Leo Strauss's readings of historical figures in the philosophical tradition have been justly well explored; however, his relation to contemporary thinkers has not enjoyed the same coverage. In Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought, an international group of scholars examines the possible conversations between Strauss and figures such as Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Charles Taylor, and Hans Blumenberg. The contributors examine topics including religious liberty, the political function of comedy, law, and the relation between the Ancients and the Moderns, (...) and bring Strauss into many new and original discussions that will be of use to those interested in the thought of Strauss, the history of philosophy and political theory, and contemporary continental thought"--Back cover. (shrink)

_Explores how the thought of Leo Strauss amounts to a model for thinking about the connection between philosophy, Jewish thought, and history._.

This article explores the influence of Winnicott’s conceptual constellation of early childhood, play, use, transitional phenomena, and transitional object upon Agamben’s thinking of contemporary historical exigency.

This article explores the influence of Winnicott’s conceptual constellation of early childhood, play, use, transitional phenomena, and transitional object upon Agamben’s thinking of contemporary historical exigency.

Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism is usually considered to be either (1) an early Fichtean-influenced work that gives little insight into Schelling’s philosophy or (2) a text focusing on self-consciousness and aesthetics. I argue that Schelling’s System develops a subtle conception of history which originates in a dialogue with Kant and Hegel (concerning the question of teleology) and concludes in proximity to an Idealist version of Spinoza. In this way, Schelling develops a philosophy of history which is, simultaneously, a dialectical (...) engagement with the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer’s The Myth of the State is often read as being insufficiently attentive to the possibility of fascism. In this paper, I examine, and partially contest, this reading. In his usage of the figures of Spinoza and prophetic Judaism, Cassirer develops a conception of the political capacity of the philosopher as pedagogically attempting to replace mythical thought with rational thought. In the end, Cassirer was aware of the onset and dangers of fascism.

If truth hurts, this is no doubt because it is often enough forced on us. And the question as to whether the reception of “nice,” “easy” truths is similarly an outcome of coercion negates itself in its very formulation — we do not ask “why are things the way they are?” from a feeling of comfort; the plaintiff cry of “how, then, shall we live?” does not come to us out of a sense of security. Indeed, insofar as truth overtakes (...) us and interrupts the conventions of our lives, it occurs to us quite apart from our ordinary desires and wants. We are thus faced with a paradox: what claim can truth make on a bein g that “doesn’t need it and doesn’t care about it—since it doesn’t at all concern his needs”? When one considers that the awareness of truth is indexed to lived experience, the paradox is only heightened. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explore the problem of collective identity and its subsequent historical legacies through a reading of Spinoza’s and Freud’s respective accounts of Moses. In working their way through the aggadah (i.e., legend) of Moses, both Spinoza and Freud find the halakhic (i.e., legal) core of collectivity to be expressed in and as social mediation. Moreover, both thinkers discover that the occlusion of this core leads to a collective trauma (in Freud’s sense), the symptom of which is the (...) formation of the ‘theological-political’ (in Spinoza’s sense). (shrink)

This paper attempts to explore the problem of collective identity and its subsequent historical legacies through a reading of Spinoza’s and Freud’s respective accounts of Moses. In working their way through the aggadah (i.e., legend) of Moses, both Spinoza and Freud find the halakhic (i.e., legal) core of collectivity to be expressed in and as social mediation. Moreover, both thinkers discover that the occlusion of this core leads to a collective trauma (in Freud’s sense), the symptom of which is the (...) formation of the ‘theological-political’ (in Spinoza’s sense). (shrink)

ABSTRACT This review-essay explores the subtle and crucial relation between Schelling’s thinking of the dark ground and Freud’s construal of the unconscious in Teresa Fenichel’s provocative new work.

This article explores the recent reception of the German Idealist tradition within the English-speaking philosophical world. Texts by four authors—Fredrick Beiser, Richard Velkley, Dennis Schmidt, and Gregg Horowitz—are examined as to their respective participation in what I call a materialist appropriation of German Idealism. In this article, I explore (1) what the term ‘materialism’ means in this context and (2) the reasons for such a new interpretation. I hold that this interpretation is utilized as a response to the Enlightenment priority (...) of universalizing abstraction. Further, I hold that such an interpretation amounts to a reclaiming of German Idealism from previous interpretations which viewed it as supporting this priority. (shrink)

This paper explores the transformation which Adorno’s conception of history undergoes from his texts of the 1930s to those of the 1960s. This transformation involves a change in the role played by Hölderlin’s figure of transience. In the texts of the ’30s, Hölderlinian transience (in its Benjaminian interpretation) amounts to a moment of negative content within Adorno’s conception of history. In the texts of the ’60s, such transience becomes the very form of Adornian philosophical history. As such, his thinking of (...) history changes from a tragic conception (emphasizing a “negative absolute”) to an iconoclastic one (emphasizing “absolute negativity”). (shrink)

Despite the relative scarcity of references to Hegel in Strauss’s published work, one can begin to get a sense of how Strauss regarded Hegel. This paper deals with Strauss’s views concerning the Hegelian construal of faith and God. For Strauss, Hegel’s construal of divine personality as subject rather than substance amounts to something like a rejection of the divine personality.

This review explores a recent trend in commentary on Hegel’s philosophy of history which owes much of its interpretive substance to the aesthetic modernism of the Frankfurt School. This modernist trend emphasizes the interplay of form and content, material conditions of rationality, and the temporal disjunction between experiencing and cognizing history. In so doing, it produces a deeply political, psychoanalytic, and musical reading of Hegel.

2016 marks the 50 th Anniversary of the publication of Jean Améry’s collection of essays dealing with his experiences at Auschwitz entitled Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten. Translated into English as At The Mind’s Limits: Contemplations By A Survivor On Auschwitz And Its Realities, Améry’s collection immediately set a standard for philosophical accounts of the camps that even today remains unchanged. More uncompromising than the texts of Wiesenthal, Levi, Borowski, and Wiesel, Améry’s collection philosophically explores the extreme (...) limit of the survivor’s experience in the camps as well as the ensuing trauma of living in its wake. (shrink)

The figure and thought of Leo Strauss continues to provoke impassioned reactions from advocates and critics. The majority of these reactions are less engaged with Strauss’s thought than with his person and school. This volume seeks to contribute to the increase in philosophical attention paid to Strauss’s thought. The contributions collected herein exemplify both a deep and abiding familiarity with Strauss’s thought as well as a need to find new directions to explore within that thought.

The first four chapters of Pippin's elegant volume on Nietzsche were originally delivered as a series of lectures at the Collège de France in 2004. In a certain respect, the context of these lectures defines the parameters of Pippin's reading of Nietzsche: he advocates an interpretation very close to Bernard Williams in emphasizing the psychological aspects and motifs of Nietzsche's thought over and against certain contemporary French appropriations . In over-emphasizing the deconstructive capacity of Nietzsche's text, Pippin holds, these interpretations (...) conclude that Nietzsche's thought provides no philosophical insight—that "Nietzsche's texts always seem to take away with one hand what they appear to have given with the other". In sharp contrast, Pippin claims that Nietzsche's thought is extremely relevant philosophically insofar as it deals with the genealogy of human desires and actions. Put differently, Nietzsche's philosophical teaching is first and foremost a psychology. For this reason, Pippin's book amounts to a sustained attempt to "present a comprehensive interpretation of what Nietzsche means by 'psychology,' what the relationship is … between psychology and traditional. (shrink)

This introduction provides the context for the succeeding papers in this volume. After raising the question as to why Spinoza's philosophy attracts such extreme-and extremely diverse-attention and interpretation, I suggest that there is a "repressed" element to his thought which becomes manifest when one perceives the diversity of Spinoza-interpretations in a relational manner. I refer to this repressed element of Spinoza's thought as "the materiality of nature." I claim that the articles in this volume, all of which contain important insights (...) in their own right, attest to this repressed element when taken together and viewed relationally. (shrink)

This volume, with contributions from scholars in political science, literature, and philosophy, examines the mutual influence of reason and religion at the time of the American Founding.

A Conversation with Claire Katz about her book, Levinas and the Crisis of Humanism.

The following reflections examine the new translation of Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie in relation to the former one. These reflections assess the relative merits of both translations and attempt to show how this relation illustrates specific issues in Heidegger’s text concerning the first and other beginnings of Western thought.

This essay explores the significance of Agamben’s sparse references to medieval Jewish thinkers (that is, the Rishonim) and raises the question as to whether the modern interpretive horizon of “history” is adequate for providing an understanding of these thinkers.

A principle aim of this paper is to convince friends and critics of deconstruction that they have overlooked two crucial aspects of Derrida's work, namely, his rearticulation of the concept of experience and his account of the experience of undecidability as an ordeal. This is important because sensitivity to Derrida's emphasis on the ordeal of undecidability and his rearticulation of the concept of experience-a rearticulation that is already under way in his early engagement with Husserl and continued in later work-necessitates (...) a rethinking of what the `experience of undecidability' entails. Rather than signaling a withdrawal from politics or a normatively impotent ethics of `mere openness to the other,' Derrida's account of the experience of undecidability not only points to a fundamental aspect of our basic ethical experience but also leads to a number of ethico-political demands, which I summarize as the demand to maintain an ethos of interruption. (shrink)

This review essay explores Alain Badiou’s paradoxical attempt to give a philosophical account of the 20th century (in his text The Century ) which is not understood along the lines of history. As an example of Badiou’s project of ‘subtractive formalization’, The Century amounts to an essentially ahistorical treatment of a historical period.

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This review explores the complex and nuanced views of Hermann Levin Goldschmidt’s conception of “setting contradiction free” in order to allow for the improvement of human capability. This conception spans a number of issues—politics, ethics, religion, and history being the foremost among them. Goldschmidt’s view belongs to that constellation of thinkers that includes Levinas and Adorno in attempting to give voice to a plurality of viewpoints that may not agree with one another.