Who were the professional philosophers in Nazi Germany?

Eric Schwitzgebel has a post about professional philosophers (and ultimately ethics professors) in Nazi Germany. How many of them supported the Nazis? How many took a stand against the Nazis? How many tried to be neutral on the matter?

In his post, Schwitzgebel determines who the professional philosophers were by looking at the number of people who completed a Habilitation in philosophy. That's a sensible approach, but it should form only one of several criteria for counting professional philosophers.

To see why, note that one of the first academics to be dismissed by the Nazis was Paul Tillich. Though known chiefly as a theologian, Tillich had a doctorate in philosophy (but no Habilitation) and periodically taught in philosophy departments. At the time of his dismissal, he was a philosophy professor at the University of Frankfurt.

Another German professional philosopher in the 1930's who lacked the Habilitation was Karl Jaspers, who was teaching philosophy at Heidelberg in 1937 when he was forced into retirement by the Nazis (because his wife was Jewish). Jaspers' training was in medicine. I don't think he even had a philosophy degree, let alone the Habilitation.

Finally, there is Kurt Huber, who was part of the White Rose resistance group and was executed by the Nazis in 1943.

Huber's higher degrees were in musicology and psychology, but (according to the above site) Huber, a Leibniz scholar, started teaching philosophy at Munich in 1926. I think it was in that capacity that he met and influenced the younger members of the White Rose group (esp. Sophie Scholl). Moreover, Huber actually joined the Nazis in 1940, apparently due to his opposition to communism, before becoming a martyr in the White Rose resistance.

Fermor and 'Pips' Schey in The Hare With Amber Eyes

One of the most popular entries in the books-of-the-year lists for 2010 is Edmund de Waal's The Hare With Amber Eyes, which chronicles the history of his family, the Ephrussis, and their collection of netsuke.

The book has no index, which is unfortunate, since some interesting characters turn up in its pages. For instance, Patrick Leigh Fermor puts in an appearance on p. 149. Part way through his Danubian trek, he stayed at Kövecses (which appears now under its Slovakian name, Strkovec), where his host was Philipp ('Pips') Schey, Baron von Koromla, who was the brother of de Waal's great-grandmother, Emmy Schey von Koromla. The family's noble title seems to have been conferred on an earlier Philipp Schey for his services in support of the Habsburgs in the 1848 uprising (more here).

Fermor describes this visit on pp. 265-75 (in Ch. 10) of A Time of Gifts. A relevant passage from Fermor's book is quoted (in English) on this Polish (?) site.

This might be a picture of Pips Schey's house, which is now apparently a home for disabled adults, and this might be a photo of the neaby village of Kissujfalu, where Schey and Fermor parted company:

Fermor thoroughly enjoyed his visit with Schey, who introduced the young traveller to Proust's works. One of the Paris Ephrussis, Charles Ephrussi, knew Proust and was (along with Charles Haas) a model for Charles Swann.

A bookstore trend that must die

A new section at a local bookstore:

There's a 'Controversial Knowledge' section at Amazon, too. Do the books outside this section contain uncontroversial knowledge, or just non-knowledge?

Common Sense & Uncommon Sensibility

Gilbert Ryle, whose 'ordinary language' philosophy championed common sense (and whose physician brother invented the Ryle Tube). Peter Smith of Logic Matters has posted Ryle's paper on Jane Austen, 'Jane Austen and the Moralists'

Chris Power on Bruno Schulz's short stories, and John Self on Schulz's Street of Crocodiles

Mr. Waggish on Thomas Bernhard's nihilistic ranting evasions 

Philip Lopate on a new collection of Bernhard's addresses, My Prizes: An Accounting: "No one could be less accepting of the human condition, and so [Bernhard] tells the awards audiences that they are in for a future of endless cold, that life is meaningless and that Austrians are apathetic, megalomaniac, monotonous. Strangely, these speeches did not go over well."

E. M. Cioran 'belongs to the tradition of French and especially German aphorists, like Lichtenberg, Novalis, and finally Nietzsche.' According to the linked article (in The Hindu), Cioran regarded Meister Eckhart as the 'profoundest thinker of the Occident.'

Sean Kelly on 'navigating past nihilism'

A new biography of Romain Gary

Charles Taylor on 'The Meaning of Secularism'

From 2005, 'Schiller's relevance for us and for all times'

More vintage Toronto bashing by Wyndham Lewis and now Hemingway, too

I picked up William Burrill's book on Hemingway's years in Toronto, when Hemingway wrote for the Toronto Star. Curious as to whether Hemingway had crossed paths with Wyndham Lewis, I checked the index for Lewis' name. Unfortunately, it appears that they didn't meet. In fact, it doesn't look like their stays in Toronto overlapped -- Hemingway lived here (Toronto) only in 1919-20.

Lewis, though, is quoted by Burrill as calling Toronto a 'sanctimonious icebox.' Burrill then quotes Lewis as follows:

If New York is brutal and babylonian, in this place [Toronto] it is as if someone were sitting on your chest -- having taken the care to gag you first -- and were croaking out [hymns] ... from dawn to dayshut.

                                                    --p,. 153 of Hemingway: the Toronto Years, William Burrill

As for Hemingway, well, Robert Fulford quotes him as remarking of Toronto (in a letter to Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas), 'What bothers me is why with my fine intelligence I ever came out here.'