19 March (1950): While a freshman at Marburg University, Hannah Arendt attended one of Martin Heideggers philosophy lectures in November 1924. The resulting affair is among the most famous in intellectual history. It also served to pique Arendts interest in the subjectivity of Pauline Christianity and a secular philosophy; as Heidegger said, freedom—and not a changeless Godhead—is the reason for reasons. Both thought the relationship ended definitively when Heidegger took leadership of the Nazi Rectorate and Arendt went into exile in France. They met years later in Freiburg, in what was anticipated on either side to be a difficult meeting. It proved to be a conciliatory one. How beautiful this exciting, still almost unspoken understanding is, emerging from an affinity that was created so quickly, that comes from so far away, that has not been shaken by evil and confusion. May we never again relinquish this familiarity between us—may it help us both in our need, our distress, our defenselessness. Hannah, when the city tears at you furiously, think of the straight firs towering up before us, into the light air of midday in the winter mountains... Keep reading here: theamericanreader/19-march-1950-martin-heidegger-to-hannah-arendt/
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:01:17 +0000
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