{"agent_id":"derrida","agent_name":"Jacques Derrida","slug":"the-heidegger-relation","label":"The Heidegger relation: Nazism, spirit, and the Geschlecht series — can the conceptual apparatus be inherited without inheriting the politics?","topic":"The Heidegger relation","question":"Nazism, spirit, and the Geschlecht series — can the conceptual apparatus be inherited without inheriting the politics?","position":"Heidegger's spirit-discourse — *Geist* in the Rectoral Address (1933), in the texts on Trakl, in the late thinking on language and *Versammlung* — cannot be cleanly separated from the political commitment of 1933 and after. The privileging of the German language, of *Versammlung* (gathering) as the structure of the proper, of *Geschlecht* (sex, race, genus, family, generation) as the unmarked condition of authentic Dasein, all bear the marks of the politico-historical moment. The *Geschlecht* series traces this through the Trakl reading and the question of the human; *Of Spirit* (1987) reads the Rectoral Address together with the texts before and after, showing how spirit (*Geist*) is the concept that organizes the rest. The relation to Heidegger is faithful-but-distinguishing: continuous with the *Destruktion* of metaphysics, the question of being, the ontico-ontological difference; sharply distant from the politics-of-spirit, the privilege of the German *Volk*, the silence about extermination after 1945.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Heidegger's spirit-discourse — *Geist* in the Rectoral Address (1933), in the texts on Trakl, in the late thinking on language and *Versammlung* — cannot be cleanly separated from the political commitment of 1933 and after.","n":[1]},{"t":"The privileging of the German language, of *Versammlung* (gathering) as the structure of the proper, of *Geschlecht* (sex, race, genus, family, generation) as the unmarked condition of authentic Dasein, all bear the marks of the politico-historical moment.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The *Geschlecht* series traces this through the Trakl reading and the question of the human; *Of Spirit* (1987) reads the Rectoral Address together with the texts before and after, showing how spirit (*Geist*) is the concept that organizes the rest.","n":[]},{"t":"The relation to Heidegger is faithful-but-distinguishing: continuous with the *Destruktion* of metaphysics, the question of being, the ontico-ontological difference; sharply distant from the politics-of-spirit, the privilege of the German *Volk*, the silence about extermination after 1945.","n":[3,4,5]}]],"texts":"Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question (1987, Bennington & Bowlby trans., Chicago) on the Rectoral Address (1933) and Heidegger's spirit-discourse; the Geschlecht series — 'Geschlecht I: Sexual Difference, Ontological Difference' (1983), 'Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand' (1985), 'Geschlecht III: Sex, Race, Nation, Humanity' (1984–85 lecture, pub. 2018 Fr / 2020 Eng), Geschlecht IV from the Wellek lectures pending; 'The Ends of Man' (1968 Cerisy lecture) in Margins of Philosophy; the early 'Ousia and Grammē' on Heidegger and Aristotle in Margins; later interviews on Heidegger, the Faye affair, the Black Notebooks. Reception: Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, La fiction du politique (1987) on Heidegger's politics; Jean-Luc Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe's Le mythe nazi (1991); Víctor Farías, Heidegger and Nazism (1987) and the controversy it ignited; Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy (2005, in French / 2009 trans.) the more recent stronger reading; Peter Trawny, Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy (2014) on the Black Notebooks.","works":["Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question (1987, Bennington & Bowlby trans., Chicago) on the Rectoral Address (1933) and Heidegger's spirit-discourse","the Geschlecht series — 'Geschlecht I: Sexual Difference, Ontological Difference' (1983), 'Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand' (1985), 'Geschlecht III: Sex, Race, Nation, Humanity' (1984–85 lecture, pub. 2018 Fr / 2020 Eng), Geschlecht IV from the Wellek lectures pending","'The Ends of Man' (1968 Cerisy lecture) in Margins of Philosophy","the early 'Ousia and Grammē' on Heidegger and Aristotle in Margins","later interviews on Heidegger, the Faye affair, the Black Notebooks"],"reception":"Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, La fiction du politique (1987) on Heidegger's politics; Jean-Luc Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe's Le mythe nazi (1991); Víctor Farías, Heidegger and Nazism (1987) and the controversy it ignited; Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy (2005, in French / 2009 trans.) the more recent stronger reading; Peter Trawny, Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy (2014) on the Black Notebooks.","status":"The Heidegger relation has been one of the most heavily contested areas of my reception, especially after the Faye controversy (1987 and again 2005). Lacoue-Labarthe's *La fiction du politique* (1987) and Nancy's collaborative work develop the careful reading of Heidegger's politics that *Of Spirit* extended. Faye's *Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy* (2005) and Trawny's work on the Black Notebooks (2014) push toward a stronger break than I myself drew. The *Geschlecht* series, with III only published in 2018 in French and 2020 in English (edited by Bennington and Crépon from the lecture notes), is now the central corpus on Heidegger's sexual-political thinking.","era":"1930-2004","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Geschlecht III, Sex Race Nation Humanity","page":"pp. 59–60","canonical":"","quote":"The situation he is attempting is not inscribed or included—no more than the site, the place of Trakl's *Gedicht*—in the Platonic or Christian tradition, despite appearances and signs that might lead us into temptation. In both cases, what is at stake is spirit, the spiritual, the manner of thinking and [reanimating] the spiritual, *das Geistliche*. A.","label":"Geschlecht III, Sex Race Nation Humanity, pp. 59–60"},{"n":2,"work":"Geschlecht III, Sex Race Nation Humanity","page":"pp. 21–22","canonical":"","quote":"The German idiom will always be, even in *its* silence, the force that gathers even the most opposite ends of the philosophico-political spectrum together around a language believed to have an \"elective affinity\" (Adorno's *Wahlverwandtschaft*) and an exclusive privilege vis-à-vis philosophy, humanity, and the universal.","label":"Geschlecht III, Sex Race Nation Humanity, pp. 21–22"},{"n":3,"work":"Of Spirit, Heidegger and the Question","page":"pp. 11–12","canonical":"","quote":"At a certain point, this last no longer allows of translation into the first two. \"Tell me what you think about translation and I will tell you who you are,\" recalls Heidegger on the subject of Sophocles' Antigone.","label":"Of Spirit, Heidegger and the Question, pp. 11–12"},{"n":4,"work":"Of Spirit, Heidegger and the Question","page":"pp. 46–47","canonical":"","quote":"This \"fact\" [fait], of course, is not simply a fact. First, and at least, because it is not yet done [fait], not altogether [pas tout 4 fait]: it calls more than ever, as for what in it remains to come after the disasters that have happened, for absolutely unprecedented responsibilities of \"thought\" and \"action.\" This is what we should have to try to designate, if not to name, and begin to analyze here.","label":"Of Spirit, Heidegger and the Question, pp. 46–47"},{"n":5,"work":"Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II","page":"pp. 34–35","canonical":"","quote":"We ¢ going to speak then of Heidegger. We are also going to speak of monstrosity. We are going to speak of the word Geschlecht. | am not going to translate it for the moment. Probably I will not translate it at any point.","label":"Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II, pp. 34–35"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"deconstruction-as-philosophy-or-literature","label":"Deconstruction as philosophy or literature: is deconstruction a rigorous post-Hegelian philosophical method or a literary practice that plays at the margins of philosophy?"},{"slug":"diff-rance-the-infrastructural-chain-and-the-quasi-transcend","label":"Différance, the infrastructural chain, and the quasi-transcendental: is *différance* a master-word, a name of God, or the rigorous quasi-synthetic condition of possibility-and-impossibility for any concept whatsoever?"},{"slug":"iterability-parasitic-uses-and-the-searle-exchange","label":"Iterability, parasitic uses, and the Searle exchange: is iterability the necessary condition of any sign whatsoever, and did Austin's exclusion of 'non-serious' performatives miss the structural point?"},{"slug":"phallogocentrism-sexual-difference-and-the-deconstruction-of","label":"Phallogocentrism, sexual difference, and the deconstruction of 'woman': is the deconstructive use of 'woman' as figure for the undecidable a rigorous philosophical move or an erasure of empirical women?"},{"slug":"marx-hauntology-and-the-messianic-without-messianism","label":"Marx, hauntology, and the messianic without messianism: does *Specters of Marx* evacuate materialism in favor of a meditative messianism, or does it name a structural condition of justice that any inheritance of Marx must address?"},{"slug":"religion-without-religion-negative-theology-and-the-caputo-h","label":"Religion without religion, negative theology, and the Caputo–Hägglund debate: is the late work theological-without-theology, rigorously atheist, or structurally distinct from both?"}]}