Heidegger’s disastrously whole-hearted commitment to Nazism was not a simple political mistake. We need to ask what in his childhood and early career underlay his powerful and persistent feeling of Blut und Boden, blood and soil, that led him to support volkisch (nationalist/racist) calls for a charismatic national leader.

Heidegger’s disastrously whole-hearted commitment to Nazism was not a simple political mistake. We need to ask what in his childhood and early career underlay his powerful and persistent feeling of Blut und Boden, blood and soil, that led him to support volkisch (nationalist/racist) calls for a charismatic national leader.

A cautionary note -- Introduction -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau : the philosopher as victim -- Arthur Schopenhauer : the rebarbative bodhisattva -- Friedrich Nietzsche : a sickly Übermensch -- Feature : Nietzsche and Nazism -- Bertrand Russell : the mathematics of human behaviour -- Ludwig Wittgenstein : anger and asceticism -- Martin Heidegger : magician, predator, peasant and Nazi -- Feature : The Héloïse complex -- Jean-Paul Sartre : intellectual tyranny, charm and bad faith -- Feature : Women philosophers behaving badly (...) -- Michel Foucault : madness, sex and punishment -- Feature : Demetrius, philosopher king of Athens. (shrink)