Wednesday, October 11, 2006
(6:45 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Philosophy of the 21st Century
Tomorrow in my class on "Philosophical Thought," I have to give a presentation over Martin Heidegger. This is difficult for several reasons. First, many of my classmates seem to have a particular concern with the general moral worth of philosophers, and by any measure, Heidegger is at or near the the bottom of the list of "Good People in Philosophy." Second, there is the extremely self-referential nature of his thought -- to get a lot out of Heidegger, you have to have made a decision in advance that you really care what Heidegger has to say.Third, and most importantly, I have been sick to death of Heidegger for a long time. I read a lot of him at one point, but now I don't really see the use. This is especially the case given that most of the other philosophers I am interested in deal with Heidegger ad nauseam. (I have little doubt that if all extant copies of Being and Time were lost, the entire text could be recovered by collecting quotations from French philosophers -- probably the whole text in German, even.)
I can't be the only one who feels this way. In fact, although it's early yet, I will venture a prediction -- the 21st century will have been little more than the century of Heidegger fatigue. There will be no great figure who arises to take his place. The recent half-hearted rise of Badiou is little more than a symptom of Heidegger fatigue, and -- more to the point -- Badiou's own monumental arrogance can never be anything more than a feeble parody of Heidegger's. Long after Being and Event has been forgotten (ca. 2009), we'll all still be doing our painfully close readings of Being and Time, even though we hate it, even though we've forgotten why.
