Jewish Philosophers on Reason and Revelation

Author(s):  
Aharon Shear-Yashuv

Are reason and revelation different sources of truth? Do they contradict or complement each other? The present article tries to give an answer to these ancient questions from a Jewish pluralistic point of view. I describe the essential views of the most important representatives of the two main schools of Jewish thought: the rationalists Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, and Hermann Cohen, and the antirationalists Judah Halevi and Solomon Levi Steinheim. I show that even the antirationalists use the tools of rationalism, by which Talmudic-rabbinic thought is characterized, in an attempt to show that they are not irrationalists. The comparison of this attitude with the general philosophic tradition shows that Aristotle’s notion of potential knowledge is closer to Jewish thought than Plato’s view of recollection.

2021 ◽  
pp. 136-150
Author(s):  
Noam Pianko

This chapter explores the broad contours of concepts of diaspora in modern Jewish thought. Philosophers, intellectuals, religious thinkers, and non-Zionist nationalists who disagreed on the ideal political structure for Jewish collective life (including Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Simon Dubnow, Hannah Arendt, Mordecai Kaplan, and Horace Kallen) shared a commitment to diaspora as a value, rather than just a fact, of modern Jewish life. Yet the emergence of the terminology of diaspora in tandem with the rise of nationalism and Zionism shaped the theoretical evolution of diaspora as the binary opposite to homeland and statist visions of Jewish identity. As a result, seminal Zionist theorists deeply critical of diaspora life, such as Theodor Herzl, Achad Ha’am, and David Ben-Gurion, also had a key role in framing the significance of diaspora. Modern theories of diaspora internalized and contested the privileged position of territory and sovereignty demanded by the rise of nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 476-482
Author(s):  
Boris V. Mezhuev

The article is devoted to the detailed review of the publications almanac of prominent Russian historian M.A. Kolerov who mainly specialized in the works of Russian political idealists of the beginning of the 20th century, and especially those of P.B. Struve. The author draws attention to the fact that in 2018 almanac and in his latest works M.A. Kolerov directly contrasts Struve’s consistent anti-Bolshevism and “White activism” with the powerful national Bolshevist views of his student and disciple N.V. Ustryalov, who accepted Soviet power in 1920, returned to the USSR in 1935 and perished in the period of Stalin repressions. In the present article the author makes the attempt to critically assess national Bolshevism mainly not from the political, but from the moral and philosophic point of view. He notes that the major mistake of Ustryalov and his associates was in their refusal to politically criticize Bolshevism, thus underestimating the destructive potential of the terrorist practices of the Communist dictatorship for the destiny of the country and its people.


PMLA ◽  
1920 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-209
Author(s):  
Walter Clyde Curry

My recent article, The Secret of Chaucer's Pardoner, was the first of a series of studies advanced in support of the general thesis that Chaucer, in his choice of physical peculiarities that would fittingly correspond to the characters of his Canterbury Pilgrims, made use of, or at least was influenced by, the rules and regulations laid down in the universally popular Physiognomies of his time. More specifically, I attempted to show that the Pardoner is a typical example of what the physiognomists would call a eunuchus ex nativitate. The present article demonstrates that Chaucer's Reeve and Miller, in the exact correspondence of their respective personal appearances and characters, are also “scientifically” correct according to the specifications of physiognomical lore, and that the quarrel between these traditional and professional enemies cannot properly be understood unless scanned from the medieval point of view.


Author(s):  
Vladimir N. Belov ◽  
◽  
Aleksandra Yu. Berdnikova ◽  
Yulia G. Karagod ◽  
◽  
...  

The article analyzes the main characteristic features of the philosophy of religion of the founder of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism Hermann Cohen. Special attention is paid to Cohen’s criticism and reinterpretation of Kant’s “practical philosophy” from the point of view of the philosophy of religion: Cohen supplements and expands Kant’s provisions on moral law and moral duty, interpreting them as divine commandments. The authors emphasize the fundamental importance for Cohen of the “internal similarity” between Kant’s ethical teaching and the main provisions of Judaism. The sources of Kant’s own ideas about the Jewish tradition are shown, which include the work of Moses Mendelssohn “Jerusalem” and the “Theologicalpolitical treatise” by Baruch Spinoza. Cohen’s criticism of these works is analyzed an much attention is paid to the consideration of Cohen’s attitude to Spinoza’s philosophical legacy in general. The interpretation of the postulates of Judaism by Cohen (and their “inner kinship” with Kant’s moral philosophy) in ethical, logical, and political contexts is presented. Cohen’s understanding of such religious-philosophical and doctrinal phenomena as law, grace, Revelation, teaching, the Torah, messianism, freedom, the Old Testament and the New Testament, etc. is provided and analyzed. The main points of Cohen’s religious teaching as “ethical monotheism” are considered; in particular, the authors analyze his understanding of the idea of God as “the only one”, which is highlighted in the works of Paul Natorp. It is concluded that Cohen’s philosophy of religion, which is based on the postulates of Judaism as well as Kant’s “practical philosophy”, could be characterized by the terms “ethical monotheism”, “universalism” and “humanism”.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (05) ◽  
pp. 245-249
Author(s):  
Sachin S. Sheth ◽  
Gangaprasad R. Asore ◽  
Kiran Sudhakar Darade

Karanjadi Taila is medicated oil used in Ayurveda for Indralupta (Alopecia). Indralupta comes under Kshudra Roga which is characterized by loss of hair it can be correlated with Alopecia areata which is having chief complaint of hair loss on body especially on scalp. The aim of the present study is to do physic-chemical standards for the above Taila and its conversion into Karanjadi Taila cream. These two formulations have a special importance from pharmaceutical point of view when compared to usual Tailas or cream. In present article, we are trying to study analytical results of Karanjadi Taila w.s.r. to Karanjadi Taila cream.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
Willi Goetschel

This paper examines Rosenzweig?s philosophic project in the context of his time as a critical intervention in the discussion of the place of Jewish thought in the university and in society. If Hermann Cohen represented the first generation of Jewish philosophers claiming that participation in the university is constitutive for the institution?s claim to universalism, the second generation-represented by Martin Buber - was more diffident about the university and its openness. For Buber, literary modernism offered what the university would refuse. Disappointed about the failure of the recognition of the efforts of the previous two generations, Rosenzweig represents the third generation. He turns the situation into a creative response anchoring philosophy as a project that calls for a resolute move outside the university.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-129
Author(s):  
Eman Mohamed Abdelfattah Said

Abstract In “Fern von Aleppo”, the Syrian author Faisal Hamdo, who left his home in 2014 and sought refuge in Germany, tells of his very personal integration experiences. The book represents a kind of intercultural communication. In his book, Faisal Hamdo, who sees himself as a “mediator between the worlds”, tries to give the German reader answers to many questions regarding Syrian culture. From a text linguistic point of view, this book identifies the narrative development that seems to be tailored to the intercultural context. Accordingly, the present article raises the following questions: Does the structure of classic narration differ from the structure of narration in an intercultural context? Which intercultural information units are presented in the text? How are they embedded in the narrative text? Which constituents of the narrative structure are suitable for realizing intercultural communication? Which communicative functions do the constituents of the narrative structure fulfill in an intercultural context? The contribution sets itself the goal of analyzing the narrative structure to investigate how intercultural communication comes about through narration, how the intercultural information units are integrated into the constituents of the classic narrative structure so that they fulfill their communicative function, and to developa suitable analysis model.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 62-94
Author(s):  
I. Dvorkin

My aim is to prove that Hermann Cohen was not only a philosopher of dialogue but has played an exceedingly important role in the history of that current of thought. His books Ethics of Pure Will (1904) and Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (1919) offer a detailed analysis of the relationships between I and Thou, I and It, I and We. In the first book these relationships are considered from the ethical-legal point of view and in the second from the viewpoint of religious anthropology. However, Cohen considers the problem of inter-personal relationships not in isolation, but as an important component of his entire philosophical system. Deduction of the concept of personality in Ethics of Pure Will is based on Cohen’s logic of the origin expounded in the first part of his system in The Logic of Pure Cognition. Cohen explains that the origin of the self-consciousness of I as a personality is not the external world, but another person, i.e. Thou. In turn, the partnership relationships between I and Thou create the community We which forms the basis of the law-governed state. The process of artistic creation in the framework of inter-personal relationship is explored in Aesthetics of Pure Feeling. Finally, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism formulates the conception of religion as the most complete realisation of inter-personal relationship. Thus, dialogism became an important dimension of Cohen’s entire philosophical system, a fact noted by Martin Buber. Franz Rosenzweig, in unfolding dialogical thinking, expressly appeals to all the elements of Cohen’s system. There are signs of his influence on Bakhtin’s doctrine. Thus, examining Cohen’s doctrine as part of the philosophy of dialogue gives insights into this entire trend as a coherent whole.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-301
Author(s):  
Amar Nath Singh ◽  

The phenomena of the guttation and autolysis have been reported in various wild mushroom species in natural conditions. These have also been reported in various fungi including Trichoderma species from different sources during their artificial culturing. In the present article, these phenomena have been reported and discussed in the case of seed borne Trichoderma species isolated from the seeds of Dipterocarpus retusus and propagated under artificial culture conditions. The process of guttation and the autolysis are reported to have ecological significance to the respective organism in the ecosystem.


2021 ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Aliaksandr Vashanau ◽  
Anna Malyutina ◽  
Maryia Tkachova ◽  
Maxim Chernyavskiy ◽  
Evgeniya Tkach

The present article focuses on artefacts made of antlers with holes drilled for the haft, both those available in physical collections and those known only from archaeological literature. This category of items is held by a number of central and regional museums in Belarus, as well as in private collections. Such ‘dispersion’ of the items makes their study problematic. Until now, no comprehensive study of antler artefacts with drilled holes from gravel pits located in Smarhon has been conducted. Publications have so far considered only the specimens that are most representative from the point of view of comparative typology. Michal Chernyavskiy and Piotr Kalinovskiy invariably associated tools with drilled holes with the Mesolithic period. However, this group of tools is more diverse and chronologically complicated than previously thought. The authors of the present article propose a new typological scheme for this item category which is part of a pan-European cultural and chronological context based on a complex analysis of antler artefacts with drilled holes.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document