Anarchist singularities or proprietorial resentments?

on the Christian problem in Heidegger's notebooks of the 1930s

Ward Blanton

pp. 99-129

in: Mårten Björk, Jayne Svenungsson (eds), Heidegger's Black notebooks and the future of theology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

Heidegger abandoned the insights of his promising philosophical anarchism at precisely those moments when he fell into a traditional supersessionist and persecutorial tableau of Christian origins. In order to resist such persecutorial tendencies, philosophy and theology must think more rigorously about the historical modes in which they remain oriented by what this essay refers to as a "Christian problem" our thinking has not yet overcome. This problem is identified above all as the problem of how one conceptualizes self-reliant solidarities without turning the promise of these solidarities into implicit threats against outsiders. The essay argues that the Christian problem is all the more evident in Heidegger's writings the more he claims to situate himself "beyond" the horizon of Christianity.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin