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Religion Philosophy

New Directions in Jewish Philosophy

edited by Aaron W. Hughes & Elliot R. Wolfson

contributions by Kalman P. Bland, Almut Sh Bruckstein, James A. Diamond, Sergey Dolgopolski, Michah Gottlieb, Dana Hollander, Martin Kavka & Steven M. Wasserstrom

Publisher
Indiana University Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2009
Category
Philosophy
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780253221643
    Publish Date
    Dec 2009
    List Price
    $42.00

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Description

Breaking with strictly historical or textual perspectives, this book explores Jewish philosophy as philosophy. Often regarded as too technical for Judaic studies and too religious for philosophy departments, Jewish philosophy has had an ambiguous position in the academy. These provocative essays propose new models for the study of Jewish philosophy that embrace wider intellectual arenas—including linguistics, poetics, aesthetics, and visual culture—as a path toward understanding the particular philosophic concerns of Judaism. As they reread classic Jewish texts, the essays articulate a new set of questions and demonstrate the vitality and originality of Jewish philosophy.

About the authors

Editorial Reviews

[T]his volume's 'new direction' instead charges writers with the philosophical task of addressing lacunae in their subfields and questioning regnant orthodoxies, opposing the reductionist turn that 'smother[s] philosophy with philology or historical contexts', and analytic philosophy's 'leveling of the particular'. What emerges is a fascinating if eclectic volume in terms of style and content.11.3 2012

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

First-rate, scholarly, erudite, and interesting . . . these essays have brought some dimension of Jewish philosophy into conversation with contemporary Continental philosophy, German philosophy and history, the Talmud, rabbinics, and poetry.

Texas A&M University

The ten essays collected here are a wonderful series of studies in Jewish philosophy focusing on Talmudic, M/medieval, and modern thought Taken together, this is an excellent collection that displays some of the real fruits for Jewish philosophy that the perspective of postmodern philosophy, with its focus on language, text, interpretation, and image, can bring to the field.

H-Judaic