Franz Rosenzweig and the Systematic Task of Philosophy

Benjamin Pollock Argues That Franz RosenzweigS The Star Of Redemption Is Devoted To A Singularly Ambitious Philosophical Task: Grasping The All The Whole Of What Is In The Form Of A System. In Asserting RosenzweigS Abiding Commitment To A Systematic Conception Of Philosophy Often Identified With German Idealism This Book Breaks Rank With The Assumptions About RosenzweigS Thought That Have Dominated The Scholarship Of The Last Decades. Indeed The StarS Importance Is Often Claimed To Lie Precisely In The Way It Opposes PhilosophyS Traditional Drive For Systematic Knowledge And Upholds Instead A New Thinking Attentive To The Existential Concerns The Alterity And Even The Revelatory Dimension Of Concrete Human Life. Pollock Shows That These Very Innovations In RosenzweigS Thought Are In Fact To Be Understood As Part And Parcel Of The StarS Systematic Program. But This Is Only The Case Pollock Claims Because Rosenzweig Approaches PhilosophyS Traditional Task Of System In A Radically Original Manner. For The Star Not Only Seeks To Guide Its Readers On The Path Toward Knowing The All Of Which All Beings Are A Part; It At Once Directs Them Toward Realizing The Redemptive Unity Of That Very All Through The Actions Decisions And Relations Of Concrete Human Life.