some advice the reverse of Heidegger’s

I’ve repeatedly mentioned my belief that every human –not just in philosophy, but in everyday life– “gets away with” certain things that no one else can. If you can identify what these things are about an individual, then you have the key to grasping their character.

Now, one of the things Heidegger seems to get away with is that, whenever he goes into “maxim” mode, these maxims seem to pass by without scrutiny. Obviously this doesn’t apply in all cases: plenty of people, especially in analytic circles, find Heidegger to be altogether laughable. I’m talking about within the circles where Heidegger is generally taken seriously.

When Plato, Kant, or Hegel make a maxim-like statement, there is generally a certain critical assessment that takes place even among the greatest admirers of these thinkers. But with Heidegger, his pithiest remarks are generally repeated in debate with a smirk, as if they were so obviously devastating that no response were even thinkable. And Heidegger gets away with it.

One of those is the lamentable anti-biographical statement that “Aristotle was born, worked, and died.” While it is certainly a reasonable and defensible view that the biography of a thinker is of little importance (it’s a debate worth having), the words above are never uttered in the spirit of “here’s something Heidegger said that’s worth considering.” Instead, they are always said in the spirit of: “You ridiculous fool, even to think that biography could be of importance!”

Another example: “Tell me what you think of translation, and I will tell you who you are.” Again, always uttered with a smirk whenever something is said about translation with which the smirker happens to disagree. And Heidegger gets away with making these lines sound like game-enders closing off all debate. If Hegel had said the same thing, a debate would be more likely to occur as to whether he was right or not.

This is probably a simple byproduct of one of Heidegger’s best-known weaknesses, which is that he really does scorn debate. It is almost unknown in his works that we find a passage where he weighs the pros and cons on both sides of an issue, cites the leading figures on both sides, and then comes to a judicious and balanced choice. Instead, he favors the “dictate from on high” tone, and of all great philosophers is perhaps the most dismissive of his opponents from the start. The fact that much of his most important work takes the form of lectures to adulating undergraduates provided the support system needed to make this style work. And it is very easy to catch the fever when encountering that tone on paper; attitudes are much more contagious than words or specific ideas.

All of that was prologue to introduce another such maxim of Heidegger, to the effect that young people should forget about Nietzsche and instead study Aristotle for 10 to 15 years.

Again, this is one of those Heideggerian notions that is proclaimed as if it were a devastating knockout punch. But in fact it is rather dubious advice, and I would go so far as to say it is the opposite of the truth. If I were to meet an 18-year-old starting with philosophy right now, I might actually tell them: “Forget about Aristotle, and first study Nietzsche for 10 to 15 years.”

Who’s truly ready to appreciate Aristotle at age 18? Mostly bores, I would think.