Heidegger the Fox
Hannah Arendt's Hidden Dialogue
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4070624 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Jones (0000-0002-5448-8799, corresponding author), Michael T Jones (0009-0004-3131-4990) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Issue | 73 |
| Pages | 164 |
| Publication date | 1998-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New German Critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-033X • E-ISSN: 1558-1462 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/488654 |
| OpenAlex | W2325757623 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
An Aesopian fable of thirty-six lines from Hannah Arendt's diary of 1953 has recently appeared in translation, adapting a phrase the philosopher liked to use about himself while telling the true story of Heidegger the Fox.2 It tells of a fox that keeps getting caught in traps, eventually losing the natural protection of its fur; yet the fox is unaware of this disadvantage, since he is unable to distinguish traps from nontraps. Devoid of fur, he hits on an original idea: to build a trap as his own burrow. But the trap does not reveal itself as such, so he decides to decorate it beautifully and hang up signs inviting all comers to enter this trap, the most beautiful trap in the world. Nevertheless, many came. For this trap was our fox's burrow, and if you wanted to visit him where he was at home, you had to step into his trap. Since many came to visit, the fox came to regard himself as the best of all foxes, not an unreasonable claim, since nobody knows the nature of traps better than one who sits in a trap his whole life long. The many who came included the writer of these rueful lines, first as
Psychoanalysis · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2023 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |