Last year, Heidegger’s “Black Notebooks” were released in Germany and caused a stir both in Germany and abroad after passages containing strong anti-Semitic language came to light. Now, Gunter Figal, the chair of the Martin Heidegger Society has stepped down from his role after being “shocked” by the passages in the Black Notebooks.

Figal is the philosophy chair at the University of Freiburg and had been the chair of the Heidegger society since 2003.

The Black Notebooks have yet to be released in English, but various translated passages seem pretty damning.

The Daily Nous offered this translation of Figal’s statement:

“As chairman of a society, which is named after a person, one is in certain way a representative of that person. After reading the Schwarze Hefte, especially the antisemitic passages, I do not wish to be such a representative any longer. These statements have not only shocked me, but have turned me around to such an extent that it has become difficult to be a co-representative of this.”

Heidegger had laid out the publishing schedule for his posthumous works, dictating that the Black Notebooks not be released until long after he was gone. Still, thousands of pages of documents in Heidegger’s archives are still closely guarded by his heirs, who refuse to release them.

Read the original German article here.

[H/T The Daily Nous]