Nihilism and Education in Heidegger’s Essay: ‘Nietzsche’s Word: “God is Dead”’

Abstract

In the ‘Rectoral Address’, of 1933, Martin Heidegger indicates that the crisis of the West, articulated by Nietzsche as the ‘death of God’, was a central concern in his attempt to rethink and reform higher education in 1933–1934. While Heidegger soon thereafter appears to have abandoned serious efforts at any practical transformation of the modern university, his reflection on Nietzsche, the ‘death of God’, and ‘European nihilism’ becomes deeper and more urgent throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The question then arises: What are the consequences of this confrontation with Nietzsche and the problem of nihilism for our thinking about the current state and task of education? The following article takes up this question through a consideration of Heidegger’s essay, ‘Nietzsche’s Word: “God is Dead”’.