Franz Rosenzweig and the Systematic Task of Philosophy - Softcover

Pollock, Benjamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107691311 ISBN 13: 9781107691315

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Benjamin Pollock argues that Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption is devoted to a singularly ambitious philosophical task: grasping 'the All' - the whole of what is - in the form of a system. In asserting Rosenzweig's abiding commitment to a systematic conception of philosophy, this book breaks rank with the assumptions about Rosenzweig's thought that have dominated recent scholarship. Indeed, the Star's importance is often claimed to lie precisely in the way it opposes philosophy's traditional drive for systematic knowledge and upholds instead a 'new thinking' attentive to the existential concerns, the alterity, and even the revelatory dimension of concrete human life. Pollock shows that these very innovations in Rosenzweig's thought are in fact to be understood as part and parcel of the Star's systematic program. But this is only the case, Pollock claims, because Rosenzweig approaches philosophy's traditional task of system in a radically original manner.

About this title

Review:

'The book is a must-read for anybody with a serious interest in modern Jewish thought. But it should find an audience, not only among scholars and students of Jewish studies, but also among those interested in continental philosophy, post-Kantian philosophy and contemporary Christian theology. Anybody who has ever struggled with the Star, and many more who one hopes will struggle with it, will be grateful for this book.' Paul Franks, The University of Toronto

'Going against the grain of a number of dominant strands in the interpretation of Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption, especially in the last twenty years, Benjamin Pollock returns to the way in which a number of Rosenzweig's contemporaries and, Pollock claims, Rosenzweig himself understood the task of the Star: as a systematic attempt to know 'the All.' Lucidly written and meticulously researched, this book will enliven discussion not only about Rosenzweig's Star but also about the charge of philosophical thinking, broadly understood.' Leora Batnitzky, Princeton University

Book Description:

Benjamin Pollock argues that Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption is devoted to the task of grasping 'the All' - the whole of what is - in the form of a system, and that it at once calls on its readers to realize in their concrete decisions, actions, and relations the very same 'All' which they can come to know.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1107691311
• ISBN 13: 9781107691315
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 354