New Directions in Jewish Philosophy [Paperback]

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 arenasincluding linguistics, poetics, aesthetics, and visual cultureas 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.

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.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.[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

Introduction: Charting an Alternative Course for the Study of Jewish Philosophy / Aaron W. Hughes and Elliot R. Wolfson

Part 1. The Past Confronts the Present, the Present Confronts Its Past: Challenging Canonicity
1. Screening the Canon: Levinas and Medieval Jewish PhilosophlÓ)