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German Idealism and the Jew

The Inner Anti-Semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses

Michael Mack author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:3rd Dec '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

German Idealism and the Jew cover

In German Idealism and the Jew, Michael Mack uncovers the deep roots of anti-Semitism in the German philosophical tradition, contending that the redefinition of the Jews as an irrational, oriental Other forms the very cornerstone of German idealism. He shows how fundamental thinkers such as Kant and Hegel created a construction of Jews as symbolic of the worldlines that hindered the development of a body politic, and how thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Franz Rosenzweig, and Sigmund Freud grappled with being both German and Jewish-pinpointing the particular Jewish notion of enlightenment that came out of it. The first analytical account of the connection between anti-Semitism and philosophy, German Idealism and the Jew speaks the unspoken in German philosophy, profoundly reshaping our understanding of it.

"German Idealism and the Jew is a work long overdue, of great importance to scholarly understandings of Nazi Germany and anti-Semitism and the larger problem of the functioning of the scapegoat mechanism in chaotic societies." (Philosophy in Review)"

ISBN: 9780226500966

Dimensions: 24mm x 17mm x 2mm

Weight: 369g

237 pages