Franz Rosenzweig and the Systematic Task of Philosophy
Cambridge University Press, 5/1/2014
EAN 9781107691315, ISBN10: 1107691311
Paperback, 354 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English
Benjamin Pollock argues that Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption is devoted to a singularly ambitious philosophical task: grasping 'the All' - the whole of what is - in the form of a system. In asserting Rosenzweig's abiding commitment to a systematic conception of philosophy, this book breaks rank with the assumptions about Rosenzweig's thought that have dominated recent scholarship. Indeed, the Star's importance is often claimed to lie precisely in the way it opposes philosophy's traditional drive for systematic knowledge and upholds instead a 'new thinking' attentive to the existential concerns, the alterity, and even the revelatory dimension of concrete human life. Pollock shows that these very innovations in Rosenzweig's thought are in fact to be understood as part and parcel of the Star's systematic program. But this is only the case, Pollock claims, because Rosenzweig approaches philosophy's traditional task of system in a radically original manner.
Introduction
The Star of Redemption as 'system of philosophy'
1. System as task of philosophy
'the oldest system-program of German idealism'
2. 'A twofold relation to the absolute'
the genesis of Rosenzweig's concept of system
3. Alls or nothings
the starting-point of Rosenzweig's system
4. 'The genuine notion of revelation'
relations, reversals, and the human being in the middle of the system
5. Seeing stars
the vision of the all and the completion of the system
Conclusion
the all and the everyday.