A User's Guide to Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption

Norbert Samuelson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780700710638
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317832454
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This user-friendly guide will help students of the 'Star' to be able to discuss at a basic level what, at least conceptually, Rosenzweig intended to say and how all that he says is interrelated.

PART I

THE ELEMENTS, OR THE EVERLASTING FORE-WORLD

The Star presents a picture of reality. Rosenzweig sees reality as something in motion. His primary metaphor for it is a river in which things (viz., drops of water) move with direction (viz., the river’s course). The river is not identical with the things that make it up and the direction of its motion. Rather, the river is a distinct nexus of both. Similarly, reality consists of things that he calls ‘elements’ that have motions that he calls ‘courses’. Consider how a modern scientist would describe light. He would talk about the photon particles that compose it, about the waves that characterize their composite and separate motions, and finally how the two aspects of light are related. Similarly, Rosenzweig begins by discussing in Part I the elements of reality, then discusses in Part II how they move in relationship to each other, and finally in Part III how the elements and their movements come together to constitute a unified picture of reality.

Rosenzweig’s philosophy is geometric in the sense that reality is presented as a visual picture. But the kind of geometry used is not Euclidean, i.e., it is not a picture of static objects like lines, rectangles, or spheres. Such a reality would be eternal, but Rosenzweig’s ontology is not Platonic. Rather, reality is temporal. Everything that is is in motion, and, as such, moves from an origin in the past towards an end in the future. In this respect, Rosenzweig’s mathematical philosophy is a geometry of vectors. The motion itself is the subject of Part II. There and there alone is reality viewed as it is in the present. But, again, that present is a movement from an origin to an end, both beyond the present, which, as past and as future, does not itself move. Rosenzweig calls the end ‘over-world’, i.e., the world that lies over and beyond the present, and the origin ‘fore-world’, i.e., the world that stands before the present. This world of elements is ‘everlasting’. It ‘lasts’ in the sense that the elements are something that persist through the change. That persistence is ‘ever’ in the sense that the beginning, like the end, defines the direction of the motion of reality in the time of the present, but it, again like the end, is not itself within that time. Rather, it is present to, but not in, EVERy moment of the present as a term that defines the motion.

Introduction

Every part has an introduction. This introduction is both an introduction to Part I and to the work as a whole. As an introduction to the work as a whole it is a set of preparatory remarks about the history of philosophy, that establishes the most fundamental premises of Rosenzweig’s picture of reality. Those premises are that (1) reality is to be viewed as something in flux, rather than static, (2) this movement has direction or purpose, rather than being random or purely mechanical, and (3) there are three conceptual foundations for this picture that are irreducible to a single conceptual source. In each case Rosenzweig is using Hegel to argue against Hegel, i.e., he uses Hegelian forms of historical logic to argue that Hegel’s affirmed conclusions were wrong. Rosenzweig sees the history of philosophy as a movement that culminates in Hegel’s philosophy, i.e., that Hegel’s philosophy takes philosophy as far as it can go with the tools it has inherited and developed from the time of Plato on to the present. Those tools are limited. Philosophy is rooted in the mistaken judgment that it can both begin with a search for, and end with a realization of, knowledge of a single something called ‘the All’. However, Rosenzweig argues, philosophy in fact concludes with three distinct epistemological negations, viz., it comes to realize that, if we remain limited solely to philosophic/scientific logic, we can know nothing about God, the world, and the human as they are in themselves. In other words, the history of philosophy is the story of the failure to achieve knowledge of everything. Rather, it succeeds merely in establishing a possibility for such knowledge that is in principle beyond anything it can achieve.

Rosenzweig’s telling of the story of philosophy falls into the following four over-all headings. (1) Philosophy begins as cognition about the fear of death. In general, it seeks to overcome its fear by rejecting death as something, and, in so doing, to turn it into nothing. (2) This rejection is an illusion, the uncovering of which leads to the rejection of philosophy by Kierkegaard, who prepares the way for the rise of a new kind of philosophy with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. (3) The new philosophy is in effect a metaphilosophy, i.e., a philosophy that goes beyond the limitations of philosophy, in three directions established by the concluding doubts of philosophy. (A) The failed attempt to understand what is distinctively human results in a failure to know what is truly ethical. That failure, realized in Kant’s Transcendental Unity of Apperception, lays the foundation for a metaethics (i.e., an ethics that moves beyond ethics). Similarly, (B) the failed attempt to understand what is the nature of the world results in a failure of reasonable trust in logic. That failure, realized in Cartesian doubt about what is external to the mind, lays the foundation for a metalogic. Similarly, (C) the failed attempt to understand what is uniquely God results in a failure to view physics as a source of knowledge of reality. That failure, realized in Maimonides’ negative theology, lays the foundation for metaphysics. (4) The transitional philosopher from the old to the new philosophy was Rosenzweig’s teacher in Jewish philosophy, Hermann Cohen. Cohen’s use of the infinitesimal calculus to both interpret Newtonian physics and Kantian ethics and aesthetics is the model that Rosenzweig employs to picture reality.

I. FROM DEATH: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY

Explicitly what Rosenzweig says is that cognition begins with the fear of death, and philosophy begins as an attempt to overcome this fear. It does so by proclaiming that what is real never dies, so that what dies is not real, which entails that death itself is an illusion. However, death is real. Furthermore, doing philosophy is itself like being dead; both the dead and philosophers as philosophers are removed from everything sensible. Hence, choosing philosophy is like choosing suicide, and, as choosing suicide is unnatural, so is doing philosophy. The fear of death cannot be resolved in this way. There is no way to deny death. Rather, one should remain afraid.

By ‘death’ Rosenzweig means much the same thing that Aristotle meant by generation and corruption, viz., the ongoing process through which all material things endlessly come to be and pass away. In a word, death is change. In change what was (metaphorically at least) dies in the sense that it ceases to be or is no more. The world of the objects of sense experience are subject to continuous flux, i.e., at each instant they change. Consequently to focus one’s attention on something sensible (i.e., something that can be perceived through the senses) is to focus attention on something that no longer is real in the sense that it no longer exists. But philosophers want to think about things that are true and what they think about cannot be true if the objects of thought do not exist. Consequently, from the very beginning, philosophers thought about abstract entities, like mathematical objects, i.e., about entities that always are what they are and never change. In this way philosophers hoped to escape the perpetual flux that rendered whatever they thought about to be false.

‘Philosophy’ means philosophical physics and metaphysics, or, what today is more commonly called ‘ontology’, viz., the study of the general nature of everything that is. When doing philosophy the philosopher behaves as if s(he) were dead, viz., s(he) separates him(her)self from the sensible world, i.e., from what is experienced through the senses, and focuses total attention on what is insensible, viz., abstract concepts. However, to choose death is to commit suicide, and, like suicide, it is an unnatural act. Rather than seeking to escape death by dying, i.e., by denying the reality of the constant change perceived, they should remain afraid. The fear of death cannot be resolved by pretending that it does not exist, and the study of philosophy is precisely such a pretense, viz., it is to act as if what is real is unchanging and imperceptible and what is sensible and changing is unreal.

II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ALL: THE CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHY

More specifically, what philosophy becomes is not the study of mathematical objects as such, but the study of ‘the all’, i.e., everything that is as a single entity. For Rosenzweig, the ultimate expression of this kind of philosophy is Hegel’s system. Hence, what Rosenzweig means by ‘philosophy’ is Hegelian philosophy, so that his critique of philosophy in general should be read as a critique of Hegel.

A. Hegel

Philosophy decided at its very beginning to treat death, not as something (Etwas), i.e., as something posited for reflection, but as a nothing (Nichts). It cannot be thought to be something; hence, it is nothing at all. Hegel begins to do philosophy by examining phenomena, but his starting point is not what it is not; rather, it is what everything that is something is, viz., the what is (Sein). This what is (Sein) is equated with the All. Hegel’s philosophy attempts to encompass all topics in philosophy. Most notably, this ‘all’ includes the historic disputes between materialism and idealism, and between knowledge and belief. In his philosophy these two (and presumably all other recognized) dichotomies are overcome. All oppositions are unified, including those between philosophy itself and revelation. In this synthesis knowledge becomes the domain of philosophy, while belief becomes the domain of revelation.

However, despite all the protests of Hegel and his followers to the contrary, Hegel’s synthesis of everything into a single whole failed to encompass what in reality is everything. At each stage of argument the philosopher had to ask again and again, ‘what is the world?’ An adequate answer to this question would encompass everything, but constantly something that is was left out. It eventually became apparent that ‘something being left out’ was not a lack in the skills of the philosopher; rather the defect was structural. In principle philosophy can never adequately answer the question, ‘What is the world,’ because philosophy from its origin was restricted to deal exclusively with what is something, but something is not everything that is. The most notable first philosophical thinker to sense this limitation was Kierkegaard.

B. Kierkegaard

It is Kierkegaard’s rejection of Hegel’s ‘All’ that leads to the new philosophy. Kierkegaard recognized that what always, in principle, is not encompassed by the All is the consciousness of individual sin and redemption. A distinct emphasis has to be placed on all four nouns in his recognition – consciousness, the individual, sin, and redemption. All four are not something. Consciousness is consciousness of something but is not itself something of which there can be consciousness. The individual is something to the extent that it is general, but to the extent that it is general it is not individual. Sin is falling short of being good. Good is something, but sin, being a lack of good, is nothing positive. Similarly, redemption is the projection of an ideal that serves as a standard for moral perfection. As such, in principle it never is anything. The good expresses what ought to be, rather than what is, and in this sense, in principle redemption never is anything that is.

A brief word more may be necessary about what it means to say that the individual cannot be anything positive. To say what something individual is involves naming the individual as a subject and predicating of the subject some attribute. For example, Socrates is mortal, or Mary is fat, or Jacob is short, etc. In each case the subject term is a name, and the predicate term is general, for, if it were not, but were instead also a proper name, then the sentence would not be informative; it would be merely an assertion of verbal identity. For example, to say ‘Ibn Gabirol is Avicebrol’ in itself tells us nothing about Ibn Gabirol and/or Avicebrol. It only says that these two names refer to a single individual, but it says nothing about that referent. Consequently, information about what an individual is can be affirmed only through general terms and not proper names. However, no conjunction of general terms, no matter how long, can ever be identical with the subject of whom it is affirmed. For example, to say that ‘John (proper name) is a horse (general term)’ is to affirm something (the attribute) of something else (the subject), but it does not say that ‘John is horse’, i.e., it does not say that ‘John’ (subject) and ‘horse’ (attribute) are identical. In principle what can be predicated of an individual necessarily is not identical with the subject, so that, in principle, what an individual is (i.e., what answers the question what it is) is not what an individual is (i.e., is not identical with the individual). An individual as an individual is always something other than whatever it is.

In general, Kierkegaard saw that the source of the problem is that Hegel’s philosophic dogmatism made it impossible for him (or, more accurately for his philosophical system) to recognize even the existence of anything not already presupposed by his system. Consequently, Hegel failed to account for the individual as an empirical entity, i.e., as a unique particular who occupies a unique space at a unique time. It is this critique of Hegel’s philosophy that begins what Rosenzweig calls ‘the new philosophy.’

C. The New Philosophy

By ‘new philosophy’ Rosenzweig means the writings of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. In general, what distinguishes it from all previous philosophy is that it is thinking that turns away from focusing on something that could be the essence of the world. Instead it directs its attention to something radically different that could be called the value of the world.

1. SCHOPENHAUER

Schopenhauer asks Kierkegaard’s questions from Kierkegaard’s perspective. His solution is to develop a system of his own in much the same way that Hegel did. However, again, whereas Hegel’s system is concerned with a world essence, Schopenhauer’s Kierkegaardian perspective leads him to attempt to systematize something that he views as world value. The change in direction produces a system that is inherently human, rather than scientific, in which the ethical is viewed from a radically individualistic standpoint. Note that here the terms ‘human’ and ‘ethical’ function as synonyms.

2. NIETZSCHE

Schopenhauer’s change in focus in system building, where the focus becomes human and ethical rather than objective and scientific, entails a demand for a more radical change in thinking where what is valued is a living individual who is a philosopher rather than a written philosophic product that stands independent of its author. The search for such a person leads to concentration on the person’s life rather than on that individual’s thought. In other words, Nietzsche’s writings are more about his development into being a certain kind of human being who lives a certain kind of unique life, and is less about the thought structure through which he expresses that life. In brief, Nietzsche attempts to become a person who combines in himself three kinds of people – a poet who deals with life, a saint who lives life, as well as a philosopher who creates a system. Nietzsche’s writings demand that they be judged not solely by the philosophical system, but by both the kind of person its author is and how he himself lives that life.

In summary, Rosenzweig presents the history of philosophy as a kind of dialectic. Its origin is in thinking about life in order to escape death, but the way it thinks about life is itself a form of death. Hegel culminates the philosophic enterprise. For Rosenzweig at least, Hegel’s thought is philosophy. But that philosophy is nothing more than a form of death that attempts to escape from death. The recognition that this is what philosophy is, viz., a kind of death, is attributed to Kierkegaard, whose insight paves the way for Nietzsche to set forth a new kind of philosophy in which the inherently dead, general system of the philosopher is subordinate to the lived, individual life of philosophers themselves.

Now Rosenzweig turns to the consequences of this new way of thinking. Those consequences fall under three headings – the human, the world, and God. It is Rosenzweig’s analysis of these consequences that provides him with the elements and the logic through which he develops his own unique picture of absolutely everything.

III. CONSEQUENCES OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY

A. For the Human

In Nietzsche’s writings philosophy becomes an expression of the individual philosopher. In contrast, in the old philosophy individual philosophers were subsumed under their philosophy. In other words, whereas in the old philosophy the value of the life ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I The Elements, or the Everlasting Fore-World
• Part II The Course, or the Always-Renewed World
• Part III The Structure, or the Eternal Over-World On the Possibility of Entreating the Kingdom
• Indices