In: Phänomenologische Forschungen, 1996, Neue Folge, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1996), pp. 67-83.
About the relationship between Husserl and Heidegger, Wolz-Gottwald observes that Heidegger gave up on the descriptive claims of philosophy in his lecture of GA 29/30: Heidegger focuses on the “formal indication,” which is, according to the author, the same as “falling back from possibilities of rational argumentation” (69). Indications and hints are not “definitions”; they are not “direct propositions about something.” — Well, yes. On the surface level, this seems to be an important distinction between “rationality” and “irrationality”.
The author constructs the image of Husserl as a philosopher of “conceptual precision and clarity and rigorous (streng) theory” and Heidegger as the philosopher of mere indication and concepts that simply “hint at” something. Of course, naturally, obviously,… the later Heidegger is even worse than that: not even “formal indications” but rather: “a thinking without bridges”, a thinking that broke and destroyed all “bridges” of explanation; the late philosophy of Heidegger is, according to the author, a philosophy that is incapable of “walking the path of argumentation” nor capable of “following along this path” (69).
Very strong claims that we can discuss a little bit later. Just one contradiction should be mentioned, since the author himself acknowledges, with reference to the famous letter of Heidegger to K. Löwith, that the formal indication is valid even for the late Heidegger (69, footnote 8). This contradicts the author’s claims that the late philosophy is not even “indicating anymore” (69).
On the next page, the author links this to Heidegger’s various claims that philosophy ought to be transformative. Instead of systematic, clear, precise philosophy with explanations Heidegger only wants existentialist transformations (70). In the footnotes, the author even links “this kind of philosophy” (Heidegger’s philosophy) to totalitarianism, quoting (out of context) Klaus Held and H. Ebeling. Ebeling speaks of an “Ethos der einsamen Entscheidung unter der führungslosen Führung des Todes”. Being and Time is a theoretical anarchnism, proclaiming the necessity of breaking free from “all rules and laws” which means that Being and Time could become the philosophical foundation upon which the “will” of the Führer could be declared “law” (70, footnote 14). There are no arguments in this footnote, only references to “authoritative figures” who have said something that kind of resembles the author’s own perspective.
The author then thinks it is necessary to subject Heidegger’s philosophy to a “rationalizing and critical analysis” (71). One of the criticisms will be, as announced on this page, that Heidegger’s philosophy makes itself immune to critique (71), and therefore stops being a form of “responsible philosophizing” (71) and worse: increasingly becomes “incomprehensible”. Haha. Let’s see what the arguments are.