Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Preface; Part I. Philosophy: 1. Strauss and Levinas between Athens and Jerusalem; 2. Levinas's defense of modern philosophy: how Strauss might respond; Part II. Revelation: 3. 'Freedom depends upon its bondage': the shared debt to Franz Rosenzweig; 4. An irrationalist rationalism: Levinas's transformation of Hermann Cohen; 5. The possibility of pre-modern rationalism: Strauss's transformation of Hermann Cohen; Part III. Politics: 6. Against utopia: law and its limits; 7. Zionism and the discovery of prophetic politics; 8. Politics and hermeneutics: Strauss's and Levinas's retrieval of classical Jewish sources; 9. Revelation and commandment; 10. Concluding thoughts: progress or return?; Notes; References; Index.

Promotional Information

In this 2006 book, Leora Batnitzky brings together two seemingly incongruous contemporaries, demonstrating that their projects had many parallels.

About the Author

Leora Batnitzky is Asssociate Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She is the author of Idolatry and Representation: the Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig Reconsidered and editor of the forthcoming Martin Buber: Schriften zur Philosophie und Religion. She is co-editor of Jewish Studies Quarterly.

Reviews

'This book is brilliant, scholarly, and provocative. It combines with rare success philosophical acumen, historical learning, and an exciting thesis. Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation is a major work of theology by one of the premier thinkers in religious philosophy of the day, writing at the very highest level of commentary, having produced a book with potential to resonate in a wide variety of fields, with critical implications (most drawn by the author herself) for thinking about major figures, schools, and discussions, executed with exemplary erudition.' Samuel Moyn, Columbia University 'Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation is an original work of engagement of these two important thinkers that takes us far beyond what most of their admirers and detractors have written about their thought. Leora Batnitzky is a critical scholar and thinker in a class by herself.' David Novak, University of Toronto