Artykuł ma na celu wskazanie filozoficznych źródeł zarówno akcesu Martina Heideggera do ruchu nazistowskiego, jak i późniejszego zerwania przez myśliciela z zaangażowaniem politycznym. Drogę Heideggera do i od narodowego socjalizmu należy uchwycić nie tylko poprzez biografię filozofa, lecz przede wszystkim na szerszym tle procesu kształtowania się jego rozumienia polityki jako obszaru bytu wydzielonego i zagospodarowanego przez zachodnią metafizykę, co stanowi przejaw wypełnienia istoty metafizyki jako zapomnienia o byciu. Filozofię Heideggera wielokrotnie diagnozowano (por. np. Löwith, Adorno) jako głęboko powiązaną ze światopoglądem faszystowskim; przyjęta tutaj linia argumentacji podkreśla, przeciwnie, integralność etycznej linii argumentacji dzieła Heideggera, akcentującej w odniesieniu do polityki jej charakter eksploatacji bytu, podobnie jak uniformizacji człowieka i przemiany go w zasób. Konkluzja odsłania zatem głęboko antyfaszystowski wydźwięk pism Heideggera z lat 1936 – 1946 i podkreśla zarazem niepokojącą indyferencję w stosunku Heideggera do totalitarnych i nietotalitarnych systemów politycznych.

Overcoming Metaphysics, Overcoming Politics. Martin Heidegger’s Path to and from National Socialism:

This paper aims to equally pinpoint the philosophical origins of Martin Heidegger’s entry into the Nazi movement and the thinker’s subsequent break with political involvement. Heidegger’s path to and from National Socialism should be apprehended not only through the philosopher’s biography but, above all, within the broader framework of the process of the development of his understanding of politics as an area of being set apart and accommodated by Western metaphysics, which marks the fulfillment of the essence of metaphysics as a forgetting of being. Heidegger’s philosophy has been repeatedly diagnosed (cf., e.g., Löwith, Adorno) as deeply linked to the fascist worldview; the line of reasoning taken up in this paper insists, on the contrary, on the integrity of the ethical reasoning behind Heidegger’s work, which emphasizes, concerning politics, its character of exploiting being, in the same way as it uniformizes people and transforms them into a resource. The conclusion, therefore, reveals the profoundly anti-fascist overtones of Heidegger’s writings from 1936–1946 and, simultaneously, underscores a worrying indifference to Heidegger’s relationship to totalitarian and non-totalitarian political systems.

Key words: Martin Heidegger, Politics, Nazism, Evil

This paper aims to equally pinpoint the philosophical origins of Martin Heidegger’s entry into the Nazi movement and the thinker’s subsequent break with political involvement. Heidegger’s path to and from National Socialism should be apprehended not only through the philosopher’s biography but, above all, within the broader framework of the process of the development of his understanding of politics as an area of being set apart and accommodated by Western metaphysics, which marks the fulfillment of the essence of metaphysics as a forgetting of being. Heidegger’s philosophy has been repeatedly diagnosed (cf., e.g., Löwith, Adorno) as deeply linked to the fascist worldview; the line of reasoning taken up in this paper insists, on the contrary, on the integrity of the ethical reasoning behind Heidegger’s work, which emphasizes, concerning politics, its character of exploiting being, in the same way as it uniformizes people and transforms them into a resource. The conclusion, therefore, reveals the profoundly anti-fascist overtones of Heidegger’s writings from 1936–1946 and, simultaneously, underscores a worrying indifference to Heidegger’s relationship to totalitarian and non-totalitarian political systems.