Sir, – With reference to Fintan O’Toole’s worry (“The Nazi past that causes a cultural problem”, April 5th) that the surreally overrated insights contained in Heidegger’s philosophical work “can’t be dumped”, let me reassure him: they can.
For Heidegger was not only a Nazi in his private views, he was also an inveterate purveyor of empty pretention in his intellectual life. In the opinion of many philosophers (and others), 21st century philosophy would be far better off if it abandoned the very worst of the anti-Enlightenment, nostalgicist pretension that hobbled the discipline during the 20th century, primarily due to the influence of Martin Heidegger. Yours, etc,
JAIME HYLAND,
Kuckhoffstraße,
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Berlin