To the horrors of war and genocide in the twentieth century there were witnesses, among them Hermann Cohen, Emmanuel Levinas, Ernst Bloch, Leo Strauss, Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, and Hans Jonas. All defined themselves as Jews and philosophers. Their intellectual concerns and worldviews often in conflict, they nevertheless engaged in fruitful conversation: through the dialogue between Zionist activism and heterodox forms of Marxism, in the rediscovery of hidden traditions of Jewish history, at the intersection of ethics and metaphysics. They shared a common hope for a better, messianic future and a deep interest in and reliance on the cultural sources of the Jewish tradition. In this magisterial work, Pierre Bouretz explores the thought of these great Jewish philosophers, taking a long view of the tenuous survival of German-Jewish metaphysical, religious, and social thought during the crises and catastrophes of the twentieth century. With deep passion and sound scholarship, Bouretz demonstrates the universal significance of this struggle in understanding the present human condition. The substantial and established influence of the book's subjects only serves to confirm this theory. Profoundly learned and amply documented, Witnesses for the Future explains how these important philosophers came to understand the promise of a Messiah. Its significant bearing on a number of fields -- including religious studies, literary criticism, philosophy of history, political theory, and Jewish studies -- encourages scholars to rethink and reassess the intellectual developments of the past 100 years.
Translator's Note Introduction 1. The Judaism of Hermann Cohen (1842 1918): A Religion of Adults 2. From the Night of the World to the Blaze of Redemption: The Star of Franz Rosenzweig (1886 1929) 3. Walter Benjamin (1892 1940): The Angel of History and the Experience of the Century 4. Gershom Scholem (1897 1982): The Tradition Between Knowledge and Repair 5. Martin Buber (1878 1965): Humanism in the Age of the Death of God 6. Ernst Bloch (1885 1977): A Hermeneutics of Waiting 7. The Legacy of Leo Strauss (1899 1973) 8. Hans Jonas (1903 1994): The Experience of Thinking and Responsibility Toward the World 9. With Emmanuel Levinas (1906 1995): History Judged Notes Index of Ideas Index of References Index of Names
""This well-researched and extensively annotated tome explores the thinking of nine late-19th and 20th-century, European educated, Jewish intellectuals (Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, Ernst Bloch, Leo Strauss, Hans Jonas, and Emmanuel Levinas) whose writings exerted tremendous influence on modern Jewish thought.""
