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. (shrink)

The matter must be attacked from more sides! This is particularly advisable in morals, where the aim is not only to satisfy our desire for knowledge, but to better ourselves.between 1791 and 1792, karl leonhard reinhold, inaugural chair in Critical Philosophy at the University of Jena and popular advocate for the Kantian revolution, received and responded to a series of letters from Salomon Maimon. In the exchange, Maimon reiterated those skeptical doubts regarding the account of a priori synthetic judgments in (...) the Critique of Pure Reason that he had introduced in his Essay on Transcendental Philosophy and that had gained him a modicum of recognition on the German philosophical scene. He made plain his view... (shrink)

Franz Rosenzweig's near-conversion to Christianity in the summer of 1913 and his subsequent decision three months later to recommit himself to Judaism is one of the foundational narratives of modern Jewish thought. In this new account of events, Benjamin Pollock suggests that what lay at the heart of Rosenzweig's religious crisis was not a struggle between faith and reason, but skepticism about the world and hope for personal salvation. A close examination of this important time in Rosenzweig's life, the book (...) also sheds light on the full trajectory of his philosophical development. (shrink)