This essay has two parts, each that was published earlier in different forms. The first, titled “How Critical Race Theory Can Be Antisemitic,” discusses how the current UUA’s dogmatic application of critical race theory as the only lens to view society is antisemitic. The second, titled “How Intolerance, Censorship, and Dogmatism Make Unitarian Universalism Increasingly Unwelcoming to Jews,” explains how Judaism and Jewish culture are about questioning, diversity of views, dissent, and debate—all things traditionally associated with UU—and how any space (...) that is dogmatic and illiberal will be unwelcoming to most Jews. (shrink)

This paper argues for a ‘contextualist’ approach to teaching antisemitism in philosophy class. The traditional ‘systematic’ approach emphasizes recognizing and dismantling antisemitic aspects in canonical philosophical texts. The introduced contextualist approach broadens the perspective, treating philosophy as a continuous debate embedded in cultural realities. It focuses on historical controversies rather than isolated arguments, includes the voice and the perspectives of the oppressed, and so has the potential to broaden traditional philosophical canons. In the second half of the (...) paper, we provide a case study of the contextualist approach, applying it to the ‘Berlin antisemitism controversy’ of 1879/80. We argue that the contextualist approach is particularly valuable when dealing with antisemitism as it teaches students to analyze arguments within the socio-political landscape and to identify antisemitic elements. The students thereby acquire the skills to discern antisemitic argumentation in other contexts as well. We suggest that this approach could be used to teach other debates in the history of philosophy, especially those tackling race, sex, and gender issues. (shrink)

Cet article examine le(s) lien(s) entre le racisme antinoir et l’antisémitisme en se référant à quatre traditions distinctes : les psychanalyses de Fanon et de Freud, l’École de Francfort, les travaux de Cedric Robinson et la tradition du contrat social dans la philosophie politique des débuts de l’époque moderne. Sa thèse principale est que le racisme antinoir et l’antisémitisme sont intimement liés par la logique et le fonctionnement – la phénoménologie – de l’État dans la tradition occidentale du contrat social. (...) En montrant comment cela se fait, nous pouvons répondre à des questions qui, sinon, restent en suspens dans les autres traditions mentionnées ci-dessus. En résumé, cet article montre comment le racisme antinoir émerge avec force de la logique de l’État dans la tradition du contrat social, tandis que l’antisémitisme se développe comme une négation déformée de cette logique. (shrink)

The following is an early, previously untranslated essay by Emmanuel Levinas concerning “the metaphysics of antisemitism.” This essay, published originally in 1938 for Paix et Droit, concerns the shared history and destiny of Jews and Christians, religious groups who maintain a relation of essential “foreignness” to, and so “do not belong” to, the “pagan” world. Levinas distinguishes between the long history of Jewish-Christian antagonism and the newer Nazi-style antisemitism, a particularly insidious “racism” that threatens both Jews and Christians. (...) Levinas calls for a renewed appreciation of the “vocation” common to Jews and Christians to advance Judeo-Christian “solidarity,” a solidarity that Levinas believes is increasingly necessary. (shrink)

The history of the Frankfurt School cannot be fully told without examining the relationships of Critical Theorists to their Jewish family backgrounds. Jewish matters had significant effects on key figures in the Frankfurt School, including Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, Leo Lowenthal and Herbert Marcuse. At some points, their Jewish family backgrounds clarify their life paths; at others, these backgrounds help to explain why the leaders of the School stressed the significance of antisemitism. In the post-Second World (...) War era, the differing relationships of Critical Theorists to their Jewish origins illuminate their distinctive stances toward Israel. This book investigates how the Jewish backgrounds of major Critical Theorists, and the ways in which they related to their origins, impacted upon their work, the history of the Frankfurt School, and differences that emerged among them over time. (shrink)

In this compelling narrative of antisemitism in German thought, Paul Rose proposes a fresh view of the topic. Beginning with an examination of the attitudes of Martin Luther, he challenges distinctions between theologically derived (medieval) and secular, "racial" (modern) antisemitism, arguing that there is an unbroken chain of antisemitic feeling between the two periods. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of (...) Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Unlike “Imperialism” and “Totalitarianism,” the last two chapters in Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, written in the United States in the 1940s, the completion of the first chapter, “Antisemitism”, was preceded by more than two decades of writing in Europe and in the United States, during which Arendt found it increasingly necessary to address issues related to the Jews’ political and social situation. The chapter may be only one part of the book, but it is in fact the (...) “origin of The Origins” and its cornerstone. In order to trace several themes of this seminal chapter, we must analyze the contribution of the French Jewish thinker, Bernard Lazare, to Arendt’s thinking. Without him, “Antisemitism” would never have coalesced and seen the light of day as a political analysis of the phenomenon. Without the “Antisemitism” chapter, The Origins of Totalitarianism would not have become a canonical work of twentieth-century political thought. (shrink)

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) developed a ‘Working Definition of Antisemitism’ in 2016. Whilst the definition has received a significant amount of media attention, we are not aware of any comprehensive philosophical analysis. This article analyses this definition. We conclude that the definition and its list of examples ought to be rejected. The urgency to do so stems from the fact that pro-Israel activists can and have mobilised the IHRA document for political goals unrelated to tackling antisemitism, (...) notably to stigmatise and silence critics of the Israeli government. This causes widespread self-censorship, has an adverse impact on freedom of speech, and impedes action against the unjust treatment of Palestinians. We also identify intrinsic problems in the way the definition refers to criticism of Israel similar ‘to that leveled against any other country’, ambiguous wording about ‘the power of Jews as a collective’, lack of clarity as to the Jewish people’s ‘right to self-determination’, and its denial of obvious racism. We consider alternative definitions and prefer one like the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition, ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews’, with the addition of the words ‘as Jews’. We recognise that the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) can play a useful purpose in illustrating the shortcomings of the IHRA definition. However, we do not advocate promoting it as the prime international definition. Indeed, we question the efficacy of using complex new definitions to combat racism against Jews or other groups, and instead advocate combatting it through collective action across societies. (shrink)

With the publication of Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, it has become impossible to avoid Heidegger’s anti-Semitism. There has been the expected controversy with Heideggerians on the defensive and the philosopher’s detractors condemning his work outright. But there has been little serious exploration of the matter aside from several recent works. This article builds on this literature on Heidegger’s anti-Semitism and concludes that an anti-Semitic narrative lies at the heart of Heidegger’s history of the oblivion of Being as nihilism. Moreover, Heidegger (...) adopts the narrative framework set up by Friedrich Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morality. In the end, we assert that Heidegger advocates a kind of war against Judaism that seeks to eradicate the Jewish influence in the western tradition. Heidegger’s ‘metaphysical’ anti-Semitism aims to overcome the nihilism of the ‘Jewish Christian’ revenge [Rache] against death, a nihilism that has evolved into the technological effort to make everything secure. (shrink)

In this compelling narrative of antisemitism in German thought, Paul Rose proposes a fresh view of the topic. Beginning with an examination of the attitudes of Martin Luther, he challenges distinctions between theologically derived (medieval) and secular, "racial" (modern) antisemitism, arguing that there is an unbroken chain of antisemitic feeling between the two periods. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of (...) Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This article deals with the construction and performance of antisemitism in Nazi children’s books. It provides an explorative discourse analysis of _Trust No Fox_ as reported (Bauer, Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid! Ein Bilderbuch für Gross und Klein, Stürmer-Verlag, Nuremberg, 1936) and _The Poisonous Mushroom_ as reported (Hiemer, Der Giftpilz—ein Stürmerbuch für Jung u. Alt, Stürmer-Verlag, Nuremberg, 1938) through the lens of Critical applied legal linguistics (CrALL). It seeks to elucidate how ‘Jewishness’ (...) is constructed in the two books, with a view to enhancing our understanding of the intertextual and interdiscursive embeddedness of anti-Semitic rhetoric generally and nomination and predication strategies specifically. To this end, a specialised corpus of 10,002 tokens, 2,345 types and 43 illustrations was compiled. Subsequently XML annotation was applied with the data being parsed into headings, sentences and/or lines. It was found that the books follow a Jewish/non-Jewish dichotomy, consistently referring to breaches of custom, morality, religion and law. Both works purport to provide descriptive accounts of ‘Jews as they are,’ when, in fact, they generate the normative illusion of ‘Jews as they ought to be’ according to Nazi ideology. It is suggested to use the insights gained into the anti-Semitic rhetoric of children’s books to detect, describe and critique patterns of anti-Semitic rhetoric today. (shrink)

This chapter examines: (1) the Black Notebooks in the context of Heidegger's political engagement on behalf of the National Socialist regime and his ambivalence toward some but not all of its political beliefs and tactics; (2) his limited "critique" of vulgar National Socialism and its biologically based racism for the sake of his own ethnocentric vision of the historical uniqueness of the German people and Germany's central role in Europe as a contested site situated between West and East, technological modernity (...) and the Asiatic. Heidegger did not break with radical right-wing Germanist thought, as some scholars have argued. He at most placed National Socialism within his narrative of the history of being, metaphysics, and technology, and thereby relativized it without addressing either its uniqueness or its totalitarian structures and practices. Heidegger formulated his own metaphysical and ontological version of Antisemitism during the National Socialist period. This vision was deeply connected with his understanding of the "history of being" and was intensified during and immediately after the Second World War. Heidegger could perceive no difference between the Shoah and the Allied bombing, defeat, and occupation of Germany. Heidegger's post-war philosophy (of home, history and technology) is deeply shaped by, and remained complicit with, his thinking during this period. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the ideology of National Socialism in the work and activity of the German terrorist group and Black Metal band Absurd. Historians are divided—and many have criticized how postwar Germany dealt with denazification—, but the fact is that Nazi ideology has been part of the political and social spheres in Germany since then. Neo‑Nazism saw a revival especially in the first years after unification, which coincided with the beginning of Absurd’s story and career. Today, they (...) hold the title of the National Socialist Black Metal act par excellence, with a 28‑year music career actively supporting and promoting Nazi ideology. Absurd makes a very interesting case study, since the band has played a key role in preserving and transmitting Nazi ideology, not just in Germany, but also worldwide. (shrink)

With this work, the author terminates his trilogy on nationally prominent philosophers in Germany, France, and the United States, respectively. In all three works a deliberate attempt is made to counter the current trend towards linguistic analysis and deal with philosophy in its classical meaning as a body of general truths about the universe as a whole, which the author believes leads to some important consequences of present day relevance. The style of the work, to say the least, is (...) unusual in that it is cast in the form of a series of letters, fourteen in number, of a father to his daughter. Since he admits there are no German, French, or American "philosophies," properly speaking, each letter deals with a particular North American philosopher, beginning with Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine in Revolutionary days, continuing with Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead as 19th century representatives, and Whitehead, Santayana, and Carnap for the first half of the twentieth. The work concludes with Hans Kelsen and Marcuse, who like Carnap, came to the United States as the result of Hitler’s antisemitism. The tenor of the work lays stress on problems of cultural and political life and, thereby, on the ties of this sort that bind the United States and Europe. The work reads well, and although its tone is more biographical than philosophical, more expository than critical, it could well serve as supplementary reading for a seminar on American philosophy.—A.B.W. (shrink)

More than being a volume about the philosophy of Bernard Harrison, this volume is about how Harrison conceptualizes the creation of the human world. One might be tempted to classify Harrison as a major voice in many diverse discussions—philosophy of literature, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, color studies, epistemology, metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of culture, Wittgenstein, antisemitism, and more—without recognizing a unifying strand that ties them together. Nothing could be farther from the (...) truth. Harrison contests and destabilizes a persistent and misleading alignment of culture with subjectivity—whether found in unexamined distinctions between nature and culture or appearance and reality. His general aim has been to undermine the belief that human culture deals in smoke and mirrors, and that the only realities are those of extra-human nature. He emphasizes the paraxial foundation of meaning, and argues that the creative inventions of language and culture are as real as any extra-linguistic reality. While not dismissing the possibility that some extra-human reality exists, he holds that the pre-conceptual world is unorganized; he emphasizes that the only world that we can access is, indeed, the human world that is the outcome of human cognition. This volume offers new critical essays that examine Harrison’s corpus, written by distinguished voices in philosophy and literary studies. It bridges many of the abysses of conflicting opinion opened by the culture wars of the past half-century. Importantly, it includes an opening essay by Harrison that elucidates the unifying strand running through his variegated philosophical writings, and concludes with a chapter in which he replies to and reflects on the other critical essays herein. (shrink)

The Young Karl Marx is an innovative and important new study of Marx’s early writings. These writings provide the fascinating spectacle of a powerful and imaginative intellect wrestling with complex and significant issues, but they also present formidable interpretative obstacles to modern readers. David Leopold shows how an understanding of their intellectual and cultural context can illuminate the political dimension of these works. An erudite yet accessible discussion of Marx’s influences and targets frames the author’s critical engagement with Marx’s account (...) of the emergence, character, and (future) replacement of the modern state. This combination of historical and analytical approaches results in a sympathetic, but not uncritical, exploration of such fundamental themes as alienation, citizenship, community, antisemitism, and utopianism. The Young Karl Marx is a scholarly and original work which provides a radical and persuasive reinterpretation of Marx’s complex and often misunderstood views of German philosophy, modern politics, and human flourishing. (shrink)

In German Idealism and the Jew , Michael Mack uncovers the deep roots of anti-Semitism in the German philosophical tradition. While many have read German anti-Semitism as a reaction against Enlightenment philosophy, Mack instead contends that the redefinition of the Jews as irrational, oriental Others forms the very cornerstone of German idealism, including Kant's conception of universal reason. Offering the first analytical account of the connection between anti-Semitism and philosophy, Mack begins his exploration by showing how the fundamental (...) thinkers in the German idealist tradition--Kant, Hegel, and, through them, Feuerbach and Wagner--argued that the human world should perform and enact the promises held out by a conception of an otherworldly heaven. But their respective philosophies all ran aground on the belief that the worldly proved incapable of transforming itself into this otherworldly ideal. To reconcile this incommensurability, Mack argues, philosophers created a construction of Jews as symbolic of the "worldliness" that hindered the development of a body politic and that served as a foil to Kantian autonomy and rationality. In the second part, Mack examines how Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Franz Rosenzweig, and Freud, among others, grappled with being both German and Jewish. Each thinker accepted the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, in varying degrees, while simultaneously critiquing anti-Semitism in order to develop the modern Jewish notion of what it meant to be enlightened--a concept that differed substantially from that of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, and Wagner. By speaking the unspoken in German philosophy, this book profoundly reshapes our understanding of it. (shrink)

In _German Idealism and the Jew_, Michael Mack uncovers the deep roots of anti-Semitism in the German philosophical tradition. While many have read German anti-Semitism as a reaction against Enlightenment philosophy, Mack instead contends that the redefinition of the Jews as irrational, oriental Others forms the very cornerstone of German idealism, including Kant's conception of universal reason. Offering the first analytical account of the connection between anti-Semitism and philosophy, Mack begins his exploration by showing how the fundamental thinkers (...) in the German idealist tradition—Kant, Hegel, and, through them, Feuerbach and Wagner—argued that the human world should perform and enact the promises held out by a conception of an otherworldly heaven. But their respective philosophies all ran aground on the belief that the worldly proved incapable of transforming itself into this otherworldly ideal. To reconcile this incommensurability, Mack argues, philosophers created a construction of Jews as symbolic of the "worldliness" that hindered the development of a body politic and that served as a foil to Kantian autonomy and rationality. In the second part, Mack examines how Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Franz Rosenzweig, and Freud, among others, grappled with being both German and Jewish. Each thinker accepted the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, in varying degrees, while simultaneously critiquing anti-Semitism in order to develop the modern Jewish notion of what it meant to be enlightened—a concept that differed substantially from that of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, and Wagner. By speaking the unspoken in German philosophy, this book profoundly reshapes our understanding of it. (shrink)

In this interview, Jean Greisch discusses the 1979 Colloquium Heidegger et la Question de Dieu, his original contribution to the published volume, and its impact on his later work. Greisch first situates the conference within the reception history of Heidegger as well as the critical advancements of Levinas and Derrida that made such a questioning of God palatable within the French philosophical context. He argues that theological thinking delivers an important challenge to philosophical thinking, and reflects on what such a (...) meeting point could mean. Finally he voices a double challenge to Heidegger, not only in his forgetting of the Hebraic tradition, but his complicity with Nazi antisemitism, while yet advising against a wholesale rejection of Heidegger’s insights. (shrink)

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village.".

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

Philosophers have long struggled to reconcile Martin Heidegger's involvement in Nazism with his status as one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. The recent publication of his Black Notebooks has reignited fierce debate on the subject. These thousand-odd pages of jotted observations profoundly challenge our image of the quiet philosopher's exile in the Black Forest, revealing the shocking extent of his anti-Semitism for the first time. For much of the philosophical community, the Black Notebooks have been either used (...) to discredit Heidegger or seen as a bibliographical detail irrelevant to his thought. Yet, in this new book, renowned philosopher Donatella Di Cesare argues that Heidegger's "metaphysical anti-Semitism" was a central part of his philosophical project. Within the context of the Nuremberg race laws, Heidegger felt compelled to define Jewishness and its relationship to his concept of Being. Di Cesare shows that Heidegger saw the Jews as the agents of a modernity that had disfigured the spirit of the West. In a deeply disturbing extrapolation, he presented the Holocaust as both a means for the purification of Being and the Jews' own "self-destruction": a process of death on an industrialized scale that was the logical conclusion of the acceleration in technology they themselves had brought about. Situating Heidegger's anti-Semitism firmly within the context of his thought, this groundbreaking work will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and history as well as the many readers interested in Heidegger's life, work, and legacy. (shrink)

Bourdieu’s thought is disturbing. Provocative. Scandalous even, at least for those who do not easily tolerate the unmitigated truth about the social. Nonetheless his ideas, among the most important and innovative of our time, are here to stay. This thought has taken form in the course of a career and through works on diverse subjects that have constructed a far-reaching analytical model of social life, which the author calls more readily an anthropology rather than a sociology. In their totality, they (...) constitute today an original and powerful proposal to explain human practices. In the face of criticisms commonly leveled at Bourdieu’s thought (notably the charge that it reduces everything to a single schematic model), it is important to identify the spirit of his enterprise. Early on, it is true, his thought drew on a few fundamental concepts—the trilogy habitus, field (champ), practice (pratique)—to which it constantly returned, and followed a clearly defined trajectory. At the same time, however, he continually reformulated, adapted, and refined his analytical model, depending on the operations to which he subjected new objects of inquiry. The regenerative and transformative force of his thought was supported by two convictions. First, that there being nothing more vain than theory for theory’s sake, it is preferable that theoretical production originate in the study of concrete and occasionally very specific cases. Second, that in order to escape stereotypical classifications, boundaries separating disciplines are best transgressed, thereby favoring new constructions of the object of inquiry. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Nancy provides an analysis of the anti-Semitic aspects of Heidegger's recently published Black Notebooks. Nancy refers to a philosophical or "historial" anti-Semitism marked, nonetheless, by the "banality" of ordinary anti-Semitism pervading Europe. Heidegger's thought is placed in the broader context of the European (especially Christian) impulse toward new beginnings.

Nicht erst seit dem Erscheinen der Schwarzen Hefte wird Martin Heideggers personliche wie denkerische Verstrickung in den Nationalsozialismus diskutiert. Die Debatte, ob er sich aus dieser Verstrickung jemals entschieden gelost hat, begleitet die Auseinandersetzung mit Heideggers Denken seit Jahrzehnten. Die Tagung Heideggers Schwarze Hefte. Ideologieanfalligkeit der Intellektuellen, die im Dezember 2015 an der Universitat Freiburg i.Br. stattfand, wendete sich im Blick auf Heidegger und daruber hinaus der Frage zu, wie es dazu kommen konnte, dass sich Intellektuelle in der Weimarer Republik (...) wenigstens zeitweise fur die NS-Bewegung begeisterten. Immanent-kritisches Weiterdenken mit Heidegger gegen Heidegger (NZZ) zeichnet die aus Anlass der Tagung gehaltenen Vortrage in ihrer Gesamtheit aus. Der Band enthalt die Beitrage von Wolfgang Essbach, Andreas Urs Sommer, Claus Arnold, Lore Huhn, Christian Bermes, Jeff Malpas, Emil Angehrn, Peter Trawny, Christoph Demmerling, Oliver Muller, Georg Essen, Rainer Marten und Dieter Thoma. (shrink)

Arguing about Judaism differs from other introductions to Judaism. It is unique, not solely in its engaging dialogues between a Reform rabbi and a humanist, atheist philosopher, but also in its presentation of and challenges to the fundamental religious beliefs of the Jewish heritage and their relevance to today's Jewish community. The dialogues contain both Jewish narratives and philosophical responses, with topics ranging from the nature of God to controversies over sexual relations, animal welfare and the environment -- from (...) class='Hi'>antisemitism to the state of Israel and Zionism. Although the rabbi and philosopher argue strongly, clearly enjoying the cut and thrust of debate, they do so with sensitivity, charm and respect, revealing the rich intricacies of the Jewish religion and contemporary Jewish life. While essential reading for those studying Judaism and Jewish history, the book aims to stimulate debate more generally amongst Jews and non-Jews, the religious and the atheist -- all those with a general interest in religion and philosophy. (shrink)

This book brings together an international group of scholars to discuss the ramifications of Heidegger's Black Notebooks for philosophy and the humanities. In contrast to both those who seek to exonerate Heidegger and those who simply condemn him, they urge careful reading and rereading of his work to turn Heideggerian thought against itself.

Analyzes the philosophical ideas of two famous neo-Kantian philosophers, Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, who worked together in the Marburger Schule research institute from 1880 to 1912. In volume 1, mentions differences of opinion between them, partly due to Cohen's Jewishness, noting that Cohen resented the prevalence of antisemitism and discrimination. Cohen felt that Natorp's opposition to his ideas was motivated by antisemitism. The second volume is a collection of documents and correspondence between the two and others, where (...) antisemitism is frequently mentioned (see the index). (shrink)

Der evangelische Theologe und Padagoge Friedrich Schleiermacher weist in der Debatte um die Judenemanzipation im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert den potentiellen Vorwurf, er sei ein Judenfeind, als missverstandlich zuruck. Dieses Ansinnen ist umso auffalliger, als Schleiermacher bereits dezidiert judenfeindliche Positionen vertreten hatte, bevor die Judenfrage um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts zu einem feststehenden Begriff wurde. Hinsichtlich der theologischen Bedeutung des Judentums sowie der Emanzipation und Akkulturation der Juden konnen seine Positionen nur als Ausdruck eines theologischen und sozialen Antijudaismus verstanden werden. (...) Sie sind auch in die zentralen Uberlegungen seines Erziehungsdenkens eingegangen. In diesem Buch wird gezeigt, welche Rolle Antijudaismus und Antisemitismus in der Theoriebildung uber Erziehung und Bildung bereits vor dem Nationalsozialismus gespielt haben. (shrink)

This paper addresses the silence about the Haitian revolution in the oeuvre of Karl Marx. He, who regarded revolutions as “locomotives of world history,” ignored the history of the revolution in Haiti and remained silent about its protagonists. In a brief approach to this paradox, I argue that the main reason for this blank space was Marx’s deficient analysis of contemporary racism. This is made clear in relation to 1) his acceptance of the biological meaning of race, 2) his involvement (...) in two main racisms of the time, antisemitism and colonial racism, and 3) his differentiation and gradation of historical subjects. The consequences were dramatic not because of Marx’s involvement in the racist zeitgeist but insofar as his learning process with regard to the relevance of anti-colonial movements and his awareness of negative societalization as well as its significance were not reflected in a theory of racism. This was to prove a debacle for subsequent attempts at a Marxist analysis of racism and has had effects that are still evident today. (shrink)

In 2014, the first three volumes of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks—the personal and philosophical notebooks that he kept during the war years—were published in Germany. These notebooks provide the first textual evidence of anti-Semitism in Heidegger’s philosophy, not simply in passing remarks, but as incorporated into his philosophical and political thinking itself. In Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy, Peter Trawny, the editor of those notebooks, offers the first evaluation of Heidegger’s philosophical project in light of the (...) Black Notebooks. While Heidegger’s affiliation with National Socialism is well known, the anti-Semitic dimension of that engagement could not be fully told until now. Trawny traces Heidegger’s development of a grand “narrative” of the history of being, the “being-historical thinking” at the center of Heidegger’s work after Being and Time. Two of the protagonists of this narrative are well known to Heidegger’s readers: the Greeks and the Germans. The world-historical antagonist of this narrative, however, has remained hitherto undisclosed: the Jews, or, more specifically, “world Judaism.” As Trawny shows, world Judaism emerges as a racialized, destructive, and technological threat to the German homeland, indeed, to any homeland whatsoever. Trawny pinpoints recurrent, anti-Semitic themes in the Notebooks, including Heidegger’s adoption of crude cultural stereotypes, his assigning of racial reasons to philosophical decisions, his endorsement of a Jewish “world conspiracy,” and his first published remarks on the extermination camps and gas chambers. Trawny concludes with a thoughtful meditation on how Heidegger’s achievements might still be valued despite these horrifying facets. Unflinching and systematic, this is one of the most important assessments of one of the most important philosophers in our history. (shrink)