HEIDEGGER’S CRITIQUE OF HUSSERL IN HIS BLACK NOTEBOOKS

In Heidegger und der Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung (2014), Peter Trawny claims that in his Black Notebooks (2014/15) Martin Heidegger is guilty of «ontological-historical anti-Semitism» (seinsgeschichtlicher Antisemitismus). There can be no doubt that Heidegger describes «the Jews» as «a kind of humanity» that lives by «the principle of race», displays «empty rationality and calculative capacity», and employs «the machinations of world Jewry» to propagate a «homeless» and «worldless» way of life accompanied by «ahistorical» and «atemporal» thinking — as «a people» that took advantage of «the metaphysics of the West», «especially in its modern development», to pursue «the uprooting of all being(s) from Being» as its «world-historical task». The question is whether in his narrative Heidegger assigns a relevant or pivotal role to his former mentor, colleague, and friend, Edmund Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological movement and a Jewish convert to Christianity, because he seems to suggest that there is a connection between Husserl's Jewishness and his philosophy, as well as that his break with him was the result of the latter's failure to deal with Being in terms of time or history. This paper investigates whether Heidegger's remarks and Trawny's reflections have any significant implications for an understanding of the philosophical relationship between Husserl and Heidegger. It finds that Trawny makes a strong case that a number of Heidegger's statements in his Black Notebooks reveal him to be generally guilty of «ontological-historical anti-Semitism», but that he does not present a convincing case that in these texts Heidegger's critique of Husserl specifically is motivated by «ontological-historical anti-Semitism».