In this final volume of Robert Denoon Cumming’s four-volume history of the phenomenological movement, Cumming examines the bearing of Heidegger’s philosophy on his original commitment to Nazism and on his later inability to face up to the implication of that allegiance. Cumming continues his focus, as in previous volumes, on Heidegger’s connection with other philosophers. Here, Cumming looks first at Heidegger’s relation to Karl Jaspers, an old friend on whom Heidegger turned his back when Hitler consolidated power, and who discredited Heidegger in the denazification that followed World War II. The issues at stake are not merely personal, Cumming argues, but regard the philosophical relevance of the personal.

After the war Heidegger disavowed Sartre, a move related to Heidegger’s renunciation of his association with the phenomenological movement at large, and one that illustrates the dynamics of the history Cumming himself has completed. Serving as convincing punctuation for this remarkable series, this book demonstrates the importance of the history of philosophy in coming to grips with the proclaimed end of philosophy.

CONTENTS:

Introduction: The Later Heidegger
The Path of Silence
1. The Misunderstanding
2. Myself in Communication
3. Who Is Heidegger?
4. Between Us
5. Impasse
The Dialogue with France
6. Background
7. Fragments
8. Action
Relinquishing Subjectivity
9. The Way of Thinking
10. Facts and Thoughts
Emancipation from the Contemporary
11. Actuality
12. Dialogue
Epilogue: And Today?
Notes
Works Cited
Index

AUTHOR:

Robert Denoon Cumming (1916-2004) was the Frederick J. Woodbridge Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University.