Gianni Vattimo’s Defense of Heidegger
anecdote · Heidegger, 'Why Stay in the Provinces?' ·
retold in 5 talks
Žižek describes leftist philosopher Gianni Vattimo’s attempt to save Heidegger by arguing he was just a 'stupid local guy' making a concrete mistake, ignoring that Heidegger’s philosophy itself warns against confusing metaphysical stance with concrete people.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 5
“Heidegger was also a stupid local guy from that area... Because his entire philosophy is about the difference between ontological... and ontic level...”37:58 Why Radical Politics Needs Philosophy? A Masterclass With Slavoj Zizek. Day 22023-11-22 · 2:10:06
“he thoughtfully put his faithful hand on my shoulder. Ever so slightly he shook his head. That meant absolutely no.”12:12 Slavoj Zizek: Our public face is't our mask, our private inner truth is the real maskpub. 2017-09-10 · 44:58
“I was told that Martin Heidegger once took a walk on your famous Philosophenweg, slipped on a sharp turn and ingloriously fell down”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
ontological difference
×1
false elevation of ordinary people is a fake
×1
constitutive other scene
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
David Irving2William Butler Yeats2Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt1Danny Burns1Lynn1Augustus1François Ewald1Anarchy (Personified)1
alongside works
Every retelling 5
37:58 Why Radical Politics Needs Philosophy? A Masterclass With Slavoj Zizek. Day 22023-11-22 · 2:10:06
Žižek describes leftist philosopher Gianni Vattimo’s attempt to save Heidegger by arguing he was just a 'stupid local guy' making a concrete mistake, ignoring that Heidegger’s philosophy itself warns against confusing metaphysical stance with concrete people., illustrating ontological difference,ideology
12:12 Slavoj Zizek: Our public face is't our mask, our private inner truth is the real maskpub. 2017-09-10 · 44:58
Heidegger recounts withdrawing to his hut and asking a 75-year-old farmer whether to accept a Berlin chair; the farmer silently shakes his head, 'absolutely no.' Žižek reads it as the false mystique of ordinary people's wisdom (and suspects the farmer just told Heidegger what he wanted to hear)., illustrating false elevation of ordinary people is a fake,we cannot trust the people
2:46 Apocalyptic & Post Apocalyptic – pandemic, dystopia, horror, climate change, & so on2021-10-14 · 1:35:56
Žižek opens with an anecdote that Heidegger once slipped and fell on Heidelberg's famous Philosophers' Walk; he uses this to frame his own intervention as a comment on another, more consequential slip of Heidegger as a thinker., illustrating Heidegger's philosophical errors,man as catastrophe
1:05:24 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 8pub. 2018-11-29 · 2:11:18
Žižek outlines three ways scholars excuse Heidegger's Nazism: 1) Contingent personal failure; 2) A sign his thought was not radical enough, leading to a 'better' later philosophy; 3) (Ernst Nolte) He was right, as Nazism was a justified reaction to economic crisis/Bolshevik terror., illustrating constitutive other scene
Heidegger's preaching of passive Gelassenheit is contradicted by his own practice: his reading of Parmenides is one of the most violent torturings of a text, twisting syntax, rewriting propositions, showing that genuine thought always tortures language., illustrating divine violence of language,language as torture,Heidegger's self-contradiction