Martin Heidegger's overt alliance with the Nazis and the specific relation between this alliance and his philosophical thought-the degree to which his concepts are linked to a thoroughly disreputable set of political beliefs-have been the topic of a storm of recent debate. Written ten years before this debate, this study by France's leading sociologist and cultural theorist is both a precursor of that debate and an analysis of the institutional mechanisms involved in the production of philosophical discourse. Though Heidegger is aware of and acknowledges the legitimacy of purely philosophical issues (in his references to canonic authors, traditional problems, and respect for academic taboos), Bourdieu points out that the complexity and abstraction of Heidegger's philosophical discourse stems from its situation in the cultural field, where two social and intellectual dimensions-political thought and academic thought-intersect. Bourdieu concludes by suggesting that Heidegger should not
