Most works about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger either disregard Heidegger’s attachment to National Socialism or assume the ‘minimalist’ view that his attachment was a brief political aberration of no consequence for his philosophy. This paper contends that the minimalist view is not only factually wrong but also that its assumption promotes methodological errors and poor philosophy. To assess this contention we examine two important texts from one of the more fertile fields in current philosophy: Jeff Malpas’s Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World (2006) and Heidegger and the Thinking of Place (2012). Malpas claims that Heidegger’s rejection of National Socialism spurred, or was concomitant with, new directions in his philosophy. These claims are wrong. The paper concludes that any work about Heidegger’s philosophy must first acknowledge and understand his enduring attachment to National Socialism.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Heidegger, Malpas, National Socialism, place, topology
Research Division:	Philosophy and Religious Studies
Research Group:	Philosophy
Research Field:	Philosophy not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in philosophy and religious studies
UTAS Author:	Clarke, DA (Mr David Clarke)
ID Code:	119112
Year Published:	2014
Deposited By:	School of Humanities
Deposited On:	2017-07-26
Last Modified:	2017-09-01
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