of writing is communication. Any "rule" of grammar or style that impedes clarity of communication is a pseudo-rule and should be dropped.
No-one, reading "The Bible instructs us not to kill", or "Plato's Republic argues that society should be run by a philosophical elite", or "Heidegger's later works criticized the instrumentalist understanding of modern technology", hallucinates that the books in question have become agents and are talking and having arguments out of little papery mouths. I promise.
I can't be bothered right now to look up whether this is called "metonymy" or "metathesis" or something else, but it's a perfectly legitimate form of expression.
In my experience, it's beginner writers trying to sound academic who write like the philosophy sections of this article. It's easy to pile concept upon concept, to think of clarificatory metaphors and examples as you go but then allude to them in passing rather than laying them out, so that they mystify where they should illuminate. That's lazy writing. Or, to be more charitable, that's time-pressured college essay writing.
The work of writing is untangling what came out of your keyboard in the first burst of ideas so that it communicates something to someone who doesn't share a brain with you and doesn't know what all those piled-up allusions and technicalities mean.
"Questions that should be phrased as statements..." If you mean that an encyclopaedia is not the place for rhetorical questions, I agree. An encyclopaedia's job is to set out facts in plain language. But in this case we are not talking about a rhetorical question. The offending passage is
Heidegger considered the meaning of "being": what do all entities have in common that makes them entities? To address this question, Heidegger analysed Dasein...
which you think should be
Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being", the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities. Heidegger approaches this question through an analysis of Dasein...
Now you're telling me that the problem is that a statement has been phrased as a question. But
the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities
isn't a statement. It doesn't have a main verb; it has a participle (regarding) and a verb in a relative clause (that which is common). It is a noun phrase, and it's there to elaborate upon the word "being" in the previous sentence. As I said, I got what it meant – after a couple of goes.
The word regarding is ill-chosen, I think. If I announce that I have a question for you "regarding your maiden aunt in Cheshire", I could follow it with any inquiry on the topic I have just announced. What could it mean to say I'm asking "the question regarding your maiden aunt in Cheshire"? I imagine you would reply "Which question is that?" Of would be better than regarding in this context.
On top of that, my mental sentence-parsing software glitches when it runs into the words the question regarding that which is common. It takes a second go before I can pick out the semantic units (entities – what makes them entities – that which is common to all entities that makes them entities – the question regarding that which, ah, got you.) No such glitch happens when "the question" is phrased as a question in the first place.
The rule against "phrasing statements as questions" (including ones that aren't actually statements) has impeded clarity of communication. That makes it a pseudo-rule, and it should be dropped.
Of course writers who over-use the device of introductory questions, as some college students indeed do, should be encouraged to vary up their style a little. But that doesn't make all use of the device illegitimate.
And as for "alleged unreadability" – you can drop the "alleged". We are talking about a man who said "Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy." It says so right there in the article.
Now if you're so sick of inaccuracies in this article, you can do one thing that will fix them forever:
Re-write the damn thing so it's readable.
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 10:05, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
"But I should, because I've read the Wikipedia page about him many times in the last few months."I'm really not sure that's very likely. Martinevans123 ( talk) 10:15, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm— Jim Morrison, in
Sbelknap ( talk) 17:36, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Here's a source. [1] Sbelknap ( talk) 18:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being", or the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities. Heidegger approaches this question through an analysis of Dasein.... You omitted the 'or,' which carries over the grammatical force from the first clause and, I think, addresses much of what you're saying in your analysis. But that doesn't matter, and I am by no means suggesting that my way of phrasing the sentence is the best. Far from it, and your points about words like 'regarding' are fine with me and well taken. But, in any case, this version of the sentence is more conceptually precise than agentially and grammatically misleading phrasings like those for which you and your editor friend were advocating. And I'm sorry, but when you start defending principles of composition like agency assertions of non-agents that I have been trained as a college professor to teach the students in my classes not to use, I simply need to excuse myself from the situation. Like you, I make my living explaining (or doing my best to explain) complicated concepts to young people. But just because a claim is easily understood by young people does not mean that it is true, conceptually precise, or valuable. To put the same point differently, your claim is that writing about communication only, but this is incomplete and potentially dangerous. Writing is about communicating truth, and we have many bad habits of communicating that preclude our speaking truthfully. Some of these are easily addressed, like agency assertions of non-agents. For example, it is very easy to change "Plato's Republic argues..." to "Plato argues in the Republic...", and in so doing we have constructed a sentence that is closer to indicating the truth of the matter, or who exactly is doing what exactly. Your insisting that the former is fine because it is easily understood, by contrast, entails missing that communication is about more than simply making oneself understood. The danger of saying things that are easily understood but not true is one about which Heidegger is deeply concerned, but probably that point is beyond the scope of our current discussion. CCS81 ( talk) 06:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
and in so doing we have constructed a sentence that is closer to indicating the truth of the matter...So you are concerned that people may think the book has become an agent. I promise you that's not how language works. People will understand you to be referring to the content of the text, not to the action of speaking, because this is a natural way of expressing the idea.
And I'm sorry, but when you start defending principles of composition like agency assertions of non-agents that I have been trained as a college professor to teach the students in my classes not to use, I simply need to excuse myself from the situation.
And I'm sorry...Are you really? What is the cause of your sorrow?
...but when you start defending principles of composition...When I start defending those principles? I started defending those principles hours to days before you read my completed comment. I started defending these again several minutes ago, and I don't expect you will see it for some time after I hit "Publish". Did you feel the effects of my writing as some kind of psychic tremor before reading this?
...principles of composition like agency assertions of non-agents...Principles like agency assertions of non-agents? Like them in what way? What points of resemblance and what degree of resemblance causes the psychic tremor that warns you I have started to defend them?
...that I have been trained as a college professor...Trained, like a performing seal?
...to teach the students in my classes not to use...Your classes, are they? You own them? How much did you pay for them? And if the students are in them, does that make them physical spaces?
...I simply need to excuse myself from the situation.You need to? You mean you'll suffer some kind of harm if you don't? Oh, but wait. To excuse yourself, which would mean pardoning yourself from wrongdoing – that's what to excuse means, isn't it?
Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being", or the question regarding that which is common to all entities that makes them entities.
We don't vote on Wikipedia we look at the evidence. So assertions will get us nowhere fast. I started this thread to break the log jam but if it doesn't work I will go to ANI with a request for a topic ban. We don't use primary sources, we don't assert positions, we don't do personal attacks and we don't compromise unless it is within the context of the sources and with due attention to weight. That means involved editors should present evidence from third-party sources on this subject - please get started ----- Snowded TALK 07:13, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Assert facts, not opinionsWP:ASSERT. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:49, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
The article characterizes Heidegger as a “a seminal thinker” and a (now deleted) quotation called him “one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century” – I don’t believe there is a source that says he was “a seminal Nazi” or “Heidegger was one of the most influential Nazis of the 20th century.” His Nazism should be given approximately the same proportional weight as Ezra Pound’s fascism is given in the Ezra Pound article. Heidegger’s philosophy is not overtly fascist or promoting Nazism. George Pattison says of Emmanuel Faye’s book “Heidegger, the Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy” that “Faye finds some sort of reference to Nazism in just about every line Heidegger ever wrote and I think that most people think that’s clearly that’s an exaggeration and sometimes even perhaps rather stupid and forced.” Pattison goes on to say, “we can’t avoid knowing a little bit about the life, but in this case it’s not going to be decisive for how we really engage with the thought.” So I think we need to note that there is a debate on how far Nazism influenced Heidegger, but we should report on the debate and not produce a flurry of sources that weigh the argument one way or another and not take sides trying to prove that his philosophy was fundamentally a Nazi philosophy, in accordance with a neutral point of view. Heidegger was the son of a sexton, at university he first studied Catholic theology, he wrote his Phd thesis on the scholastic theology of Duns Scotus and worked with Rudolph Bultmann on the Gospel of John. He wrote on medieval mysticism and gave lectures on St Paul, so given this background one could make a case that Heidegger’s philosophy is fundamentally Christian. Heidegger had many influences, only one of which was Nazism. So his Nazism should be covered in the article, but he is most notable as a philosopher - Epinoia ( talk) 17:17, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Heidegger never apologized nor publicly expressed regret for his involvement with his affiliation with Nazism, [1] in private he called it "the biggest stupidity of his life" (die größte Dummheit seines Lebens). [2] In his book From the Experience of Thinking (Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens), Heidegger states, Great thoughts, great errors (Wer gross denkt, irrt gross Perhaps this should be reflected in this article? Sbelknap ( talk) 05:00, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica are not the same. They do not have the same goals. Their content need not be the same. However, it is interesting how Britannica handles this issue: "In the months after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany in January 1933, German universities came under increasing pressure to support the “national revolution” and to eliminate Jewish scholars and the teaching of “Jewish” doctrines, such as the theory of relativity. In April 1933 Heidegger was elected rector of Freiburg by the university’s teaching staff. One month later he became a member of the Nazi Party; until he resigned as rector in April 1934, he helped to institute Nazi educational and cultural programs at Freiburg and vigorously promoted the domestic and foreign policies of the Nazi regime. Already during the late 1920s he had criticized the dissolute nature of the German university system, where specialization and the ideology of academic freedom precluded the attainment of a higher unity. In a letter of 1929 he bemoaned the progressive “Jewification” (Verjudung) of the German spirit. In his inaugural address, “Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität” (“The Self-Assertion of the German University”), he called for reorganizing the university along the lines of the Nazi Führerprinzip, or leadership principle, and celebrated the fact that university life would thereafter be merged with the state and the needs of the German Volk. During the first month of his rectorship, he sent a telegram to Hitler urging him to postpone an upcoming meeting of university rectors until Gleichschaltung—the Nazi euphemism for the elimination of political opponents—had been completed. In the fall of 1933 Heidegger began a speaking tour on behalf of Hitler’s national referendum to withdraw Germany from the League of Nations. As he proclaimed in one speech: “Let not doctrines and ideas be your guide. The Führer is Germany’s only reality and law.” Heidegger continued to support Hitler in the years after his rectorship, though with somewhat less enthusiasm than he had shown in 1933–34." [3]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbelknap ( talk • contribs)
Discussion here seems to consist of little more than interminable wrangling and rambling comments. Nothing concrete is being achieved, and no progress is apparently being made in resolving disagreements, leading me to suspect that protection of the article may accomplish nothing. Does anyone want to actually discuss the content issues that led to the article being protected, or to place a suitably worded request for comment? Freeknowledgecreator ( talk) 05:37, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Can we please stay on topic? How much weight should be given to Heidegger's Nazism as it bears upon his philosophy? That's something Heidegger scholars themselves don't agree on. So the Wikipedia article should report both sides of the controversy instead of, as it currently does, favouring the low-weight side by default.
I'm still not clear what previous disputants meant by "third party" sources. It's not the same as "tertiary" sources, because secondary sources are preferred on Wikipedia. At face value, I would take it to mean that if two scholars are having a dispute, you use a source by a third scholar reporting on them to determine the status of the dispute within the field (though of course it's fine to use the disputing scholars' own writings as sources to describe their individual positions). But since some of the sources we've used have been of other scholars reporting on people criticizing Heidegger, it's unclear how they fail to qualify.
Call me suspicious, but I can't suppress the thought that perhaps in some people's minds, any scholar who criticizes Heidegger even in the context of reporting other people criticizing Heidegger thereby ceases to be "third party".
Which would mean that "use third party sources" reduces to "use only sources that are not critical of Heidegger".
To which the answer is "No."
— VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 23:42, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere.
References
There is no requirement for other editors to continue a discussion forever. All involved editors have now made their positions clear and there is a clear consensus that Heidegger is notable as a philosopher not as a Nazi. The question of how much weight should be given to his nazism can be next up but only this is now accepted. Sbelknap and VeryRarelyStable, if you do not accept this then you have to invoke a dispute resolution process ON THIS QUESTION. Other questions stay open but we need to forward one question at a time ----- Snowded TALK 09:00, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
While I would be willing to include mention that Heidegger is a philosopher, as many secondary and tertiary sources state that this is so, it should be noted that there is not universal agreement that Heidegger was a philosopher. Would Kant have considered Heidegger a philosopher? In his book, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, the author, Emmanuel Faye argues that Martin Heidegger was not a philosopher, and that his works should not be classified under "philosophy" because they were entirely based on National Socialism. Faye argues that Heidegger's work should be classified under "hate speech". Sbelknap ( talk) 18:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
Sbelknap ( talk) 20:06, 17 December 2019 (UTC)That is precisely what Mr. Faye says he wants. In his view teaching Heidegger’s ideas without disclosing his deep Nazi sympathies is like showing a child a brilliant fireworks display without warning that an ignited rocket can also blow up in someone’s face.
At the first page of Sein und Zeit, the one piece of work that has secured Martin Heidegger’s place in the philosophy of history, the author declares that the purpose behind the work is to explicate the “meaning of being”,or”dem Sinn von Sein”.There is however no clear consensus among Heidegger scholars of what this is supposed to be. Indeed, there is not even a clear consensus of what Heidegger means by “meaning”, or “Sinn” as the German term is. On the contrary, the interpretations have little in common except being about Heidegger.
Sbelknap ( talk) 20:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
References
At the moment we have Sbelknap and VeryRarelyStable against the rest. From my perspective, they are ignoring third party sources and focusing on the interpretation of primary sources - worse they argue that is legitimate. There is no prospect of this changing. I've lived through enough such issues on Wikipedia to know this could go on forever. To everyone who is not Sbelknap or VeryRarelyStable as long as you allow this to carry on, it will get worse.
We have a first issue resolved as a consensus by involved editors in favour of Heidegger being notable as a philosopher. Yes was also a member of the Nazi Party but his notability does not come from that. Sbelknap and VeryRarelyStable are entitled to disagree with that, but in order to do that, they have to invoke one of several possible dispute resolution processes that involve other editors. They need to be left to get on with this and when has that resolved we can go onto the next issue one by one, ideally with some time limit. I seriously suggest leaving them to themselves until then engage properly. ----- Snowded TALK 07:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
The task here is to find a way forward. I suggest that we follow the policies and standards of wikipedia: rely (mostly) on secondary sources, respect the diversity of views among these secondary sources, and stop substituting ones own opinion for that of experts. Sbelknap ( talk) 16:06, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
I think the editors here are enacting what should be stated simply in the article, that there are controversies about Heidegger's obscure writing style, and about whether his political and philosophical views are related. At the moment the talk page is degenerating into an obscure mish mash of personal remarks and entrenched opinion. It perfectly shows the controversy which Heidegger's work arouses, and is best summarised in the article itself rather than being endlessly rehearsed and mulled over here publicly. My penny's worth.
TonyClarke ( talk) 06:23, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
TonyClarke ( talk) 20:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
VeryRarelyStable, let me repeat the question you've persistently avoided answering: do you, in fact, intend to revert Snowded as soon as the article is unprotected? Such an edit might be "allowable" in the sense that Wikipedia's policies would permit it, but it would still be heavily discouraged as a form of edit warring. Remember that an edit that may be "allowable" simply taken in itself can become a form of prohibited edit warring if endlessly repeated. Resumption of such edit warring would leave it looking doubtful that article protection has accomplished anything. Instead of reverting, why not see what version of the article a majority of editors active on the talk page would prefer? Freeknowledgecreator ( talk) 09:02, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I have no intention of answering your question. We have resolved the question of Heidegger's notability. You (and your companion) either accept that decision in which case we can move on, or, you can use one of the many dispute resolution processes. If you fancy appealing to ANI feel free. If you will not take either option then I will make a case to the wider community for some restriction on your editing on this and related subjects.----- Snowded TALK 05:22, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
From the Paris Review:
Not that Heidegger has had to apologize, either. For the past seventy years, his many apologists and acolytes have gone to astounding lengths in trying to prove that his philosophical oeuvre exists independent of what was, they avowed, a mere weakness of character, an instance of momentary opportunism. In 2014, a group of French philosophers even tried to halt the publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, his philosophical diaries. But if antisemitic references in his philosophy are oblique and, as some would have it, coincidental to his critique of modernity, the Notebooks leave little room for such charitable reading. Even after the war he would bemoan the Jewish “drive for revenge,” with their aim consisting in “obliterating the Germans in spirit and history.”
And yet, the Black Notebooks haven’t lain to rest one of the more irksome debates around continental philosophy. Perhaps that’s what the release of Heidegger’s correspondence with his lifelong confidante, his brother Fritz, will achieve. His heirs, having held back these letters for many years, have finally caved to the pressure that began to mount following the release of the Black Notebooks. The excerpts released in advance by Die Zeit and Le Monde last weekend show Heidegger for what, apparently, he was: the real deal, a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi who bought into Hitler’s ideology wholesale. And he wasn’t a particularly sophisticated one. In his letters, the forefather of deconstruction voices his impassioned belief in Volk and Führer, perpetual German victimhood, “world Jewry,” the threat of Bolshevism, and American decadence.
Perhaps it’s inconvenient, but it’s hardly shocking: Heidegger was not just a member of the Nazi party, but also a Nazi. Nor was he just a “metaphysical antisemite”—he also just really disliked Jews. Let’s hope this settles the matter. [1]
Sbelknap ( talk) 20:03, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Sbelknap ( talk) 07:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC)Like the famous optical illusion in which the same figure is both a duck and a rabbit, then, we keep twisting and turning our image of Heidegger, trying to see in him both the Nazi and the philosopher at the same time [2]
References
Wikipedia works on consensus and the consensus on this article is that Heidegger is notable as a philosopher not as a Nazi; consensus is not unanimity. If a minority do not choose to accept that consensus view then there are various dispute resolution progresses they can adopt, none of which you have invoked. Accept or invoke or have your behavior taken to ANI for resolution, and it will be your behaviour which will be examined not the content. ----- Snowded TALK 07:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text. For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or make the wording more neutral.
As of now WP:DRN's submission link is not working. I have noted this on their Talk page. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 23:46, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
This noticeboard is for content disputes only. Comment on the contributions, not the contributors. Off-topic or uncivil behavior may garner a warning, improper material may be struck-out, collapsed, or deleted, and a participant could be asked to step back from the discussion. Sbelknap ( talk) 23:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Successfully posted to WP:DRN. — VeryRarelyStable ( talk) 01:50, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
on top of the above last subject 'masked shrew', obviously a prank or a hack, which has nothing to do here, I noticed right now what seem a weird technical bug (?), when clicking on 'Deutch' in languages, one ends up in an article in German obviously wrong, about Thomas Assheuer https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Assheuer -tried to check quickly the link in the settings, but couldn't see anything to be corrected- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cestmoicestmoi ( talk • contribs) 21:04, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
A Neutrality-disputed template in the lead of the article serves no purpose. It is too much like trying to perpetuate a disagreement that appears to have sputtered out. If anything, given the large number of people who have altered the article's content recently, a template about basic factual accuracy would be more appropriate. Freeknowledgecreator ( talk) 03:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
@ Sbelknap: & @ VeryRarelyStable:, open up an Rfc, if you're so concerned. GoodDay ( talk) 16:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)