Judaism and Modern Western Philosophy: Collected Writings of Steven S. Schwarzschild

What are the implications of Franz Rosenzweig's quasi-racialist commonalities with Heidegger's thought? Was Kant a 'Jewish thinker'? Does Spinoza's philosophy lend support to totalitarianism? Was Marx's philosophy more shaped by Jewish cultural tradition than is typically assumed? Was there a strong challenge to Strauss's reading of Maimonides already in the 1940s? This volume contains a collection of Steven S. Schwarzschild's (1924-1989) most important unpublished works, the majority of which were found in his literary remains. The essays present provocative perspectives on influential philosophical figures such as Maimonides, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Rosenzweig, Heidegger, and Leo Strauss. As one of the most original twentieth-century thinkers in the field of Jewish philosophy, Schwarzschild's analysis provides readers with new ways of understanding modern Western philosophy, Jewish religious tradition, and the relation between them.