Heidegger's 'Rector's Address' has drawn perhaps inordinate attention in recent years, particularly as evidence of Heidegger's 'involvement' in National Socialism -which it undoubtedly offers. The interpretations of Ott, Rockmore, Philipse, Köchler, and Fritsche, among others, are typical in the sense that they implicate Heidegger in the totalitarian designs of National Socialism, even if they allow that Heidegger's version of Nazism was not necessarily racist, and that it was, in fact, unorthodox in its entire tendency. 1 Yet the philosophical grounds of Heidegger's invocation of the fundamental interrelation of Volk, work service, and science in the Address remain insufficiently clarified by these interpretations. In what follows, I propose to show that Heidegger's deconstruction and retrieval of Aristotle, in particular, prepare the way for his understanding of Volk in its relation to the historicity of science, and that, consequently, the Address reflects some of the central theses of Heidegger's thought, and is not merely an opportunistic response to the political situation of 1933.

scihub/10.3138/9781442684416-006.pdf

{"container_title":"Heidegger and the Question of National","first_page":88,"last_page":172,"publisher":"University of Toronto Press"}