Franz Rosenzweig and the Systematic Task of Philosophy

by Benjamin Pollock

Benjamin Pollock argues that Franz Rosenzweigs The Star of Redemption is devoted to a singularly ambitious philosophical grasping the All the whole of what is in the form of a system. In asserting Rosenzweigs abiding commitment to a systematic conception of philosophy, this book breaks rank with the assumptions about Rosenzweigs thought that have dominated recent scholarship. Indeed, the Stars importance is often claimed to lie precisely in the way it opposes philosophys 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 Rosenzweigs thought are in fact to be understood as part and parcel of the Stars systematic program. But this is only the case, Pollock claims, because Rosenzweig approaches philosophys traditional task of system in a radically original manner. For the Star not only seeks to guide its readers on the path toward knowing the All of which all beings are a part; it at once directs them toward realizing the redemptive unity of that very All through the actions, decisions, and relations of concrete human life.

338 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Paul H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosenzweig is one of the most fascinating and underappreciated philosophers of the 20th century. Despite being a subterranean and decisive influence on thinkers as diverse as Leo Strauss (whom he knew personally) and Emmanuel Levinas (who stated in his Totality and Infinity that Rosenzweig was “too often present in this work to be cited”), Rosenzweig has been largely passed over by scholars.

Pollock's monograph is the best in a recent revival of books on Rosenzweig (both in German and in English) over the past 20 years. Notably, his relatively straightforward argument—that Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption is a philosophical system—is in fact a rather controversial claim among Rosenzweig scholars, who have typically viewed this thinker as some combination of Jewish existentialist, mystic, “dialogical” philosopher, anti-systematician, and alterity-focused proto-postmodernist. Pollock correctly points out that these categories simply do not do justice to Rosenzweig’s letters and published works, and he thus resolves one of the key underlying aporiae in the scholarship—i.e., how can one reconcile Rosenzweig’s vehement attacks on system with his numerous references to the Star as a “system of philosophy”?

Pollock answers this conundrum by conclusively showing that Rosenzweig is a radically original systematician who retrieves a deeper, more holistic sense of system, which was first formulated by Hölderlin, Hegel, and Schelling in the 1790s. This promising beginning was, on Rosenzweig’s view, already corrupted and calcified in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, and utterly lost after the collapse of the task of system in the wake of Hegel’s death and the rise of positivism in the 1840s. Rosenzweig’s system, however, is far from being a totalizing force that reduces difference or emphasizes unity at the expense of the particular. The Star of Redemption presents a system that is anti-theoretical, dynamic, and combines philosophical and theological content in a highly unorthodox way. It is based throughout on the historically situated finite human standpoint, and not (as in various permutations of German Idealism) the Absolute. Influenced by Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, Rosenzweig’s system is oriented such that our finitude—i.e., our “proper name” and irreducible personality—is never sublated. We never achieve the absolute standpoint, even in the neighborly love of redemption. Reality will one day be systematically united as an organic whole, but the ecstatic vision of this whole “remains stamped by the seer’s humanity” (275); one’s personality is always present, even before God.

Pollock begins his argument by using Rosenzweig’s early essay on the “Oldest System Fragment of German Idealism” as a prism through which to trace Rosenzweig’s taking up of the task of systematicity. He examines the modern impulse toward system in Spinoza, in Kant’s architectonic, in the German Idealist and neo-Kantian responses to Kant’s architectonic, and concludes with an examination of Rosenzweig’s acquaintances, such as Hans Ehrenberg and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. Pollock then carefully examines many key letters written by Rosenzweig from 1916 to 1918 that offer helpful insights into the genesis of Rosenzweig’s concept of system, particularly his claim for the identity of system and revelation. Finally, Pollock embarks on an extensive reading of the Star which illustrates that Rosenzweig has indeed showed a path to a systematic knowledge of “the All” which nonetheless stays true to concrete human life.

Unfortunately, the book’s roots in Pollock’s doctoral dissertation are occasionally discernible, in that the book is at times over-structured, and perhaps insufficiently oriented toward a general audience. Also, as the author admits, there are “a number of scholarly questions regarding both philosophical themes internal to the Star and the Star’s relation to intellectual trends of its time that remain open here” (314). Some of the most notable of such questions, in my view, are Rosenzweig’s use of Sprachdenken in the second part of the Star, as well as his relation to Schelling. These are, however, understandable omissions, given the focused argument of the book.

[Meira Eliot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosenzweig is definitely not for the faint-hearted, but Pollock`s book really helps get a handle on his thought, although it is quite dense to get into to start with. But if you are into this kind of thing, it`s really worth the effort. Rosenzweig, whose main works were written around the time of World War I or during the 1920s, is perhaps generally most famous for having predicted a clash of cultures between Western culture and Islam, long before anyone else. The reasons he gives for this clash are controversial, but I`ve always had an unashamed taste for off-the-wall! His most famous book is The Star of Redemption, also available free online, usually as a pdf. Franz Rosenzweig