Martin Heidegger Society

Martin Heidegger Society
Name	Martin Heidegger Society
Founded	1970s
Founder	Scholars of Martin Heidegger, Encyclopaedia Dramatica
Headquarters	Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Fields	Continental philosophy, Phenomenology, Existentialism

Martin Heidegger Society

The Martin Heidegger Society is an academic organization dedicated to the study and promotion of the work of Martin Heidegger and related thinkers. It brings together scholars from universities such as University of Freiburg, University of Marburg, University of Tübingen, Humboldt University of Berlin and institutions like the German Philosophical Society to sponsor research, publications, and conferences on topics intersecting with figures including Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

History

Founded in the 1970s by scholars influenced by the postwar resurgence of interest in Phenomenology and Existentialism, the Society emerged amid debates involving Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers, G. W. F. Hegel, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, and institutions such as the Max Planck Society and the German Research Foundation. Early meetings convened at venues like the University of Freiburg, the Free University of Berlin, and the University of Heidelberg, attracting participants from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan. Over time the Society developed ties with journals such as Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences and Journal of the History of Philosophy, and with publishers including Springer Science+Business Media, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press.

Mission and Activities

The Society’s stated mission encompasses archival research in collections like the Heidegger Archive, critical editions of texts comparable to the Schriften and the Black Notebooks, comparative studies involving Martin Buber, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, and pedagogical initiatives in cooperation with universities and institutes such as the European Graduate School, New School for Social Research, and the Center for Advanced Studies. Activities include organizing seminars on themes drawn from works like Being and Time, engagements with translations in collaboration with translators connected to Penguin Books, Routledge, and Harvard University Press, and outreach to cultural institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Goethe-Institut.

Membership and Governance

Membership comprises professors and researchers affiliated with departments at institutions such as Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, Sorbonne University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto, and Australian National University. Governance typically features an elected board modeled on structures used by the American Philosophical Association and the British Society for Phenomenology, with roles such as President, Secretary, and Treasurer elected at annual general meetings. Advisory committees have included scholars associated with the Hegel Society of America, the Kant-Gesellschaft, and research centers like the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin’s institutes.

Conferences and Publications

The Society hosts biennial conferences and regional symposia at venues including the University of Notre Dame, Princeton Theological Seminary, University of Salamanca, Scuola Normale Superiore, and the University of Tokyo. Proceedings have appeared in edited volumes published by De Gruyter, Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge, and in special issues of journals such as Mind, Philosophy Today, and Continental Philosophy Review. The Society also supports monograph series that feature scholarship on relations between Heidegger and figures like Martin Heidegger’s translators and commentators: Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Lacan, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Controversies and Criticism

The Society has navigated contentious debates stemming from controversies around Martin Heidegger’s political affiliations and the publication of the Black Notebooks, prompting engagement with historians and critics including Victor Farias, Richard Wolin, Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Faye, and defenders such as Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Löwith. Criticism has emerged in venues involving the New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, and academic forums linked to the Institute for Advanced Study and the Royal Society of Arts, focusing on ethical readings of Heidegger’s corpus and intersections with thinkers like Carl Schmitt, Friedrich Hölderlin, Oswald Spengler, and Rudolf Carnap.

International and Affiliated Societies

Affiliated and sister organizations include the Heidegger Circle, regional chapters in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and collaborations with the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, the European Society for the Study of Contemporary Philosophy, the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, and national bodies such as the French Philosophical Society, the Italian Philosophical Society, the Japanese Society for Phenomenology, and the Brazilian Society of Philosophy.

Category:Philosophy organizations Category:Continental philosophy