Robert Gibbs radically revises standard interpretations of the two key figures of modern Jewish philosophy--Franz Rosenzweig, author of the monumental Star of Redemption, and Emmanuel Levinas, a major voice in contemporary intellectual life, who has inspired such thinkers as Derrida, Lyotard, Irigaray, and Blanchot. Rosenzweig and Levinas thought in relation to different philosophical schools and wrote in disparate styles. Their personal relations to Judaism and Christianity were markedly dissimilar. To Gibbs, however, the two thinkers possess basic affinities with each other. (...) The book offers important insights into how philosophy is continually being altered by its encounter with other traditions. (shrink)

Rejecting the distinction Levinas asserted between Judaism and philosophy, this book reads his philosophical works, "Totality and Infinity" and "Otherwise than ...

A number of scholars have discussed the possible affinities between Levinas and the kabbalah. In this essay, I explore the nexus between eros, secrecy, modesty, and the feminine in the thought of Levinas compared to a similar complex of ideas elicited from kabbalistic speculation. In addition to the likelihood that Levinas may have been influenced by the interrelatedness of these motifs in kabbalistic lore, I argue that he proffers an anti-theosophic interpretation of kabbalah, which accords with his rejection of the (...) dogma of incarnation and the related polemical depiction of Christianity as idolatry. The appropriation of the kabbalistic hermeneutic on the part of Levinas, therefore, entailed a major revision. In translating the ontological into the ethical, Levinas divests the secret of its secretive potency, but thereby fostered an esoteric reading of Jewish esotericism. (shrink)

This book offers a complete and internally cohesive interpretation of Religion. In contrast to the interpretations that characterize Religion as a litany of “wobbles”, fumbling between traditional Christianity and Enlightenment values, or a text that reduces religion into morality, the interpretation here offered defends the rich philosophical theology contained in each of Religion’s four parts and shows how the doctrines of the “Pure Rational System of Religion” are eminently compatible with the essential principles of Transcendental Idealism.

This chapter argues that Levinas's positive relation to the Western philosophical tradition is far more complex than his interpreters have allowed. At the same time, Levinas's relation to Judaism is far more complex than Levinas and his interpreters suggest. Analyzing Levinas's messianic claims for philosophy in the context of the historically religious roots and aspirations of modern German philosophy, the chapter considers some broad affinities between Levinas's philosophy and Christian theology, in terms of both form and content. Drawing on the (...) recent work of intellectual historians Ian Hunter and Walter Sparn, it argues that the development of modern metaphysics historically transformed what had been the social function of Christian theology. In this sense, Levinas's positive use of the term metaphysics is akin to the historical function of Christian theology, as well as to the historical function of what became post-Christian metaphysics. To make this argument, the chapter reconsiders Levinas's interpretation of Rosenzweig to shed light on Levinas's conceptions of “philosophy” generally, and his conception of “incarnation” in particular. (shrink)

THIS PAPER IS A STUDY OF KANT’S ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT WITHIN THE LIMITS OF REASON. IT BEGINS WITH A BRIEF SKETCH OF ANSELM’S SATISFACTION-THEORETIC ACCOUNT OF ATONEMENT AND THEN PRESENTS THE MAIN OBJECTIONS TO THAT ACCOUNT. NEXT KANT’S ACCOUNT OF ATONEMENT IS GIVEN A DETAILED EXPOSITION, AND IT IS SHOWN THAT IT AVOIDS THE DIFFICULTIES THAT PLAGUE ANSELM’S ACCOUNT. KANT’S ACCOUNT IS THEN SUBJECTED TO CRITICISM.

Applying the new perspectival method of interpreting Kant he expounded in earlier works, Palmquist examine a broad range of Kant's philosophical writings to present a fresh view of his thought on theology, religion, and religious experience. He defends a number of innovative theses, including how re.