Volume 33

Offenbarungsphilosophie und Geschichte

This study is dedicated to the secularizing effects of the modern concept of history and its influence on interpretations of Judaism. To this end, the author examines Franz Rosenzweig’s »Der Stern der Erlösung« (The Star of Redemption, 1921), in which he rejected any significance in the progress of mankind and situated Judaism outside of world history, as a text emerging from crisis. Departing from Rosenzweig’s philosophy of revelation, Inka Sauter looks back to the long nineteenth century and the works of Hermann Cohen, who expounded his historical philosophy of Judaism on behalf of humanity with virtually unparalleled intensity. The author finally contrasts the rupture in the transition from Cohen to Rosenzweig with Walter Benjamin’s 1940 theology-inspired history of philosophy. Her juxtaposition of these three thinkers throws the »historical world« into sharp relief.