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Heidegger is again a protagonist in the philosophy scene, exactly when some were ready to declare he was out of it for good. After the posthumous publication of the Black Notebooks, a succession of international meetings, seminars and conferences has been taking place. The debate has come out of universities and gained the first pages in newspapers. It has been a very long time since a philosopher last managed to raise such interest, and with such unusual fervour: the debate has reached heated, polemic, even violent tones.

Donatella Di Cesare, who has been the undisputed protagonist of this Heideggerian revival – both in Italy and abroad, where her Heidegger and the Jews has been translated in five languages – has now written a book that retraces the steps of this debate and uses them as a contest for a vast reflection on the troublesome legacy of the German philosopher.

What shall we do now? Leave Heidegger aside? Shall we get rid once and for all of this unsettling philosopher or come back to Meßkirch? Shall we disown our father or defend him blindly? With a simple, narrative style, this book describes the new scenarios that have opened in contemporary philosophy, and points out the limits both of disavowal and of a return to the origins.

Heidegger still makes us think, because he gives us things to think about. This is his challenge to the new century. Maybe we will need to think about Heidegger against Heidegger, and follow a third way – the steepest of all – in order to draw strength from his thought and come to positions that, certainly, he would not have liked.

Donatella Di Cesare is full professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University La Sapienza of Rome. She counts among the most engaged philosophers in the current public debate. Among her last books: Grammatica dei tempi messianici (2011), La giustizia deve essere di questo mondo (2012), Se Auschwitz è nulla. Contro il negazionismo (2012), Crimini contro l’ospitalità (2014). For Bollati Boringhieri, she has published Israele. Terra, ritorno, anarchia [Israel. Land, Return, Anarchy] (2014), Heidegger & Sons. Eredità e futuro di un filosofo [Heidegger & Sons. Legacy and Future of a Philosopher] (2015), Heidegger e gli ebrei. I “Quaderni neri” [Heidegger and the Jews. The “Black Notebooks”] (2014), new expanded edition (2016).