Demythologizing Heidegger

"There is no other book that focuses on the religious significance of the many 'turnings' in Heidegger's thought, nor that addresses the question of Heidegger's politics textually rather than autobiographically." - Merold Westphal. John D. Caputo's critique of Martin Heidegger's texts assesses Heidegger's achievement as a thinker while locating the source of his ethical insensitivity and political blindness. Caputo traces the emergence in Heidegger's writings of the misguided notion that the Western tradition grew from a single Greek beginning, excluding everything Jewish and Christian. From the early Freiburg lectures to the later works, Caputo shows that the myth of Being was not a feature of Heidegger's writings in the 1920s, but that it arose in the 1930s as he moved into the orbit of National Socialism. This fatal move jettisoned from Heidegger's thought the ethics of mercy and justice that entered the Western tradition from biblical sources. Demythologizing Heidegger calls for a distinction between dangerous, elitist, hierarchizing myths such as Heidegger's and salutary, liberative, empowering myths that foster the humility of justice.

In contrast to Heidegger, Caputo points to the writings of Derrida, Lyotard, and Levinas for a flourishing discourse on justice.