Faith and Philosophy

Volume 15, Issue 1, January 1998

George Connell
Pages 28-40

Deconstructing Caputo’s Demythologizing Heidegger

John Caputo’s Demythologizing Heidegger represents an important, distinctive, and intriguing attempt to make sense of Heidegger’s notorious involvement with Nazism. Where others have tended to emphasize biographical and sociological factors in understanding Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism, Caputo traces that involvement to fateful turns in Heidegger’s development as a thinker. While I am sympathetic with such an undertaking, I find Caputo’s account highly questionable and even self-opposed, especially as regards his apparent valorization of Kierkegaard and of biblical faith as influences that could have saved Heidegger from Nazism had he not turned away from them in favor of Nietzsche and the presocratic Greeks.