Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

Heidegger’s ideas from Heidegger’s Nazi past, hestill wants to credit those ideas as original toHeidegger, so that we continue to read Being andTime, as opposed to another book with similarcontent written by an anti-Nazi at roughly the sametime. It is therefore crucial to Rorty’s argument thatBeing and Time’s profundity be so great as tooverride the despicability of its author and theconsequences to which he contributed – at least bynot having tried to prevent and contain them,especially once the Nazis started to use Heideggerfor legitimation. Is Rorty right that the nobility ofHeidegger’s life-project excuses his massive failureof negative responsibility?The intuitive plausibility of Rorty’s defence ofHeidegger capitalises on historical memory todeform in a particular way. Memorability is tiedto distinctiveness, which then tends to be read backas the essence of what is remembered. Thus,Heidegger is evaluated as a great philosopher whohappened to be a Nazi, rather than a Nazi whohappened to be a great philosopher. I shall dub thistendency the haec ergo quid fallacy. In ordinaryEnglish: ‘My essence is defined by whatever distinguishesme from others.’ This inference is fallaciousfor two reasons: first, distinctions among individualsmay be superficial in relation to theirunderlying commonalities; second, and more189