Heidegger, Jaeger, Plato: The Politics of Humanism

Abstract

This article argues that Heidegger’s influential Brief uber den Humanismus (1946/7), a critical text in the intellectual trajectory of postmodernity, must be read not simply within a post-war philosophical and theoretical context (within which it has largely been understood), but more significantly within the parameters of a fraught and urgent pre-war debate in Germany over the name and nature of humanism. Importantly, this was a debate in which classical scholars – including, most famously, Werner Jaeger – played a critical role. Frequently taking Plato as its most exemplary representative, the debate around humanism was no mere academic discussion, but spilled out into the dangerous politics of the 1930s and 40s, as Nazi writers and scholars (classicists among them) sought to wrest control of the definition of humanism and its promise to ‘make men’. Also addressing Heidegger’s essay, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (1942) (published in a journal on the topic of humanism), this article suggests that Heidegger sought to have the final word in the debate over Plato and humanism during this period.