The unique setting of Franz Rosenzweig
The philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig is one of the most interesting and surprising innovations of modern thought, both general and Jewish. There is a background of the leading modern Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, the first philosopher of the mind of the modem, which was consistently the essence of Judaism, Martin Buber and Hermann Cohen defined. Rosenzweig, however, was the first to inject Existentialism in Jewish thought and give it meaning, both theological and Jewish descent.
Rosenzweig has a terminology system, whose terms were invented taken from the Jewish custom. It offered its own guidelines and created a unique weave that a philosophical interpretation of Judaism in the fight with the other monotheistic religions.
Rosenzweig points out a unique and stable life. In his letter “On education”, he writes: “Judaism, I do not” literary “and not by writing or reading books themselves trapped – please forgive me all modern thinkers – it is not to be” experienced. ”Or” cultivated “We can only live and not even present -.. it’s just a Jew, and nothing more” (Life 159).
The Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig’s masterpiece is, in a remarkably ordered, wrote the singularity dialectic. Formulated in The Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig, one of the few attempts to methodically religious existentialism (MiMytos 262-273) is, does this book try unconventional, an extraordinary work in the philosophical works of our time.
Rosenzweig, in contrast to the great classical philosophers, emphasized the lack of identity between thought and reality. Instead, the book is based on three elements – God, the world and of man – his preface every action logic and can be designed with the help of faith are the star of salvation also deviates from the accepted line existential philosophy of Kierkegaard and Sartre, then tries to Rosenzweig to prepare an excellent philosophical method par.
Rosenzweig’s life and personality also particularly reflect his philosophy of life: “Man thinks that philosophy, but in reality, he wrote his autobiography (” From the Apocalypse “, 162) Though raised in an assimilated middle, studied at the feet of the German classical idealism. and the Enlightenment as much from religious conviction, he suddenly turned sharply to the faith. author of the philosophical work of Hegel and the State, which later Rosi Branch author of theological, The Star of Redemption, and translator of Hebrew poetry the Middle Ages and the Bible into German. It stands at the threshold of conversion to Christianity and Judaism was transformed into one of its deepest thinkers. Intellectually sharp, probing and intoxicating, and his essays often include written irony and humor in the last eight years of his life when he was seriously ill and in agony, talking to his body paralyzed and unable (his life).
Despite the uniqueness of man and his method is Rosenzweig’s philosophy is not a singular phenomenon, but is a comprehensive spiritual feature of post-Hegelian philosophy. This process is in the center of thinking or not an abstract method, but the human existential reality, the indispensable man to understand, with all its existential problems, and emotional suffering of the soul.
The road to Hegel philosophically
In 200 years before Hegel began a direction in philosophical thought and develops leading inexorably t Hegelian thought. Among the philosophers of that time developing important Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was the father of English empiricism, which means that the source of the understanding of knowledge o the experience we gain through our senses instead. Bacon developed the scientific method, adopted and adapted to distinguish among different political philosopher each other, as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1701).
The dependence of man on his perception of a scientific method, a philosophical concept. George Berkeley (1685-1753) represents the rule of “being” is “seen” in the minds of men. He further explained that the only thing that is for some, is a spiritual reality, the result of thought, which came over the place. The skepticism of Berkeley was David Hume (1711-1771), the opportunity to understand with our intellect supports the whole truth of reality denied. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) or accepts Hume’s skepticism, empiricism, or earlier, and suggested synthesis, the focus of the object on the “I.” We transfer knowledge, Kant said, by our senses like them around by our intelligence and not of the world to us.
Kant is not the only philosopher who nourishes the “I”. René Descartes (1596-1650) is based on a basic awareness “Cogito ergo sum.” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) theory of the Monadology reinforces the “I” of Descartes and the monism and determinism natural Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in the “I” overall unity of mind and full course.
Thus began the broad spectrum of philosophical doctrines in the 200 years before Hegel advising the position of man in the world to emphasize. According to Hegel, has a significant and distinctive movement in philosophical thought, one that really could be described as Rosi Branch described as “the new thinking.”
The immense importance of the “new thinking” will be released after a brief overview of the theories and teachings of Hegel.
Hegel’s theory and the response to it as the background for “new thinking”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) contributed to the philosophy in two ways:
First He created the history of philosophy as a central authority, and to teach an integral part of philosophy. The dialectic observe things moving, flowing, and he knows that will not be true tomorrow everything, what was true yesterday. Probably with his kind, is the dialectic you get used to more tolerance.
Second He made the initial determination that the existing different philosophical methods in relation to the development of cognition to an idealistic philosophy, which seeks to express the absolute and exclusive truth that the “world spirit” – the divine guidance to bring the human world to complete the fulfillment of spiritual freedom is. Hegel saw in the history of philosophy to Mars, a constant “absolute knowledge”. The philosophy was not only a question of understanding the history, but of power and the best way to judge the course of history (“the power absalute”), the path to address the cognitive events. But the efforts of Hegel sought a total and complete philosophy, a philosophy, the absolute truth, as opposed to the philosophical teachings of many early philosophers.
Hegel solved the conflict with its dialectic. Is based on philosophical theories, assumptions that the perception of the concept of partial truth. Will the school of thought anti-theses. This anti-theses are in their perception of the truth of the idea only partially, but creates the merger of mutual fulfillment, synthesis, implementation of a philosophical truth (“the TatalitÓ” t “). In other words, we must ensure that all philosophy by its conflict to identify with other philosophies, but we must also recognize its true elements.
Philosophy takes itself the fruits of the spirit of the previous period, which ends otherwise, and the spirit and improves and creates the Hegelian synthesis.
“This is the philosophy which is the last chronologically the results of all previous philosophies, so it should contain the principles of each one of them, ‘Thus, as a philosophy, it is the most advanced, productive, and explicit” die (EnzyklopÓ “ dry, 13, 47). Each philosopher, then stands for a certain period of partial truth on the path to wholeness.
A similar idea was recently approved by Natan Rotenstreich, proposed born in 1914, about 150 years after Hegel (Al Hakiyum 25-28). After Rotenstreich, each person must feel a necessary link in the development of custom software, which is the complex relationships that are transmitted in each generation. The sense of consciousness that one is a participant in a company of giants, which is never finished. The me that I was shot, then infinite for an original contribution to a small part of something. Man is not the initiator of the process, he knows that the world does not begin with him. Similarly, one can not put the companies in which it is connected, and is thus a part of it forever. Rotenstreich emphasizes the personal subjective element, but there is no time to perfect philosophy, because it Hegel.
Rose Show uses the concept of systematic and methodical Hegel saw “the great heritage of 2000 years of history of philosophy o” (Star 61), but not therefore conclude that Hegel presented the sole owner of philosophical truth, or its predecessor misunderstandings. The resolution dialectic of Hegel was not a final, after which no progress of thought, the essence of his dialectical view is the opposite could be drawn. Armor philosophical one new and innovative way was needed to solve the philosophical problems as they arise, continued.
This longing for a new kind of philosophical thought, which is perceived in the real world of work, the existence of man, as it is, rather than in terms of Hegel’s “spirit world”. This desire was expressed for example in Nietzsche, “the measure of all values” and the philosophical thinking of Karl Marx’s materialist (1818-1883) and Andreas Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872).
Hegel’s metaphysics are not only critically analyzed, its “natural philosophy” has also been revealed as false. His experiments, the phenomena of nature, the exercise was based on assumptions and not as an abstract and experimental science ridiculed by experienced researchers like Carl Friedrich Gauss in his work on geometry and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz in his work on consciousness (classes).
Hegel observes the world from the perspective of the absolute spirit, the ‘perfect’ awareness of abstract thinking and does not consider the existence of a real human being live in the real world experience and direct their real problems. Hegel saw the world as a consolidated and united as the ideal infinite, eternal, inaccessible to science, a world that no one brings to the concrete reality in the depths of his soul.
Hegel people in a world of abstract concepts is captured, it is seen as a miniature world that preserve their connection with reality and living and yet not lose the ability to find it. It has, instead, part of the process, a part of a speculative bubble magic system in the world – the world and the people are “one flesh” – united and joined together. Consciousness is not the true and real knowledge, but the results of basic research and specific experience held opponents Hegel.
In contrast to the views of Hegel, Hegel’s thought was not complete. Bacon, who were thought to be 200 years old distrust and promotes knowledge based on natural phenomena and experiments, and not to recognize Hans Vaihinger, who claimed that two generations after Hegel’s thinking in the situation is the “absolute truth”, were two disputed by many philosophers, the claims of Hegel. There were other lessons which have been at odds with Hegel’s thought. Under these doctrines phenomenology, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), the currently prevailing in Germany and France are founded. Phenomenology attempts, the true state of the conscience of man by mental or external data (“phenomena”), without a priori ontological determination of light.
Another dissident vis-a – Visa Hegel’s thought is Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), considered one of the fathers of the neo-Kantian “School of Marburg.” Cohen says that the “logic of creation” (“Logic of origin”) or transcendental ontology “true reality” or the essence last thought, which means, wants the investigation of the intellectual creation priori exposure data from the beginning as an infinite process is what determines the status of programmatic human consciousness. Cohen tries a society organized on the principles of ethics and respect to achieve the glory of man.
The philosopher Hegel followed with the idealistic philosophy were dissatisfied, they do not agree with Hegel, that consciousness does not give a true perception in real time and began to develop philosophical thinking, which is not limited to abstract and traditional method of Hegel. They sought to use the philosophy to take care solutions to the problems of real people in the real world to find.
“The main trend should lead to the philosophical work of the philosopher, the man … the special symbol of recognition of the man turns himself in character a unique personality that exists for itself …” (Fundamentals of Philosophy 60). In his book The Essence of Christianity (The Essence of Christianity), Feuerbach argued that the existential reality of the life of man in his faith in human nature and good deeds in this world. Marxist Nietzsche and Hegel thought the same conflict with the essence of the front set of Feuerbach.
So the difference between Hegel and those that his thinking is the opposite view, in the view of the relationship of man and philosophers and philosophy, each philosopher Hegel as an instrument of philosophy, a representative of the truth in part, to a certain stage of development of philosophy, the idea that the philosopher was thinking an idea is outside of the philosopher, an abstract and “perfect”, the philosopher and not speculate on the part of it.
There form the perspective of his opponents, it is not only a new concept of philosophy, there was also a new brand of philosophy. The man is now the deciding factor, it is no longer locked into a world of concepts, but is linked to critical.Concrete and immediate, tangible reality. The man, in the words of Rosenzweig, a “world view” that “takes position” (Star 143). It is not an instrument of philosophy, but philosophy is an instrument of philosopher, man. ”Philosopher humbly lowered his experiment. Existing” I “, and then his theory is more real, concrete and closer to the truth” (173 Dialogic philosophy).
Another conflict with Hegel’s thought was not led by the rationalists, the philosophers, a philosophy in which man acts according to the intellect alone against, leaving no room for claims of heart and emotion. Søren Kierdegaard (1813-1855) claimed, for example, that Hegel was an absolute religion, cognitive-conceptual idealist philosophy that people deters the possibility of direct connection with God to achieve change. He said that “truth is subjective and that the main element of the philosophy is” the subjective philosopher “(Postscript, sec 2).
The Hegelian monistic idealism, all achieved by a principle, the idea of ??”spirit” – prevents the man to make the bond of faith. The world is, Hegel says, just an idea of ??God, without a shadow theist, but pantheistic, because things are not created by the idea: They are the idea itself. Nature, science and art are all achievements of the individual consciousness is also the fulfillment of consciousness, and it is only the conscious, so that the private “I” has no place in this method. The “I” is similar, as in the theory of Spinoza, a “light wave along the rolling waves of the ocean.” The purpose (“substantia”), according to Spinoza, is the spirit in Hegel, each engulfing everything in it. Thus the solitary “I” not the face of God as one who stands before God either in prayer or sinners or as a thinker.
The basic assumption is the belief that man can stand and present their beings before God, that God can talk to him and he can talk to God, or in the words of the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886). ”Here, every age is really just to God” (Star 225) Ranke described the events of the past “as they were when they occurred.” In other words, events represent b by the revelation of God in the metaphysical ideal, the significance of the events, not by the intellect existed (“Service”).
In refuted Hegel, the non-rationalist Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) claimed that the rationalist systems that we reach the knowledge of knowledge in general and the laws of reality can always individualistic, it requires an act of will, that the results, a personal need that can not be provided with opportunities or general laws. Against the “negative” rationalist philosophy Schelling put a “positive philosophy” from the faith and will, whose philosophy laid the foundation for innovative and powerful existential philosophy of religion, Franz Rosenzweig, whose philosophy strongly influenced.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) raised the “will” to “conscience” (“ratio”) (BBC). Schopenhauer claimed that the like is something that is understood to be beyond our knowledge about the capacity of our consciousness, the will is the singular reality in us and around the world. Man’s consciousness is the power of blind will, no purpose and the proof is and will never be satisfied (cf. Star 47, 49 and 57). Nietzsche argues that only the will to govern and too powerful to be, exists in all beings. Will is the active element in the natural and human phenomena and distorts our mental consciousness, the opposite of life is, and science is a value that is not true.
Other non-rationalist, called for the idealism of Hegel were monastic Theodor Lessing (1872-1933) and Salomon Ludwig Steinheim (1789-1866). Lessing argues that the truth revealed by the knowledge that it is hidden from consciousness, and found among the silent forces, and enable the direct awareness of its effect (one).Steinheim (1789-1866) said that it is not reached, religious truth (the world of creation, revelation) through spiritual reflection, as this is the only truth is the subject of the disclosure. He “denies speculative philosophy because of its rational character and faith itself is a kind of consciousness is not to be identified with rational consciousness” (Al Hakiyum2: 168).
Philosophy of two separate paths
Rosenzweig’s thinking has a special place under the idea that Hegel denies.Although it belongs to the non-rationalist current of thought, continuing the line of Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche sets, Rosenzweig heavily on anthropological grounds of Feuerbach that “the first revelation of the renewal of our minds” (Naharayim 232). However, there is also a maze of rationalism and anti-rationalism, as the following into consideration:
“Revelation, remembers back to his past, while the remainder of the current, he acknowledges his past as part of a bygone world … because the world of things, it allows the soil background from his belief in the factuality of a real historical event ”(Star 215). ”There is something in consciousness that is beyond consciousness … consciousness is the basis of reality, but the consciousness in its essence is the reality” (Naharayim 207).
It follows the philosophy of Rosenzweig two ways: a philosophical theology of the road chosen by itself, in which the intellect, the element is inserted. The philosophy of religion are the second way, the revelation that serve as the base. These two possibilities, according to Rosenzweig, complement each other, one feeding the other, and can exist independently of each other. This design is comparable to Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), from which a great synthesis between science and the limited attention and perfection of faith.
But while the belief of the Christian revelation Aquinas (Basic Writings) derived Rosenzweig is derived from the soul of man, that the relationship between philosophy and theology is determined. Rosenzweig, in contrast to Steinheim, noted that he was helped by the philosophical, intellectual means to prove his substance.Rosenzweig vigorously against any doctrine of existence, faith, self-consciously on the basis of investigations. His anti-rationalist doctrine resulted from the faith, but faith in the history of rationalist creation (Star 213) drawn, and this is his teaching built on logic, not by others, rationalist approaches.
Rosenzweig opposition Hegel zeal. Instead of abstract thought from Hegel concrete came “new thinking” in terms of words, men and real experiences.
Man is free – it’s own master
The act of transferring the focus of the philosophy of the philosophers who created not only a responsibility of the people, but also emphasizes that man is free. He is his own master full responsibility for its existence rests on his shoulders alone. One longs for his own free will and imagination. It does not breathe the freedom, the progress and achievements of science as proposed by materialism, he still finds me the creative spirit of man as the idealism nor the intellectual knowledge of the proposed World, after rationalist. Nietzsche, for example through a new form, whose strength of will is the subjective values ??to recognize that shape human behavior and thinking on the freedom of choice.
Rosenzweig calls “a very personal way, a kind of philosophical view of the world, one that the position will” (Star 143), which rises and grows on the basis of freedom, responsibility and ability at the time of learning the man, God and the world, and in relation to a Jew in his struggle with Jewish life, the imperatives of practice.
The philosophy of “I” of Kierkegaard and Rosenzweig is not the solitary “I” of Immanuel Kant, an “I” that knows nothing about the world, with whom he has no contact. Even Descartes, stating “cogito ergo sum” is not about his private life: “I” talk, but of abstract thought “I”. But Kant speaks constantly of the “I” What is the center of a methodical system, but as Kierkegaard said, because we always talk on the “I” “I” becomes thinner and thinner, until finally the true spirit of the dead (dialogical philosophy 17).
After the “new thinking” freedom of choice is not a matter of obligation or constraint that the people coming from outside by order or decree. This freedom is the man himself – the existence – “existence for themselves” (“Fürsichselbstsein”), as the German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) and “Be Yourself” (“to eigenist”) in the words of Martin Heidegger. Therefore, it can not escape himself, except by suicide and death.
The man has no choice but to be free. Thus, in every situation we are responsible, because the responsibility is rising from the land of freedom (Existentialism 64). A mistake if he thinks he can grab and flee from themselves by the Kantian or Hegelian abstract dogma. So man has two courses available: the path of freedom and promote it as oppose to. Life for the love of liberty is real life, authentic life. Who uses the freedom to fight them or to limit its area in the world is a meaningless, authentic life. Such a life is not compatible with the nature of man (Portrait 75).
Man is free to create good and evil, truth and falsehood. It approves or denies the world and proclaim his presence and nothingness. Decided the man who chose the freedom it has, not only for themselves but for all humanity (Being 143). The individual is the source of freedom. There is no freedom as the freedom of the individual. For this reason, make every man and to develop and test the truth of the values ??themselves. In relation to our lives and our experiences, there is no other world than the world of man. The values ??are nothing more than the values ??refer to the individual. Thus, the individual values ??to create. Without the individual, they would not have taken place, and there would be no value (existentialism 34-35) are. Man is by nature neither good nor bad. It is good or bad, because it increases the freedom in the world.
Freedom is neither a priori nor objective. It is the essence of the man who saw her every day and every moment. This is the true existence, because it for yourself (Being 641) is available.
The difficulties that gave rise to existentialism
Rosenzweig took refuge from the extreme subjectivism, when it was abandoned in 1913, idealistic philosophy and historicism Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), his teacher (see The Origin). He returned to theology, philosophy, non-rational belief, during discussions on the topic of “Brightness” (Star 143) subjectivity that Heidegger is rooted in his creation of pure subjectivist philosophy.
Explanation Rosenzweig shows the lack of clarity that given to the world of philosophy. Delete any philosopher, religious or not, openly sought the essence of man as an object that you want people to see as a single topic. However, the “I” in the subject line alone and with his back to the target element in its philosophical thought, the philosophers themselves, exposed to significant difficulties. Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) spoke of the decline of freedom, lack of openness and freedoms of the subordination of man to freedom. Jaspers saw in the subjectivity of a prison, like the snail, who built his house and is bound for ever to them. It is not surprising that in this experiment, the true freedom has withdrawn upon presentation of imaginary freedom.
Freedom is abstract, represent a free wave. Indeed, there is no real freedom of choice, because our options are still limited ad will depend on factors over which we can not be controlled or not the effect. Man does not live for the simple freedom to worship physical or metaphysical. He wanted real freedom of thought, economy, religion and in his personal life. The man wanted the freedom to remove, obstacles in the way of life to improve the fight against disease and disaster, the champion of the environment in general and what already exists. This is freedom in action innovation, creation and the revelation of the secret and hidden knowledge without expressed Existential Freedom is remote from the world outside of the real and living encounter with God and the world, on the contrary, it is switched to the abstract, the intangible.
The freedom of choice, is tiny. According to existentialist thought, we are not free and independent people, but each of us gradually “a man of the crowd,” including one that the doctrine of life “to act and not sit down.”
