Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of Poiēsis

Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of Poiēsis
ISBN-10
0253042607
ISBN-13
9780253042606
Category
Philosophy
Pages
468
Language
English
Published
2019-10-01
Publisher
Indiana University Press
Author
Elliot R. Wolfson

Description

While many scholars have noted Martin Heidegger’s indebtedness to Christian mystical sources, as well as his affinity with Taoism and Buddhism, Elliot R. Wolfson expands connections between Heidegger’s thought and kabbalistic material. By arguing that the Jewish esoteric tradition impacted Heidegger, Wolfson presents an alternative way of understanding the history of Western philosophy. Wolfson’s comparison between Heidegger and kabbalah sheds light on key concepts such as hermeneutics, temporality, language, and being and nothingness, while yielding surprising reflections on their common philosophical ground. Given Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism and his use of antisemitic language, these innovative readings are all the more remarkable for their juxtaposition of incongruent fields of discourse. Wolfson’s entanglement with Heidegger and kabbalah not only enhances understandings of both but, more profoundly, serves as an ethical corrective to their respective ethnocentrism and essentialism. Wolfson masterfully illustrates the redemptive capacity of thought to illuminate common ground in seemingly disparate philosophical traditions.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
    By Karen Warren

    Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .

  • Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
    By Karen Casey

    7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.

  • Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
    By Todd May

    28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...

  • Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
    By Todd Ryan

    Bayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.

  • Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
    By John Coakley, Jennifer Todd

    However, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.

  • The Philosopher's Way
    By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.

    Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.

  • Swimmer in a Dark Sea
    By Pierce Timberlake

    Take a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.

  • Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
    By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady

    "This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.

  • Ecological Feminism
    By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-Howe

    The essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...

  • Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
    By Karen Green

    6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...