Elliot R. Wolfson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823255702
- eISBN:
- 9780823260911
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823255702.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The book explores the codependency of monotheism and idolatry by examining the thought of several prominent twentieth-century Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and ...
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The book explores the codependency of monotheism and idolatry by examining the thought of several prominent twentieth-century Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas. While all of these thinkers were keenly aware of the pitfalls of scriptural theism, in differing degrees, they each succumbed to the temptation to personify transcendence, even as they tried either to circumvent or to restrain it by apophatically purging kataphatic descriptions of the deity. Jacques Derrida and Edith Wyschogrod, by contrast, carried the project of denegation one step further, embarking on a path that culminated in the aporetic suspension of belief and the consequent removal of all images from God, a move that seriously compromises the viability of devotional piety. The inquiry into apophasis, transcendence, and immanence challenges recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. Not only are these philosophies of transcendence guilty of a turn to theology that defies the phenomenological presupposition of an immanent phenomenality, but they fall short on their own terms, inasmuch as they persist in employing metaphorical language that personalizes transcendence and thereby runs the risk of undermining the irreducible alterity and invisibility attributed to the transcendent other. Apophatic theologies, accordingly, must be supplanted by a more far-reaching apophasis, such that the much-celebrated metaphor of the gift would give way to the more neutral notion of an unconditional givenness that allows the apparent to appear as given without presuming a causal agency that would turn that given into a gift.Less
The book explores the codependency of monotheism and idolatry by examining the thought of several prominent twentieth-century Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas. While all of these thinkers were keenly aware of the pitfalls of scriptural theism, in differing degrees, they each succumbed to the temptation to personify transcendence, even as they tried either to circumvent or to restrain it by apophatically purging kataphatic descriptions of the deity. Jacques Derrida and Edith Wyschogrod, by contrast, carried the project of denegation one step further, embarking on a path that culminated in the aporetic suspension of belief and the consequent removal of all images from God, a move that seriously compromises the viability of devotional piety. The inquiry into apophasis, transcendence, and immanence challenges recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. Not only are these philosophies of transcendence guilty of a turn to theology that defies the phenomenological presupposition of an immanent phenomenality, but they fall short on their own terms, inasmuch as they persist in employing metaphorical language that personalizes transcendence and thereby runs the risk of undermining the irreducible alterity and invisibility attributed to the transcendent other. Apophatic theologies, accordingly, must be supplanted by a more far-reaching apophasis, such that the much-celebrated metaphor of the gift would give way to the more neutral notion of an unconditional givenness that allows the apparent to appear as given without presuming a causal agency that would turn that given into a gift.
Anstett Élisabeth and Dreyfus Jean-Marc
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719096020
- eISBN:
- 9781781707876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096020.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
The introduction will detail how the different disciplines (history - anthropology - sociology - law) approach the question of dead bodies during the killing processes. Corpses can be systematically ...
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The introduction will detail how the different disciplines (history - anthropology - sociology - law) approach the question of dead bodies during the killing processes. Corpses can be systematically desecrated, hidden, dismantled, reused, and exchanged. Ultimately, by examining the contexts within which these atrocities have taken place, the detailed case studies described show how the very methods of cadavers' destruction and manipulation reflect and inform the ideology of the perpetrators themselves. It will describe how the book will be split into three sections; 1) Who were the perpetrators and why were they chosen? It will be explored whether a division of labour created social hierarchies or criminal careers, or whether in some cases this division existed at all. 2) How did the perpetrators kill and dispose of the bodies? What techniques and technologies were employed, and how does this differ between contrasting and evolving circumstances? 3) Why did the perpetrators implement such methods and what does this say about their motivations and ideologies?Less
The introduction will detail how the different disciplines (history - anthropology - sociology - law) approach the question of dead bodies during the killing processes. Corpses can be systematically desecrated, hidden, dismantled, reused, and exchanged. Ultimately, by examining the contexts within which these atrocities have taken place, the detailed case studies described show how the very methods of cadavers' destruction and manipulation reflect and inform the ideology of the perpetrators themselves. It will describe how the book will be split into three sections; 1) Who were the perpetrators and why were they chosen? It will be explored whether a division of labour created social hierarchies or criminal careers, or whether in some cases this division existed at all. 2) How did the perpetrators kill and dispose of the bodies? What techniques and technologies were employed, and how does this differ between contrasting and evolving circumstances? 3) Why did the perpetrators implement such methods and what does this say about their motivations and ideologies?
Scott M. Campbell (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823242191
- eISBN:
- 9780823242238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823242191.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter provides a close analysis of the first section of Heidegger's lecture course Introduction to Phenomenological Research (G 17), from the winter semester 1923–24. It shows that logos as ...
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This chapter provides a close analysis of the first section of Heidegger's lecture course Introduction to Phenomenological Research (G 17), from the winter semester 1923–24. It shows that logos as speaking will serve as the ground for Heidegger's analysis of language, both logos as showing and logos as concealing. Heidegger retrieves Aristotle's conception of logos as revelation. In that retrieval, he discerns the primacy of the logos apophantikos, which is the logos of science. The logos apophantikos conceals the revelatory character of logos, but it is only by going through the logos apophantikos that we can uncover that revelatory character. We find the source of human deception—and thus of concealment—in speaking. Lastly, it looks more closely at deception to see that there is, for Heidegger, a lie built into the structure of speaking itself. But this deception arises only through the disclosure of the world and its richness.Less
This chapter provides a close analysis of the first section of Heidegger's lecture course Introduction to Phenomenological Research (G 17), from the winter semester 1923–24. It shows that logos as speaking will serve as the ground for Heidegger's analysis of language, both logos as showing and logos as concealing. Heidegger retrieves Aristotle's conception of logos as revelation. In that retrieval, he discerns the primacy of the logos apophantikos, which is the logos of science. The logos apophantikos conceals the revelatory character of logos, but it is only by going through the logos apophantikos that we can uncover that revelatory character. We find the source of human deception—and thus of concealment—in speaking. Lastly, it looks more closely at deception to see that there is, for Heidegger, a lie built into the structure of speaking itself. But this deception arises only through the disclosure of the world and its richness.
