This book includes a study of writers on mysticism, mystics and mysticism for world religions and the nature and stages of the mystical journey. This contents show some of the mystic studied - I. Mystics of The Ancient Past -/- Pre-history Of Mysticism Vedic Hymnists Early Egyptians The Early Jews Upanishadic Seers Kapila The Bhagavad Gita The Taoist Sages The Buddha -/- II. Mystics of The Greco-Roman Era -/- The Pre-Socratic Greeks Socrates And His Successors Zeno of Citium Philo Judaeus (...) Jesus of Nazareth Early Christians The Gnostics The Hermetics Plotinus III. Mystics of The Early Middle Ages -/- Pseudo-Dionysius Narada Patanjali The Tantra Shankara Dattatreya Milarepa The Ch’an And Zen Buddhists The Sufis Al-Hallaj -/- IV. Mystics of The Late Middle Ages -/- Jewish Mysticism Ibn Arabi Iraqi Rumi Jnaneshvar Medieval Christians Meister Eckhart Thomas á Kempis -/- V. Mystics of The Modern Era -/- Nicholas of Cusa Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross) Kabir Nanak Dadu Seventeenth And Eighteenth Century Mystics Sri Ramakrishna Ramana Maharshi Swami Rama Tirtha Twentieth Century Mystics Conclusion . (shrink)

Philo, a Jewish philosopher, is interesting for various reasons. For one thing, he was a contemporary of Jesus who was deeply interested in all things related to religion but apparently never heard of Jesus. For another his view of God presumably shows one (radical, but possible) set of ideas about God available at that time.

This issue presents the research on early Chinese texts by Cao Feng, a philosophy professor at Tsinghua University. He is an expert in early Chinese political philosophy and philosophy of language found in transmitted and excavated texts. His extensive education in Japan has left him well versed in Japanese sinology. Although a critical researcher in the field of early Chinese thought and a very prolific writer in both Chinese and Japanese, Cao Feng is little known in the (...) West. This issue introduces three papers selected in consultation with the author: a reflection on the study of excavated texts, the "Huang" component of so-called Huang-Lao thought, and views on language in the Laozi. (shrink)

What does it mean to talk of the power of God in relation to the human self? The discourses generated by the Jewish and Christian tradition about the capacity for divinity have been mainly promulgated by men, and have more often than not served to exclude women cognitively, practically, and spiritually. As a result they have been made powerless in the face of God’s presence. It is possible to look to ideas developed in Hindu Tantra for comparative notions of (...) power (shakti) which can redeem the place of God for women. The path of divine consciousness is effectively illustrated by an imaginary and somatic awareness, by a devout attention to the play of light in the soul. In this paper I propose to read the assignment of energy and force within conceptions of divinity through the lens of a poststructuralist realization, using the work of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and Luce Irigaray. This working paper is basically an exercise in metaphorical writing, and one reader has called it 'creative theology'. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the way in which divinity is realized through an imaginary locus in the mystical thought of Jewish kabbalah and Hindu tantra. It demonstrates a reflective consciousness by the adept or master in understanding the place of God’s being, as a supernal and mundane reality. For the comparative assessment of these two distinctive approaches I shall use as a point of departure the interpretative strategies employed by Elliot Wolfson in his detailed work on Jewish (...) mysticism. He argues that there is an androcentric bias embedded in the speculative outlook of medieval kabbalah, as he reads the texts through a psychoanalytic lens. In a similar way, I will argue that there is an androcentric bias to the speculations presented in medieval Shaiva tantra, in particular that division known as the Trika. Overall, my aim is to suggest some functional and perhaps structural similarities to the characterization of divinity in these two traditions, through brief analyses of the erotic understanding of the nature of the Godhead. (shrink)

Much of traditional rabbinic hermeneutics, what I call "midrashic interpretation," appears to be of such a bizarre nature as to require some sort of explanation, or even justification. This essay attempts to provide a philosophical foundation for midrashic interpretation by placing it in the context of the idea (vaguely neo-platonic) that God is only fully realized as the result of a certain process, a process of which midrashic interpretation is an essential part. In the final section I attempt to spell (...) out some connections between the specifically Jewish question of rabbinic hermeneutics and some more general ideas in philosophy and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Professor Cohen, 'Jerry' to very many, has been Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, Oxford. He has been both a worthy successor to Isaiah Berlin in the chair and also his own man. Born into a Jewish family in Montral, Cohen was educated at McGill University and then in Oxford under Berlin and Gilbert Ryle. He taught philosophy vigorously at University College London and became known as the first proponent of analytical Marxism. His resolute (...) book illustrative of that way of thinking is Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence . Cohen has not been imprisoned by it, as his subsequent writings make clear -- Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality and If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? The article below, which appeared in Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Political Philosophy , Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures (Cambridge University Press), has also been reprinted in Stephen Law (ed.), Israel, Palestine and Terror (Continuum). (shrink)

Introduction -- Benamozegh's texts and contexts : Morocco, the Risorgimento, and the disputed manuscript -- Universalism as an index of Jewish modernity -- Beyond binaries : Kabbalah as a tool for modernity -- Past enmity : modes of interreligious engagement and Jewish self-affirmation -- Epilogue.

The Jewish Philosophy Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writings on Jewish philosophy from the Bible to postmodernism. The Reader is clearly divided into four separate parts: Foundations and First Principles, Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Philosophy, Modern Jewish Thought, and Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. Each part is clearly introduced by the editors. The readings featured are representative writings of each era listed above and are from the following major thinkers: Abrabanel, (...) Baeck, Bergman, Borowitz, Buber, Cohen, Crescas, Fackenheim, Geiger, Gersonides, Goodman, Graetz, Halevi, Hartman, Heschel, Hess, Hirsch, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Paquda, Kellner, Kook, Krochmal, Leibowitz, Levinas, Maimonides, Maybaum, Mendelssohn, Novak, Philo, Plaskow, Rosenzweig, Saadia, Scholem, Seeskin, Soloveitchik, Spinoza, Strauss, Wolf, Zunz. (shrink)

In an influential article, A. I. Sabra identified an intellectual trend from twelfth and thirteenth-century Andalusia which he described as the ‘‘Andalusian revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy.” Philosophers such as Ibn Rushd , Ibn Tufayl , and Maimonides objected to Ptolemy’s theories on philosophic grounds, not because of shortcomings in the theories' predictive accuracy. Sabra showed how al-Bitrūjī's Kitāb al-Hay'a attempted to account for observed planetary motions in a way that met the philosophic standards of those philosophers and others. In Nūr (...) al-‘ālam , the subject of this article, Joseph ibn Joseph ibn Nahmias endeavoured to improve upon al-Bitrūjī’s models. Levi Ben Gerson's Hebrew writings on astronomy criticized al-Bitrūjī, but Ibn Nahmias did not mention them. Nūr al-‘ālam deserves attention, too, because it is the first Arabic text on theoretical astronomy by a Jewish author to come to light. In the body of this article, I will describe and analyze Ibn Nahmias’ theory, from Nūr al-‘ālam , for the motion of the sun. (shrink)

The book includes a dictionary of selected philosophic terms, and discusses the Greek and Arabic schools of thought that influenced the Jewish thinkers and to ...

Distinguished philosopher Hilary Putnam, who is also a practicing Jew, questions the thought of three major Jewish philosophers of the 20th century—Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas—to help him reconcile the philosophical and religious sides of his life. An additional presence in the book is Ludwig Wittgenstein, who, although not a practicing Jew, thought about religion in ways that Putnam juxtaposes to the views of Rosenzweig, Buber, and Levinas. Putnam explains the leading ideas of each of these great (...) thinkers, bringing out what, in his opinion, constitutes the decisive intellectual and spiritual contributions of each of them. Although the religion discussed is Judaism, the depth and originality of these philosophers, as incisively interpreted by Putnam, make their thought nothing less than a guide to life. (shrink)

In this enlightening study, a noted scholar elucidates the distinguishing characteristics of the works of several Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages. In addition to summaries of the main arguments and teachings of Moses Maimonides, Isaac Israeli, Judah Halevi, Abraham Ibn Daud, Hillel ben Samuel, Levi ben Gerson, Joseph Albo, and many others, the author offers insightful analyses and commentary. Of particular value to beginners, this volume is also an ever-relevant resource for many issues of scholarly debate.

The problems of evil and suffering have been extensively discussed in Jewish philosophy, and much of the discussion has centred on the Book of Job. In this study Oliver Leaman poses two questions: how can a powerful and caring deity allow terrible things to happen to obviously innocent people, and why have the Jewish people been so harshly treated throughout history, given their status as the chosen people? He explores these issues through an analysis of the views (...) of Philo, Saadya, Maimonides, Gersonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and post-Holocaust thinkers, and suggests that a discussion of evil and suffering is really a discussion about our relationship with God. (shrink)

Beginning with the earliest philosopher of the Middle Ages, Saadiah ben Joseph al-Fayyumi, this work surveys the writings of such figures as Solomon ben Joseph ...

Jewish philosophy has seen better days. It has been quite a while since the discipline of Jewish philosophy enjoyed the respect of the wider philosophical community, and an obvious question is what are the reasons for this state of things? Providing a detailed and thorough answer to this question is beyond the scope of the current chapter. Still, I would like to contribute here a few ideas that might shed some light on the current predicament and (...) its causes. Such an attempt is timely because the current moment in the development of Anglo-American philosophy is impregnated with a promise – which I hope is sincere – to turn the study of philosophy and the history of philosophy into an inclusive and genuinely universal field of inquiry, shared equally by all human beings, rather than an imposition of the prevalent beliefs of white Christian European males. A study of philosophy that is genuinely ecumenical could profit enormously from the encounter and dialogue with the philosophical thinking of minority cultures, since it is precisely this encounter with the philosophical thought of minority cultures that could expose the potentially numerous blind spots of the majority. If anything can heal Western philosophy from the prejudice that what one takes to be natural must be equally judged so by all rational human beings, it is only the encounter with non-Christian, or non-Western, philosophical thinking that could refute its illusory pretense of universality. Obviously, the real issue at stake is the sincerity of the attempt to understand foreign cultures and their philosophical thinking in their own terms. An identity politics that is merely interested in extending fig leaves would be far worse than the old, conservative state of things, insofar as the new and “inclusive” appearance would only provide the majority culture with a sense of self-satisfaction that would allow it to stick to its old and obstinate prejudicial practices. My aims in the current chapter are pretty modest and concrete. In the first two parts of the chapter, I will attempt to shed light on two blind spots related to perceptions of Jewish philosophy, from without and from within, respectively. These two parts will thus inquire into the nature of Jewish philosophy as minority philosophy. In the third and final part, I will turn to the rudimentary requirements of Jewish philosophy qua philosophy. In this part, I will suggest some fundamental desiderata which might – I hope – help the field flourish and achieve the recognition it deserves. Here too, my claims would be quite plain, as most of the desired characteristics I would argue for are pretty trivial, yet unfortunately still mostly lacking. (shrink)

Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for (...) example, and made conscious efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced. (shrink)

Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century showcases living Jewish thinkers who produce innovative ideas taking into consideration theology, hermeneutics, politics, ethics, science and technology, law, gender, and ecology.

Since the classical period, Jewish scholars have drawn on developments in philosophy to enrich our understanding of Judaism. This methodology reached its pinnacle in the medieval period with figures like Maimonides and continued into the modern period with the likes of Rosenzweig. The explosion of Anglo-American/analytic philosophy in the twentieth century means that there is now a host of material, largely unexplored by Jewish philosophy, with which to explore, analyze, and develop the Jewish tradition. (...) Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age features contributions from leading scholars in the field which investigate Jewish texts, traditions, and/or thinkers, in order to showcase what Jewish philosophy can be in an analytic age. United by the new and engaging style of philosophy, the collection explores rabbinic and Talmudic philosophy; Maimonidean philosophy; philosophical theology; and ethics and value theory. (shrink)

"Jewish Philosophy and the Academy reflects in broad terms on the current state of Jewish philosophy in the university. This generation of university teachers lives at a unique historic junction. It is the last to be taught by the giants of European Wissenschaft des Judentums and the first to experience the remarkable expansion of Judaic scholarship in Israel and abroad." "Emil Fackenheim suggests that if we are indebted to Athens for the philosophical method, we are also (...) indebted to Jerusalem for the ethical content of philosophy, which is both an intellectual and a moral challenge. This dual challenge shapes the diverse papers in this volume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

In this innovative volume contemporary philosophers respond to classic works of Jewish philosophy. For each of twelve central topics in Jewish philosophy, Jewish philosophical readings, drawn from the medieval period through the twentieth century, appear alongside an invited contribution that engages both the readings and the contemporary philosophical literature in a constructive dialogue. The twelve topics are organized into four sections, and each section commences with an overview of the ensuing dialogue and concludes with a (...) list of further readings. The introduction to the volume assesses the current state of Jewish philosophy and argues for a deeper engagement with analytic philosophy, exemplified by the new contributions. Jewish Philosophy Past and Present: Contemporary Responses to Classical Sources is a cutting edge work of Jewish philosophy, and, at the same time, an engaging introduction to the issues that animated Jewish philosophers for centuries and to the texts that they have produced. It is designed to set the agenda in Jewish philosophy for years to come. (shrink)

Complete collection of Schwarzschild’s essays on the neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen. Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was arguably the leading expositor of German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), undertaking a lifelong effort to reintroduce Cohen’s thought into contemporary philosophical discourse. In The Tragedy of Optimism, George Y. Kohler brings together all of Schwarzschild’s work on Cohen for the first time. Schwarzschild’s readings of Cohen are unique and profound; he was conversant with both worlds that shaped Cohen’s thought, neo-Kantian German (...) idealism and Jewish theology. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from ethics, socialism, the concept of human selfhood, and the mathematics of the infinite to more explicitly Jewish themes. This volume includes two of Schwarzschild’s previously unpublished manuscripts and a scholarly introduction by Kohler. Schwarzschild shows that despite its seeming defeat by events of the twentieth century, Cohen’s optimism about human progress is a rational, indeed necessary, path to peace. George Y. Kohler is Director of the Joseph Carlebach Institute and Senior Lecturer of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He is the author of Reading Maimonides’ Philosophy in 19th Century Germany: The Guide to Religious Reform. (shrink)

Introduction : what is medieval Jewish philosophy? -- The existence of God -- God and creation -- Divine attributes -- Prophecy -- Rationalising the commandments -- Freewill and omniscience -- The good life -- The bad life.

Medieval and early modern Jewish philosophers developed their thinking in conversation with various bodies of literature. The influence of ancient Greek – primarily Aristotle (and pseudo-Aristotle) – and Arabic sources was fundamental for the very constitution of medieval Jewish philosophical discourse. Toward the late Middle Ages Jewish philosophers also established a critical dialogue with Christian scholastics. Next to these philosophical corpora, Jewish philosophers drew significantly upon Rabbinic sources (Talmud and the numerous Midrashim) and the Hebrew Bible. (...) In order to clarify the unique as well as shared elements in the thought of medieval Jewish philosophers, we will begin this chapter with a brief study of some early Rabbinic sources on the purpose of the world, i.e., why it came to be and why it is sustained in existence. In the second part of this chapter, we will study Maimonides’ critique of the veracity and usefulness of the belief in (anthropocentric) teleology, and the critical reception of his views by later philosophers. The third part will address discussions of divine teleology in Kabbalistic literature. Our exposition will concentrate mostly on a specific early-eighteenth-century text that is one of the most lucid and rigorous presentations of Lurianic Kabbalah. The fourth and final section will elucidate Spinoza’s critique of teleology, its precise target and scope, and its debt to earlier sources discussed in this chapter. (shrink)

Contemporary Jewish Philosophy offers a comprehensive survey of Jewish philosophy in the twentieth century. At the same time, it gives an appraisal of the meaning of this philosophy within the context of the history of philosophy. Jewish philosophers who are introduced are the most important in this age: Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Leo Strauss, Emmanuel Le;vinas. The problems which are emphasized are the crisis of humanism and the quest for new thinking. (...) This book provides a new approach to philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence Is commitment to God compatible with modern citizenship? In this book, Daniel H. Weiss provides new readings of four modern Jewish philosophers - Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin - in light of classical rabbinic accounts of God's sovereignty, divine and human violence, and the embodied human being as the image of God. He demonstrates how classical rabbinic literature is relevant to contemporary political and philosophical (...) debates. Weiss brings to light striking political aspects of the writings of the modern Jewish philosophers, who have often been understood as non-political. In addition, he shows how the four modern thinkers are more radical and more shaped by Jewish tradition than has previously been thought. Taken as a whole, Weiss' book argues for a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between Judaism and politics, the history of Jewish thought, and the ethical and political dynamics of the broader Western philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This anthology reflects on the future of Jewish philosophy in light of the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers (Brill, 2013-2018). The essays assess the academic contribution and cultural importance of Jewish philosophy and offer paths for its future growth.

This essay relates my life story as a Jewish philosopher who was born and raised in Israel but whose academic career has taken place in the United States. The essay explains how I developed my approach to Jewish philosophy as intellectual history, viewing philosophy as cultural practice. My research evolved over time from preoccupation with medieval and early-modern Jewish philosophy and mysticism to contemporary concerns of feminism, environmentalism, and transhumanism. Through a personal life story, (...) the essay makes the case for doing philosophy in a contextual, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary way, integrating the desire for universality and the commitment for differentiated particularity. Jewish philosophy offers a viable model for the intellectual challenges facing all people in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Is there a Jewish philosophy? By L. Roth.--Philo and Judaism in Alexandria, by R. Loewe.--Maimonides, by I. Epstein.--The mystical school, by L. Jacobs.--Spinoza, by D. D. Raphael.--Philosophers and the emancipation, by D. Patterson.--Zionist philosophers, by D. Patterson.--Franz Rosenzweig and the existentialist philosophers, by I. Maybaum.

There are multiple manners of defining Jewish philosophy. The controversies woven around this topic seem to leave the issue perpetually open instead of determining a unique and final perspective. However, this outcome is indubitably an indication of the fact that Jewish philosophy proposes a privileged manner of understanding Judaism through the encounter between philosophy and religion as a founding polar- ity of a creative tradition. One of the ways of asserting this polarity has gained the (...) symbolic dimension of superimposing two cultural paradigms. This has been expressed through the metaphor of two cities, namely Jerusalem and Athens, and through the metaphor of two lands, Greece and Israel. Out of these symbolic designations I will bring into discussion the standpoints of Leo Strauss and Abraham Joshua Heschel and will try to offer a new perspective over this issue. (shrink)

This book is intended as a text for courses in Jewish philosophy, as well as for more general courses in religious thought, in Judaism, and in philosophy. The book presupposes no prior background in Judaism, in philosophy, or in Jewish philosophy. Each chapter concludes with sets of key terms and questions as well as recommendations for further reading.

Explores the impact on Jews and Judaism of the crisis of modernity, analyzing modern Jewish dilemmas and providing a prescription for their resolution.

Tamar Rudavsky's erudite survey of Jewish philosophy during the Middle Ages is the latest compendium of a wide array of thinkers who profoundly constructed bridges between the two worlds of Jewish beliefs informed by the Hebrew Bible and its rabbinic overlay at one end, and of science and philosophy dominated by Aristotelian physics and metaphysics at the other. Jewish philosophers, like their Islamic and Christian counterparts, tirelessly exerted themselves to reconcile the two into a unified (...) system. The very title of Maimonides's seminal Guide of the Perplexed reflects his attempt to resolve the angst of his intellectually sophisticated coreligionists who faced an irreconcilable either/or choice between the... (shrink)

An examination of Jewish philosophy in the modern age and in light of secular philosophy. Ch. 8 (pp. 189-211), "Fackenheim's Dilemma, " deals with Emil Fackenheim's philosophy concerning the Holocaust, and the place of God and Judaism in a post-Holocaust world. Expounds on his theology, his existential theories, and his attitude to Jewish history.

Introduction: occupation -- Impossibilities -- Irreconcilability -- Kaddish -- Authoritarianism: a case study -- Rosenzweig's patient -- Beyond.

Roth (1896-1963), the first philosophy professor at the Hebrew U.- Jerusalem, certainly practiced the ethics he preached in his self- imposed exile from Israel to protest the new state's policies. A dozen essays represent his "search, through thought, for the permanent." Includes a complete bibliography of his writings. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

This article represents an analysis of the Jewish philosophy of the Modern and Contemporary as the holistic phenomenon. In contrast to antiquity and the Middle Ages, when philosophy was a rather marginal part of Jewish thought, in Modern Times Jewish philosophy is formed as a distinct part of the World philosophy. Despite the fact that representatives of Jewish philosophy wrote in different languages and actively participated in the different national schools of (...) philosophy, their work has internal continuity and integrity. The article formulates the following five criteria for belonging to Jewish philosophy: belonging to philosophy itself; reliance on Jewish sources; the addressee of Jewish philosophy is an educated European; intellectual continuity ; working with a set of specific topics, such as monism, ethics and ontology, the significance of behavior and practical life, politics, the problem of man, intelligence, language and hermeneutics of the text, Athens and Jerusalem, dialogism. The article provides a list of the main authors who satisfy these criteria. The central ones can be considered Baruch Spinoza, Moshe Mendelssohn, Shlomo Maimon, German Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Josef Dov Soloveichik, Leo Strauss, Abraham Yehoshua Heshel, Eliezer Berkovich, Emil Fackenheim, Mordechai Kaplan, Emmanuel Levinas. The main conclusion of the article is that by the end of the 20th century Jewish philosophy, continuing both the traditions of classical European philosophy and Judaism, has become an important integral part of Western thought. (shrink)

T. M. Rudavsky tells the story of the development of Jewish philosophy from the 10th century to Spinoza in the 17th, as part of a dialogue with medieval Christian and Islamic thought. She gives a broad historical survey of major figures and schools within the medieval Jewish tradition, focusing on the tensions between Judaism and rational thought.

Violence and Messianism looks at how some of the figures of the so-called Renaissance of "Jewish" philosophy between the two world wars - Franz Rosenzweig, Walter Benjamin and Martin Buber - grappled with problems of violence, revolution and war. At once inheriting and breaking with the great historical figures of political philosophy such as Kant and Hegel, they also exerted considerable influence on the next generation of European philosophers, like Lévinas, Derrida and others. This book aims to (...) think through the great conflicts in the past century in the context of the theory of catastrophe and the beginning of new messianic time. Firstly, it is a book about means and ends - that is, about whether good ends can be achieved through bad means. Second, it is a book about time: peace time, war time, time it takes to transfer from war to peace, etc. Is a period of peace simply a time that excludes all violence? How long does it take to establish peace? Building on this, it then discusses whether there is anything that can be called messianic acting. Can we - are we capable of, or allowed to - act violently in order to hasten the arrival of the Messiah and peace? And would we then be in messianic time? Finally, how does this notion of messianism - a name for a sudden and unpredictable event - fit in, for example, with our contemporary understanding of terrorist violence? The book attempts to understand such pressing questions by reconstructing the notions of violence and messianism as they were elaborated by 20th century Jewish political thought. Providing an important contribution to the discussion on terrorism and the relationship between religion and violence, this book will appeal to theorists of terrorism and ethics of war, as well as students and scholars of Philosophy, Jewish studies and religion studies. (shrink)

History of Jewish philosophy from Biblical times to the present presented for the general reader, with digests of selected literary works.

v. 1. General questions and considerations -- v. 2. On philosophers and their thought.