October 20
Shira Billet (Yale)
The Jewish Philosopher as Expert Witness: Hermann Cohen’s Methodological Dispute with Spinoza
Yoav Schaefer (Princeton)
Kant’s Anti-Judaism and Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise
Abstract (Billet): When the Marburg philosopher Hermann Cohen, a learned Jew, was called to serve as expert witness in a local trial regarding the morality of the Talmud, Cohen understood the task in terms of his conception of both the historical role of the philosopher within the polis and the philosopher’s method for reading ancient sources. He ultimately formulated a very particular philosophical method for reading Jewish sacred texts for moral content, and also a particular duty of the philosophically trained and learned Jew. Initially forged in the context of the 1888 trial, Cohen’s position would harden over the ensuing decades. Cohen’s famously harsh critique of Spinoza, formulated in 1910 and especially 1915, near the end of Cohen’s life, is often dismissed as an old man’s raving. However, as a sustained and close reading of the TTP by one of the central figures of German neo-Kantianism, it can be so easily dismissed. It is far better understood in terms of Cohen’s divergent methodology in terms of how to read scripture philosophically, and his conception of the Jewish philosopher’s duty to be an expert witness of a certain kind, both forged in a unique 19th-century context.
Abstract (Schaefer): The precise nature of Spinoza’s influence on Kant’s critique of Judaism has yet to be fully clarified. And this is of some importance considering the far-reaching influence of Kant’s anti-Judaism in informing the attitude of leading post-Kantian German philosophers toward Judaism. This paper aims to fill this scholarly lacuna, primarily by shedding light on the relationship of Kant’s critique of Judaism in his Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason to Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise. I argue that there exist good historical and textual reasons to suppose that Kant was familiar, directly or indirectly, with Spinoza’s Treatise, and that Kant’s harsh critique of Judaism was therefore likely indebted to Spinoza’s writings. Yet as I also demonstrate, Kant’s anti-Judaism is hardly a mere restatement of Spinoza’s critique of the Jewish religion. Not only does Kant’s account of Judaism diverge from Spinoza’s in slight but nonetheless crucial ways. Kant radicalizes a number of Spinoza’s basic claims, branding Judaism as a deeply immoral and misanthropic religion in ways that go far beyond anything his Dutch predecessor ever wrote about Judaism. More significantly, Kant’s depiction of Judaism carries out a crucial task in his argument for rational religion that has no counterpart in Spinoza’s Treatise: Judaism constitutes in Kant’s system the principal foil to his vision of rational religion.
Shira Billet is a postdoctoral associate at Yale University. She studies nineteenth-century German Jewish philosophy. More broadly, her fields are modern Jewish thought and intellectual history. Her doctoral work at Princeton University focused on the German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen in his historical and intellectual contexts, particularly the intellectual contexts of both German Idealism and the Jewish intellectual movement Wissenschaft des Judentums, and the German political contexts that contributed to rising antisemitism in Germany in the 1880s.
Yoav Schaefer is a PhD Candidate at Princeton University. He began his studies in the Religion, Ethics, and Politics subfield in 2018. Prior to arriving at Princeton, Schaefer earned a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University and studied Jewish philosophy and history at Tel Aviv University. His research interests include political and critical theory, continental philosophy, and modern Jewish thought. His current work focuses on the Jewish reception of Kantian philosophy.
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The Workshop thanks The Johns Hopkins Philological Society for its sponsorship of this co-organized event.