Zwischen den stühlen? On the taxonomic anxieties of modern Jewish philosophy

European Journal of Jewish Studies

Volumn 1, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 105-134

  Zank, Michael ^a,b  

^a Department of Religion ^*

^b BOSTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049165784     PISSN: 10259996     EISSN: 1872471X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/187247107780557191     Document Type: Review

References (16)

1. There is a considerable body of literature on the history of Jewish philosophy. For a general orientation see the recent History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (New York: Routledge, 1997)
2. There are many excellent editions, translations, studies, and textbooks on the most important medieval philosophers and philosophical commentators available today. For a general introduction see Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)
3. The canon of modern Jewish philosophical works begins with Mendelssohn's Jerusalem and ends with Rosenzweig's Star. Spinoza is a precondition of modern Jewish philosophy (for reasons, see further below). Levinas, Fackenheim, etc. relate to and interpret the canon of modern Jewish philosophies and hence constitute a secondary phenomenon. Martin Buber's early writings constitute cultural Zionist propaganda rather than Jewish philosophy, and his mature works (beginning with the aborted project for which I and Thou were the prolegomena) belongs into a different canon altogether. See the author's "Buber and Religionswissenschaft: The Case of His Studies on Biblical Faith," in Michael Zank, ed., New Perspectives on Martin Buber (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 61-82
4. On Cohen's hermeneutics cf. Almut Bruckstein, Ethics of Maimonides (Madison, WI: University of Winsconsin Press, 2003)
5. Cf. Jürgen Habermas, "Der deutsche Idealismus der jüdischen Philosophen" (1961), in idem, Philosophisch-politische Profile (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1971), 42ff
6. Cf. August Boeckh, Encyklopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften, ed. Ernst Bratuscheck (2nd ed. Rudolf Klussmann) (Leipzig: Teubner, 1886). It is important to note that the magnum opus of Zacharias Frankel, founding director of the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary, utilized Boeckh's theory of the encyclopedia to describe the structure of the Mishna in the first modern analysis of this founding document of rabbinic civilization. See Darkhey ha-Mishnah (Hebr.) (Leipzig: H. Hunger, 1859)
7. As an example of recent discussions on this matter, see Stephen Prothero, "Belief Unbracketed: A Case for the Religion Scholar to Reveal More of Where He or She Is Coming From," Harvard Divinity Bulletin 32, no. 2 (2004): 10-11
8. and see also "Four Responses to Belief Unbracketed," Harvard Divinity Bulletin 32, no. 3 (2004): 16-18
9. See Leo Strauss, "On the Interpretation of Genesis," in Judaism and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth H. Green (Albany/NY: SUNY Press, 1997), 359-76
10. See 〈http://www.ajsnet.org/mission.htm〉
11. For example, at Boston College and the University of Notre Dame, which are among the premier Catholic universities in the US
12. Steven Kepnes, ed., Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age (New York: New York University Press, 1996)
13. See the review of this author in Religious Studies Review 25, no. 2, (1999): 153-59
14. Cf. http://www.bu.edu/mzank/STR/science-phil.html
15. Cf. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, "The Critique of Reason in Modern Philosophy and the Cognitive Status of Religion," American Catholic Philosophical Association Proceedings 74 (2001): 53-63
16. Cf. Yirmiyahu Yovel, Dark Riddle: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998)