Martin Heidegger is one of the most controversial minds in the history of philosophy: a brilliant theoretician, a wise mentor, a lover of risky novels, a traitor to best friends and a repentant supporter of Hitler. There is no doubt only the influence exerted by the philosopher on the subsequent development of European culture.
Biography
Heidegger was born on September 26, 1889 in Messkirche, in the Grand Duchy of the German Empire. Martin was of the simplest origin - the son of a peasant woman and artisan. Religiosity of parents - passionate Catholics - shaped the interests of the young man. Friedrich Heidegger, his father, served in the church of St. Martin. Wanting to connect his life with the Catholic Church, the future philosopher was trained at a Jesuit gymnasium. Health problems prevented Jesuit monks from getting their hair cut, so in 1909 Heidegger went for theological education to the oldest University of Freiburg.
Two years later, the young man leaned toward philosophy, changed his faculty and became a student of Heinrich Rickert - the founder of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism. In 1913, he defended his first dissertation and began work on a second. While Heidegger explored the works of Duns Scott, the German Empire got involved in the First World War. On October 10, 1914, Martin was called into the militia for a year. Heart disease and an unstable psyche saved him from front-line service. Upon his return from the army, he successfully defended himself for the second time and became a privat-docent of the theological faculty of the University of Freiburg. Heidegger quickly disagreed with dogmatic colleagues. In 1916, Edmund Husserl became Rickert's successor in the university department. Impressed by his phenomenology, Martin made the final choice in favor of a philosophical career.
In 1922, Heidegger transferred to the University of Marburg and began swimming freely. The period until 1927 includes a number of fundamental works, the crown of which is "Being and time." In 1928, his mentor Edmund Husserl resigned, and Heidegger took his place in Freiburg. A respectable family man (in 1917, a wedding was held with Elfrida Petri, who gave birth to a child in 1919), the love of a brilliant student, the brave Hannah Arendt, friendship with prominent contemporaries - the future of an ambitious philosopher promised to be glorious and cloudless.
Brilliant education and prestigious work did not save Heidegger from a fatal choice: in 1933, he joined the NSDAP in the forefront. For fierce support of the Nazis, Heidegger was given the post of rector. He turned away from his beloved student Arendt, who openly fought the regime, ended up in a concentration camp and miraculously fled; betrayed Husserl, ignoring the funeral of the once adored teacher; became a threat to best friend Karl Jaspers, who kept cyanide on the bedside table to die with his Jewish wife when executioners appeared. Turbidity came suddenly and lasted 4 months. In September 1933, Heidegger hastily left the post and stopped making fiery speeches from behind the pulpit. Despite the evidence of anti-Semitism in later personal records and the fidelity of the party until the fall of the Third Reich, the philosopher claimed to have broken with Nazism at the time of his resignation.
Heidegger responded for supporting Nazism: a 1945 court banned him from any public speaking, including teaching. Little is known about the philosopher’s personal life in exile. Years later, at a meeting with Marxist students, Heidegger was asked: why did he support the inhuman ideology? He replied that, following Marx and Engels, he thought: the philosopher’s business is not to talk about the world, but to change it. Heidegger’s fundamental philosophical heritage was saved by his pupils and students, urging them to close their eyes to the shameful pages of his biography. The philosopher died and was buried in his small homeland in Meskirche on May 26, 1976, leaving a rich legacy and unceasing debate about his moral character.
