What Husserl is doing here is showing that for each person, their participation in interpersonal activities
and consequentially objective meanings is not simply an paring of you and me to make a we, but a ‘we’ from
each person’s own interpretative vantage. — Joshs

I see that connection as a kind of standing wave where it is difficult to make out if the observation is a limit to be observed as something applied to the region of the "personal" or a limit that restricts the use of a universal.

Put that way, there is something missing here. People claim to own some territory. I am trying to follow the logic as best as i can.

Why do you assume I've done no research? Because I poke fun at the fellow? Not all of us follow in his goosesteps, you know. His infatuation with Hitler, the fact he was a party member even to the end of the war, his contempt for the Jews, are all well known. His acolytes just don't care about such things. I do. Have you read those charming speeches he gave as rector in Freiburg? Pertinent parts of his Black Notebooks and letters to brother Fritz? If not, I'm ahead of you when it comes to research. But it may be you find them endearing, or at least tolerable. So be it, but don't get peeved when others point out what he said and wrote.

Prove that the term "the Jews" meant all racially Jewish people for Heidegger. If Trump says the Chinese started the virus, does this mean every mom and pop store owner in Beijing is responsible for the pandemic?

What would you contend he meant by referring to "the Jews"? So-and-so who lived a few blocks away? In what way do you find that pertinent? No doubt some of his best friends were Jewish.

Sorry, this is fun but I must sign off for now.

his contempt for the Jews, are all well known. — Ciceronianus the White

No, his contempt for the Jews is NOT well known, it is up for constant debate. He never bought into the virulent Nazi anti-semitism that presented Jews as amoral vermin. His comments about jews in the black notebooks had to do with a very different sort of cultural analysis, the same sort he applied to the Russians and the Americans. I asked you about Wittgenstein because Wittgenstein himself harbored many anti-semitic views
that were fashionable at the time: that jews are secretive
and mere copiers of European creativity. He even said he understood why a European country would want to keep Jews out.

Thre reaearch you’ve done is one or two-line snippets from the black notebooks with absolutely no background context from his philosophy to put it into any perspective. He approved the release of these notebooks because they are philosophical notes, and cannot be comprehended properly without knowing the philosophical background.

From his biographer:

“Was Heidegger anti-Semitic? Certainly not in the sense of the ideological lunacy of Nazism. It is significant that neither in his lectures and philosophical writings, nor in his political speeches and pamphlets are there any anti-Semitic or racist remarks. Thus, when Heidegger in his circular before the May Day celebrations described "the building of a new spiritual world for the German people" as the "command of the hour," he did not wish to exclude from this task anyone willing to cooperate. Heidegger's Nazism was decisionist. What mattered to him was not origin but decision. In his terminology, man should be judged not by his "thrown-ness" but by his "design." To that extent he was even able to help hard-pressed Jewish colleagues. When Eduard Fraenkel, professor of classical philology, and Georg von Hevesy, professor of physical chemistry, were to be dismissed be-cause they were Jews, Heidegger in a letter to the Ministry of Education tried to prevent this. He used the tactical argument that a dismissal of these two Jewish professors, "whose extraordinary scientific standing was beyond doubt," 17 would be especially harmful to a "borderland university,"l8 on which foreign critical eyes were particularly focused. Besides, both men were "Jews of the better sort, men of exemplary character." He could vouch for the irre-proachable conduct of both men, "insofar as it is humanly possible to predict these things."19 Fraenkel was dismissed despite Heidegger's submission, while Hevesy was allowed to stay on for the time being. ”

According to the Wikipedia article Heidegger struggled over the new law expelling Jewish teachers. Here in America we have conspiracy theorists everywhere, and in the 20's and 30's the conspiracy theory was that many Jews had a coordinated plan to make Germany modern and communist. Yes, the conspiracy theory was an exaggeration. But what many meant in that day by "the Jew" was what the national conspiracy thought was an attempt to change their culture, values, and entire political system. Nobody saw how far it would go once the war started, and not all members are the Nazi party thought all Jewish people were subhuman. There is many examples of certain Jews being called "noble Jews" by Nazi members, to distinguish them from who they thought were political enemies. Lastly, the majority of Germans didn't even know about the concentration camps until after the war

From Heidegger’s biographer:

“ In the cultural field, competition anti-Semitism genera]]y includes the as-sumption of a specific "Jewish spirit." But this Jewish spirit that one should beware of does not exist for Heidegger. Indeed he always objected to this kind of "spiritual" anti-Semitism. In a lecture in the mid-1930s he defended Spi-noza, declaring that if his philosophy was "Jewish," then all philosophy from Leibniz to Hegel was Jewish too. This rejection of "spiritual" anti-Semitism is all the more surprising as Heidegger is usually fond of emphasizing the German element in philosophy, contrasting it with the rationalism of the French, the utilitarianism of the English, and the obsession with technology of the Americans. But unlike his comrades-in-arms and rivals Krieck and Baeumler, Heidegger never used this "German element" in philosophy for differentiation from the "Jewish" one. Karl Jaspers, asked in 1945 for an opinion on Heidegger's anti-Semitism, came to the conclusion that in the 1920S Heidegger had not been anti-Semitic. "With respect to this question he did not always exercise discretion. This doesn't rule out the possibility that, as I must assume, in other cases anti-Semitism went against his conscience and his taste."27 Certainly his kind of anti-Semitism had not been a reason for him to join the Nazi movement. Nor, on the other hand, did the (soon to be revealed) brutality of Nazi anti-Semitism deter him from the movement. He did not support its actions, but he accepted them. When Nazi students in the summer of 1933 stormed the building of a Jewish student fraternity and proceeded with such violence that the public prosecutor's office could not avoid initiat-ing an investigation, and in this context requested information from Rector Heidegger, he brusquely refused to pursue any further inquiries on the grounds that those involved in the raid had not all been students.”

Lastly, the majority of Germans didn't even know about the concentration camps until after the war — Gregory

Except all the people who carried out the program.
Who were those people? Why were there so many of them?

Germany had a population of 85 million at the start of the war. The majority supported the Nazi party but compared to the number of 85 MILLION hardly any Germans murdered a Jewish person. There were a select few in charged of the whole thing and Hitler was a schizophrenic trying to modulate his mental illness with meth, coke, heroin, and literally 70 other dubious substances. When the news of the concentration camps was dropped on Heidegger and the rest of Germany, most of them got a "I just cant talk about this" syndrome. Can anyone here prove that a single life was lost that is directly linked to Heidegger? The German clergy before the war said it was best to consider Jewish people as "guests" in the German nation. There were murderous thugs early on, but that was not your typical Nazi party member before war exploded. Hitler was a psychopath with incredible charismatic skills. Who really knows what was going on in that head the whole time. There was certainly some seriously evil malice behind the Holocaust, but this obsession with trying to figure out who was to blame where and when is just not healthy and distracts us from the seeing others evils in proportion

There was certainly some seriously evil malice behind the Holocaust, but this obsession with trying to figure out who was to blame where and when is just not healthy and distracts us from the seeing others evils in proportion — Gregory

I disagree. The desire to understand it as an event is healthy and is much different than framing the matter as an outburst of inchoate rage. You want to assign an explanation where others are exploring causes.

What would you contend he meant by referring to "the Jews"? — Ciceronianus the White

Maybe not this:

From Wittgenstein’s biographer:

“...it is clear that for most of the time when he talks of , Jews' he is thinking of a particular racial group. Indeed, what is most shocking about Wittgenstein's
remarks on Jewishness is his use of the language - indeed, the slogans - of racial anti-Semitism. T-he echo that really disturbs is not that of Sex and Character, but that of Mein Kampf Many of Hitler's
most outrageous suggestions - his characterization of the Jew as a parasite 'who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favourable medium invites him', his claim that theJews' contribution
to culture has been entirely derivative, that 'the Jew lacks those qualities which distinguish the races that are creative and hence culturally blessed', and, furthermore, that this contribution has been
restricted to an intellectual refinement of another's culture ('since the Jew ... was never in possession of a culture of his own, the foundations of his intellectual work were always provided by others') - this
whole litany ofIamentable nonsense finds a parallel in Wittgenstein's remarks of1931.

Were they not written by Wittgenstein, many of his pronouncements on the nature of Jews would be understood as nothing more
than the rantings of a fascist anti-Semite. 'It has sometimes been said',
begins one such remark, 'that the Jews' secretive and cunning nature is a result of their long persecution':
Wittgenstein wrote:

‘That is certainly untrue; on the other hand it is certain that they continue to exist despite this persecution only because they have an inclination towards such secretiveness. As we may say that this or that animal has escaped extinction only because of its capacity or ability to conceal itself. Of course I do not mean this as a reason for commending such a capacity, not by any_means. ‘

'They' escape extinction only because they avoid detection? And therefore they are, of necessity, secretive and cunning? This is anti-
Semitic paranoia in its most undiluted form - the fear of, and distaste for, the devious 'Jew in our midst'. So is Wittgenstein's adoption of the metaphor of illness. 'Look on this tumour as a perfectly normal
part of your body!' he imagines somebody suggesting, and counters with the question: 'Can one do that, to order? Do I have the power to
decide at will to have, or not to have, an ideal conception of my body?'
He goes on to relate this Hitlerian metaphor to the position of EuropeanJews:

Wittgenstein said:

‘Within the history of the peoples of Europe the history of the Jews is not treated as their intervention in European affairs would actually
merit, because within this history they are experienced as a sort of disease, and anomaly, and no one wants to put a disease on the same level as normal life [and no one wants to speak of a disease as ifit had the same rights as healthy bodily processes (even painful ones).

We may say: people can only regard this tumour as a natural part of their body if their whole feeling for the body changes (if the whole national feeling for the body changes). Otherwise the best they can do is put up with it. You can expect an individual man to display this sort of tolerance, or else to disregard such things; but you cannot expect this of a nation, because it is precisely not disregarding such things that
makes it a nation. I. e. there is a contradiction in expecting someone both to retain his former aesthetic feeling for the body and also to make the tumour welcome.

Those who seek to drive out the 'noxious bacillus' in their midst, he comes close to suggesting, are right to do so. Or, at least, one cannot expect them - as a nation - to do otherwise. ‘

It goes without saying that this metaphor makes no sense without a racial notion of Jewishness. The Jew, however 'assimilated', will never be a German or an Austrian, because he is not of the same 'body': he is experienced by that body as a growth, a disease. The metaphor is particularly apt to describe the fears of Austrian anti-Semites, because it implies that the more assimilated the Jews become, the more dangerous becomes the disease they represent to the otherwise healthy Aryan nation.”

I dunno. It seems, in part, to involve the Nietzschean idea of where the "Christian" form of ressentiment enters the conversation. That point of view suggests that whatever one might say about cultural differences has been absorbed into another culture. And that is why one could notice it as such.

Reading that did make me feel noxious, especially since I have Jewish family, but there are Hindus who say you cannt be a true Hindu in heart unless you are indian. Racial identity goes from history straight into our psyches and archetypes (to use a word from another man suspicious of Jews: mr. Jung). Whether race is truly a biological thing or not does not change the history and psychology of it

Whether race is truly a biological thing or not does not change the history and psychology of it — Gregory

Then what is it then? It is supposed to be something independent from other categories but nobody seems able to say what they are.

Race is similarities among people sharing a past history. You can call a single immediate family a race, their past ten generation, or any other combination you like. The fact that there are similarities is genes among groups of people is uncontestable. It's hard to discuss though because it seems to get into taboo territory and I honestly don't know enough about the science to discuss it much further. They say Asian people have the highest amount of Neanderthal genes (usually) and African people have none. But I am sure there are black people who do because race is not really a discrete thing. It's all a continuum, yet it is still certainly true that you are more similar to those in your side of the continuum then to people at other places in it

During the period from Darwin until WWII there was a lot of pseudo science about race going around. I don't think we should be judging Heidegger or Jung to strictly about what we know so many decades latter about the subject

What is the area of taboo? Characterizing people through stereotypes?

Anthropologists say that race doesn't exist in spite of the fact that everyone know knows that a race is not a discrete unit. A lot of people don't like talk about race, and the word itself is becoming less and less acceptable

I am not sure how to place this observation along side of your comments saying response to the genocide of WW2 is too wrapped up in assigning blame.

Anthropologists will try to throw you off track on this by saying "there is more diversity within species than between". But this only says that there is much individuality within the species, not that two Nigerians likely are more related than a Nigerian and a Russian

The

People simply fetishisze the evil of Nazi leaders

My mistake. Two people born in Nigeria are more likely to be similar than a Nigerian and a Russian

Well, some people are not focused upon the cult that perpetrated the crime but the crime itself.

That's fine

One thing I would like to run by you. I looked into the Kierkegaard text you mentioned on anxiety, which actually does complement those essays I mentioned from Weber and Durkheim about the anxiety of modernity. So, a thought that occurs to me, is that perhaps eliminative materialism, and other forms of materialism, which deny free will, are actually motivated by that anxiety. This is because if you deny free will, and the agency of the individual, then the whole anxiety of modernity, the 'fear of freedom' that Erich Fromm wrote about, is solved by that. You don't have fear of freedom, because you're not, and can't be, free. Problem solved! What do you think?

One thing I would like to run by you. I looked into the Kierkegaard text you mentioned on anxiety, which actually does complement those essays I mentioned from Weber and Durkheim about the anxiety of modernity. So, a thought that occurs to me, is that perhaps eliminative materialism, and other forms of materialism, which deny free will, are actually motivated by that anxiety. This is because if you deny free will, and the agency of the individual, then the whole anxiety of modernity, the 'fear of freedom' that Erich Fromm wrote about, is solved by that. You don't have fear of freedom, because you're not, and can't be, free. Problem solved! What do you think? — Wayfarer

First, the logic is all wrong, and it actually has a name, which is affirming the consequent. We don't first theorize about freedom, then concerns, worries, fear, issue from the mere assumption. Phenomenology is descriptive, not some self fulfilling prophesy. It begins with anxiety, that is, were ARE anxious, concerned in our everyday lives. Second, materialism in this reasoning would be ad hoc: not backed by its own merits as a sound theory, but just posited for the sole purpose of refuting freedom.

Third, and perhaps most important, and certainly the most difficult, is that what Kierkegaard and his ilk have in mind is not a description of social changes creating circumstances that are anxiety producing, but a structural feature of consciousness itself, as consciousness, that is what makes anxiety possible at all. Read into the third chapter, and we will have found that K is putting Time at the center of this possibility, that is in time the past, an established body of experiences, makes claims on the future, and if we simply go along with things and never question, second guess, interfere with events, then we never are able to sin (sin and its exposition IS the point of the book). What is sin? Sin occurs when we "posit" spirit, and this means we step back from our worldly existence and exercise freedom from the regular stream of events (as animals do, as things are, predictable) that would otherwise claim us. What K is talking about here is really a very simple matter: the stopping of one's affairs altogether, then, in the wake of this, realizing that you are not simply a thing, but are free to make choices. THEN, once this distance between you and rote behavior is achieved, you stand in sin, because in this affirmation, you realize that you are really a soul, and your essence belongs to God. I think K is close to Augustine on this: sin is the absence of God.
Or something like that. Those that follow, Husserl (not so much, really), Heidegger, Sartre, et al, don't take God as an essential part of it, but K's analysis of time and freedom and the anxiety of facing an unmade future is central to existentialism.

materialism in this reasoning would be ad hoc: not backed by its own merits as a sound theory, but just posited for the sole purpose of refuting freedom. — Constance

Quite.

I have acquired an edition of Anxiety now and will proceed with it.

The greatest killer in history was actually a Dutch king who ordered the slaughter and butchering of Africans over his lifetime. — Gregory

The question is not which people killed the most. The question is: do you want to live in a Nazi society? If yes, you are welcome to read from Nazi philosophers and find them fascinating. If not, I would suggest to read Husserl's phenomenology rather than the arianized version of Heidegger.

I have acquired an edition of Anxiety now and will proceed with it. — Wayfarer

Prepare to be irritated. He is not reader friendly. Doesn't even try to be. A lot in response to Hegel, and Hegel is ridiculous. But you don't need Hegel to read this.

The question is not which people killed the most. The question is: do you want to live in a Nazi society? If yes, you are welcome to read from Nazi philosophers and find them fascinating. If not, I would suggest to read Husserl's phenomenology rather than the arianized version of Heidegger. — Olivier5

If I were to go back in time, to "those" times, I would hate everyone's views, nearly everyone's. Blacks were Sambos, Chinamen were squinty eyed fools. But Heidegger wasn't nearly as bad as you suggest. He murdered no one, refused to post anti sematic materials while rector, didn't know how vile things were going to be, and only lasted a year at the post. Only kept his party membership to avoid persecution. His anti-Semitic statements are embedded in a general way of thinking, not hateful, but not constrained by our "postmodern" conscience which is often rather absurd.

But he considered it just an occasion bad judgment, and never publicly condemned what the Nazis had done. That pisses me off.