The fact that this extremely short abbreviation of Aristotle’s biography does not contain any real information clearly expresses Heidegger’s disregard of the genre. All personal details are intentionally left out in his version. Heidegger does not mention the fact that Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Stagira as the son of a doctor, nor does he pay any attention to the fact that the ‘Stagirite’ was the tutor of Alexander the Great before the latter became the king of Macedonia and a merciless imperialist. Even the philosopher’s years as a student at Plato’s Academy are of no importance to his distant German successor. In fact, as long as we assume that thinking is not the prerogative of academic philosophers, Heidegger’s sentence could be the biography of any other person that ever lived.

Heidegger’s portrayal of Aristotle’s biography, however, is more than mere mockery. The implicit assumption that underlies this parody, is that philosophy should only be concerned with a person’s thoughts and not with his actions. In the – heavily edited – transcription of the above mentioned lecture, Heidegger transforms his refusal to elaborate on Aristotle’s life into a maxim:

“Regarding the personality of a philosopher, the following is of interest: He was born than and than, he worked and died. The ‘Gestalt’ of the philosopher, or something similar, will not be given here.”(Heidegger 2002:5)

In this view, the person has nothing to do with the thinker; or, a bit less radical, there is no need to pay attention to the life of the former because all the philosophically relevant elements are already present in the writings of the latter.

Heidegger’s categorical rejection of biography entails a normative definition of the practice of philosophy. Aristotle, as well as any other philosopher, should be judged solely on the basis of his work and not on the contingent facts and anecdotes that surround it. In Heidegger’s view – and I dare to claim that for once the little magician from Meßkirch speaks for the majority of his peers – biography has no value in philosophy.

Implicitly, Heidegger’s normative definition of his academic practice also works the other way around. If philosophy is only concerned with a person’s theoretical thoughts, there is no need for the individual thinker to be overly concerned with everyday life either. A philosopher’s life takes place in an abstract, conceptual realm. His only responsibility are his ideas. All moral, aesthetic, and practical issues are ultimately meaningless distractions that need to be overcome. A philosopher should dedicate – preferably even sacrifice – his entire life to his thoughts.

Martin Heidegger’s denial to acknowledge the relevance of biographical contingencies for philosophy is ironic to say the least. His name is inseparable from a controversial biographical event: his Nazi engagement and presumed anti-semitism. There is large corpus of academic studies that discusses to what degree Heidegger works are influenced by these biographical events, and a substantial subset that argues that it is entirely contaminated by the fascist ideology.

Without entering these moral, political and psychological debates, I dare to claim that it indisputable that there is a strong relation between the crucial events in Heidegger’s biography and the decisive turns in his philosophy. In my opinion, the philosopher’s life had a direct, almost measurable impact on his thinking. To give a detailed analysis of the reciprocal relation between Heidegger’s philosophy and biography, however, exceeds the goals and limitations of this essay. For present purposes. it suffices to briefly mention two of the most obvious cases:

1. In 1933, Martin Heidegger’s enthusiasm about the person Adolf Hitler, and his wife Elfride’s enthousiasm about the National Socialistic Party (Safranski ..), led the philosopher to accept the rectorate of the university of Freiburg. This new stage in his career almost immediately found a reflection in the concept of ‘leader’ (Führer) that he develops in his acceptance speech The Self-Assertion of the German University (1983). This concept, however, was completely absent and even inconsistent with the existentialist philosophy of Being and Time (1927).

2. Twelve months later, Heidegger’s resignation and subsequent disappointment with the Hitler and the National Socialistic movement resulted in an ever-growing scepticism about the possibilities of human action altogether. A development in Heidegger’s thinking that culminated in his so-called “Letter on Humanism” (1946) and his so-called ‘second’ magnum opus Contributions to Philosophy (1989).

In order to fully comprehend – or reject – Heidegger’s philosophy, it seems crucial to take such events into consideration. In my opinion, the important and often sudden turns in the philosopher’s thoughts – which have been heavily debated amongst Heidegger scholars – cannot be explained solely on the basis of his writings. It is neither possible nor preferable to ignore the influence of such biographical contingencies on his philosophy altogether. Heidegger’s own life story shows that the harsh line that he drew in order to separate thought from life needs to be softened.

Reading Friedrich Kittler’s Musik und Mathematik

The name Friedrich Kittler is inextricably linked to Media Theory, but in fact the rich diversity of his work exceeds this disciplinary label.

Throughout his career, Kittler has attempted to achieve “the expulsion of Spirit from the humanities,” as the title of one of his early essays—“Austreibung des Geistes aus den Geisteswissenschaften” (1980)—announces. For a contemporary English-speaking audience, a better translation of the same phrase might be “overcoming humanism.” This has been Kittler’s goal ever since, as becomes particularly evident in seminal works such as Discourse Networks (1983) and Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (1985), though it is also apparent in more recent texts such as “Universities: Wet, Hard, Soft, and Harder” (2000).

One of the most important but undervalued accomplishments of Kittler’s work is that he redefines the relation between humanities and science. Kittler’s emphasis on the media-technological a priori of knowledge not only allows him to criticize and reject many of the age-old dogmas in the humanities, but, conversely, poststructuralism and psychoanalysis enable him to reflect critically on technology. Kittler thereby envisions a new kind of humanities—one that can no longer bear that name, of course!

This new seminar focuses on Kittler’s latest and perhaps most ambitious project, Musik und Mathematik. This work aims to present a cultural history of the Western world in four volumes, starting in ancient Greece, then passing through Rome, the middle ages and up to the present computerized age. In 2006 the first volume appeared (Wilhelm Fink Verlag), bearing the subtitle Hellas 1: Aphrodite. Written by Kittler with the help of dozens of assistants, the book explores the early entanglement of eros, music, mathematics, and the alphabet. On the basis of an original and arguably controversial reinterpretation of the Sirens passage from the Odyssey, Kittler aims to show how Western culture was born from the notation of the vowels of the Sirens’ song. Kittler takes mathematics to refer to the moment of, and the desire for, learning implicated in this singular event.

The book’s narrative comprises a patchwork of contrasting sections, containing in-depth studies of Greek texts, references to contemporary (popular) culture, travels to the Tyrrhenean Sea, and discussions with Theodor W. Adorno, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and countless others. Balancing as it does between grand synthesis and local, rather free association, the book invites a patient and critical reading. The organizers propose to afford this strange but inspiring book the time required for such a reading. In the Fall of 2009, alternating between locations at Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam, they invite scholars from all disciplinary backgrounds to join in the reading. In view of the Homeric context of the book, specialists in ancient Greek, archeology, and other relevant fields will be asked to present their views on the books’ theses.

For more details, please visit the website or contact the organizers: //