The Politics Of Immortality In Rosenzweig Barth And Goldberg

Highlighting the central importance of theological configurations of immortality and eternal life from 1914-1945, Mårten Björk explores the key writings of Franz Rosenzweig, Karl Barth and Oskar Goldberg to situate their ideas in relation to the political turmoil of the period, including the rise of social Darwinism, nationalism and fascism. The conversations happening among Christian and Jewish theologians and philosophers on the nature of immortality and eternal life during the period constitute what Björk calls a 'politics of immortality'. The speculative question of eternal life became a way to address the meaning of 'a good life' in a period when millions of lives were lost to war, camps and prisons. This book shows how theology was related to central political concepts and ideas of the era, revealing how the question of immortality pursued by Rosenzweig, Barth and Goldberg became a way to resist the reduction of life to race, blood and soil. By situating the exact political consequences of theological and metaphysical theories of immortality and eternal life, Björk's discussion of Rosenzweig, Barth and Goldberg confronts the perennial question on the relation between life and death and exposes the important connections between political theology and philosophical posthumanism.

"Highlighting the central importance of theological configurations of immortality and eternal life from 1914-1945, Mr̄ten Björk explores the key writings of Franz Rosenzweig, Karl Barth, and Oskar Goldberg to situate their ideas in relation to the political turmoil of the period, including the rise of social Darwinism, nationalism and fascism. The conversations happening between Christian and Jewish theologians and philosophers on the nature of immortality and eternal life during the period constitute what Björk calls a 'politics of immortality' that was able to confront the politics of the nation state successfully. The speculative question of eternal life became a way to address the meaning of 'a good life' in a period when millions of lives were lost to war, camps and prisons. This book shows how the discussion on immortality is related to central political concepts and ideas of the era, revealing how the question of immortality pursued by Rosenzweig, Barth, and Goldberg became a way to resist the reduction of life to race, blood, and soil. By exposing the identification of life with material facts, and the break between life and death as insufficient, Björk makes important connections between political theology and philosophical posthumanism, situating the exact political consequences of theological and metaphysical theories of immortality and eternal life."--

Freedom after Kant situates Kant's concept of freedom in relation to leading philosophers of the period to trace a detailed history of philosophical thinking on freedom from the 18th to the 20th century. Beginning with German Idealism, the volume presents Kant's writings on freedom and their reception by contemporaries, successors, followers and critics. From exchanges of philosophical ideas on freedom between Kant and his contemporaries, Reinhold and Fichte, through to Kant's ideas on rational self-determination in Hegel and Schelling, we see Kant's original arguments transformed through concepts of autonomy, freedom and absolutes. The political aspect of Kant's freedom finds further articulation in chapters on Marx and Mill who developed their own notions of political freedom after Kant. Revealing how Kant's concept of freedom shaped the history of philosophy in the broadest sense, contributors chart the development of an ethics of freedom in the 20th century which brings Kant into conversation with Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Levinas and Murdoch. This line of thinking on freedom signals a new departure for Kantian studies which brings his ideas into the present day and traverses major schools of thought including Idealism, Marxism, existentialism and moral philosophy.

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In 'Late Kant' Peter Fenves thoroughly explores Kant's later writings and gives them the detailed scholarly attention they deserve.

This book probes the relationship between Martin Heidegger and theology in light of the discovery of his Black Notebooks, which reveal that his privately held Antisemitism and anti-Christian sentiments were profoundly intertwined with his philosophical ideas. Heidegger himself was deeply influenced by both Catholic and Protestant theology. This prompts the question as to what extent Christian anti-Jewish motifs shaped Heidegger’s own thinking in the first place. A second question concerns modern theology’s intellectual indebtedness to Heidegger. In this volume, an array of renowned Heidegger scholars – both philosophers and theologians –investigate Heidegger’s animosity toward the biblical legacy in both its Jewish and Christian interpretations, and what it means for the future task and identity of theology.

"[A] most impressive achievement by an extraordinarily intelligent, courageous, and—that goes without saying—'well-read' mind. The scope of this work is enormous: it provides no less than a comprehensive, historically grounded theory of 'modern peoplehood,' which is Lie’s felicitous umbrella term for everything that goes under the names 'race,' 'ethnicity,' and nationality.'" Christian Joppke, American Journal of Sociology "Lie's objective is to treat a series of large topics that he sees as related but that are usually treated separately: the social construction of identities, the origins and nature of modern nationalism, the explanation of genocide, and racism. These multiple themes are for him aspects of something he calls 'modern peoplehood.' His mode of demonstration is to review all the alternative explanations for each phenomenon, and to show why each successively is inadequate. His own theses are controversial but he makes a strong case for them. This book should renew debate." Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University and author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World