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This is the revised text of a paper given to the conference “Richard Rorty, Politics and Postmodernism”, held in London on 30 September 1995.
R. Rorty, “Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality”, inOn Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993, ed. S. Shute and S. Hurley (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), 111–34 and 244–48, at 246.
R. Nozick,The Examined Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 237–38. I discuss Nozick's view also in the essay cited in n.4 below.
On this issue see my “Socialist Hope in the Shadow of Catastrophe”, inAre There Alternatives? Socialist Register 1996, ed. L. Panitch (London: Merlin Press, 1996), 239-63. Note that the title of the essay has been incorrectly given by the publisher both on the cover and on the contents page.
H. Birenbaum,Hope is the Last to Die (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971), 227–28.
F. Camon,Conversations with Primo Levi (Marlboro, Vermont: The Marlboro Press, 1989), 68.
R. Rubenstein, “Some Perspectives on Religious Faith after Auschwitz”, inHolocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications, ed. J.K. Roth and M. Berenbaum (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 349–61, at 355.
R.L. Rubenstein,After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 46, 65.
Supra n.8 R.L. Rubenstein,After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 46, 65, at 152–3.
Supra n.7 R. Rubenstein, “Some Perspectives on Religious Faith after Auschwitz”, inHolocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications, ed. J.K. Roth and M. Berenbaum (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 349–61.
For a brief account and discussion of views of this sort, see D. Cohn-Sherbok,Holocaust Theology (London: Lamp Press, 1989), 15–42.
Etty Hillesum,Etty: A Diary 1941–43 (London: Triad Grafton 1985), 169.
Hans Jonas, “The Concept of God After Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice”, inEchoes from the Holocaust: Philosophical Reflections on a Dark Time, ed. A. Rosenberg and G.E. Myers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 292–305, at 295–99. The essay is reprinted fromJournal of Religion 67 (1987), 1–13.
For a brief presentation of this view, see B. Bettelheim, “Individual and Mass Behaviour in Extreme Situations,” inReadings in Social Psychology, ed. E.E. Maccoby et al. (New York: Henry Holt, 1961), 300–310, at 302, 305, 308–09. See also B. Bettelheim,The Informed Heart (London: Penguin, 1991), 107–235.
L.L. Langer, “The Dilemma of Choice in the Deathcamps”, in Roth and Berenbaumsupra n.7Holocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications, ed. J.K. Roth and M. Berenbaum New York: Paragon House, 1989), 222–32, at 223, 231; also in Rosenberg and Myers,
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T. Des Pres,The Survivor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). See also A. Pawelczynska,Values and violence in Auschwitz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), esp. 135–44.
R. Rorty, “Love and Money”,Common Knowledge 1/1 (1992), 12–16, at 14–15.
M. Brando, with R. Lindsey,Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me (London: Arrow, 1995), 461–62.
For one powerful representation of such a mental process see Ida Fink's story “A Spring Morning”, in I. Fink,A Scrap of Time (London: Peter Owen, 1988), 39–47.
Supra n.19, R. Rorty, “Love and Money”,Common Knowledge 1/1 (1992), 12–16, at 13–16.
R. Rorty,Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 175, 188, 192.
—Supra n.2,, at 129.
—Supra n.23,, 146, 180.
F. Dostoyevsky,The Brothers Karamazov, trld. D. McDuff (London: Penguin, 1993), 278. The final ellipsis is in the original.
D. Rousset,The Other Kingdom (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1947), 168; L.E. Bitton Jackson,Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust (London: Grafton, 1984), 120; C. Delbo,Auschwitz and After (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 11; P. Levi,The Drowned and the Saved (London: Abacus, 1989), 33; E. Wiesel,One Generation After (New York: Random House, 1970), 47.
For a more extensive discussion of these issues, see the essaysupra n.4, Cirations from theMetaphysical Elements of Justice are taken from Mary Gregor's translation of theMetaphysics of Morals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
—Supra n.23,, at 198.
—Supra n.23,, at 189–98.
—Supra n.2,. at 112–34.
N. Geras,Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind: The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard Rorty (London: Verso, 1995), 47–70.
—This paragraph summarizessupra n.32, at 76–78.
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Geras, N. Progress without foundations?. Res Publica 2, 115–128 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02335715
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02335715