1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455103003321

Autore

Hollander Dana

Titolo

Exemplarity and chosenness [[electronic resource] ] : Rosenzweig and Derrida on the nation of philosophy / / Dana Hollander

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Stanford, Calif., : Stanford University Press, c2008

ISBN

0-8047-6997-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (449 p.)

Collana

Cultural memory in the present

Disciplina

194

Soggetti

PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Deconstruction

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [221]-245 ) and index.

Nota di contenuto

On Rosenzweig's reception of the philosophy of Hermann Cohen : individuality, Jewish election, and the infinitesimal -- Derrida's early considerations of historicism and relativism -- Thematizations of language : between translatability and singularity -- On the philosophical ambition of cultural affirmation -- Nationality, Judaism, and the sacredness of language -- Time and history in Rosenzweig : from temporal existence to eternity -- Specters of messiah.

Sommario/riassunto

Exemplarity and Chosenness is a combined study of the philosophies of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) that explores the question: How may we account for the possibility of philosophy, of universalism in thinking, without denying that all thinking is also idiomatic and particular? The book traces Derrida's interest in this topic, particularly emphasizing his work on "philosophical nationality" and his insight that philosophy is challenged in a special way by its particular "national" instantiations and that, conversely, discourses invoking a nationality comprise a philosophical ambition, a claim to being "exemplary." Taking as its cue Derrida's readings of German-Jewish authors and his ongoing interest in questions of Jewishness, this book pairs his philosophy with that of Franz Rosenzweig, who developed a theory of Judaism for which election is essential and who understood chosenness in an "exemplarist" sense as constitutive of human individuality as well as of the Jews' role in universal human history.