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Papers by Claire Katz

Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, Dec 31, 2023

In June 2016, Texas A&M University hosted its inaugural philosophy camp for teens. In this articl... more In June 2016, Texas A&M University hosted its inaugural philosophy camp for teens. In this article, we address how running a philosophy camp for pre-college students can have a positive impact on both the campers and the staff, which included philosophy faculty, graduate students (Philosophy and English), and undergraduates. We designed the week-long (Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.) philosophy camp with three aims: to introduce pre-college students to philosophical thinking and dialogue; to develop an intellectual community among the campers; and to provide a space in which young people could engage as equal partners in a series of spirited philosophical discussions. Drawing chiefly from our local community, we enrolled a diverse group of campers. We organized the week around themes that we thought would be of particular interest to pre-college students while also providing a broad view of the discipline. What we did not anticipate was the intense friendships that were formed, based on a shared love of philosophical ideas.

Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Jan 26, 2010

philoSOPHIA

Columbine, Judgment Ridge, 9/11, the killing spree at Virginia Tech, and the banal violent events... more Columbine, Judgment Ridge, 9/11, the killing spree at Virginia Tech, and the banal violent events we encounter on a daily basis indicate that while the other might be teaching us—as Emmanuel Levinas says in Totality and Infi nity —many of us are not learning; or, put differently, while the face of the other commands us not to murder, many are not obeying. To say that the face teaches does not help us if we are not open to that particular kind of learning. To say that the face commands seems empty if the command is persistently and horrifi cally violated. At the very least, this persistent violation requires us to ask what the command is and what the fact that it is continually violated means. Diane Perpich addresses this particular point in her recent book, The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas . 1 Let me begin by making a few general remarks. I am grateful for Perpich’s hard work, evidenced in the analyses in this book, which is elegantly written, rigorously argued, and impressively researched. The task that she set for herself—to examine some of the most common and yet most perplexing concepts in Levinas’s philosophical project—is on its own a tremendous service to the study of Levinas. The result is an extraordinary piece of writing, and I think this book is indispensable for anyone continuing to work on Levinas’s project. I would argue that those of us who continue to study Levinas—indeed, those who continue to work in moral theory in general—must contend with the analyses that Perpich produces. scholarly dialogue

South Central Review

IN FEBRUARY OF 2010, THE AUTHORS PARTICIPATED in an “Author Meets Readers” session in response to... more IN FEBRUARY OF 2010, THE AUTHORS PARTICIPATED in an “Author Meets Readers” session in response to the publication of Linda Radzik's Mak-ing Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law and Politics.1 The editor of this special journal issue, Marian Eide, invited us to ...

Not the abstract... This is part of collection edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron Hughes.

This paper examines the impact of a week-long philosophy summer camp on middle and high school-ag... more This paper examines the impact of a week-long philosophy summer camp on middle and high school-age youth with specific attention paid to the development of intellectual humility in the campers. In June 2016 a university in Texas hosted its first philosophy summer camp for youth who had just completed sixth through twelfth grades. Basing our camp on the pedagogical model of the Philosophy for Children program, our aim was specifically to develop a community of inquiry among the campers, providing them with a safe intellectual space to be introduced to philosophy and philosophical discussion. In 2017 we launched a formal longitudinal study to determine what impact a week-long philosophy summer camp would have on teens and tweens. Examining quantitative and qualitative data collected from 2016–2020, we found that the camp has had a significant impact on the teenagers who have attended. In particular, we found that intellectual humility increased over the duration of their camp experien...

Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century, 2014

Literary and Critical Theory, 2020

Emmanuel Levinas (b. 1906–d. 1995) was a French-Jewish thinker known primarily as the philosopher... more Emmanuel Levinas (b. 1906–d. 1995) was a French-Jewish thinker known primarily as the philosopher of the ‘other.’ He studied with Husserl and Heidegger in the 1920s. He introduced phenomenology to France through his translation of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations into French, and he developed a lifelong friendship with Maurice Blanchot. Prior to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, Levinas’s philosophical work focused on Husserlian phenomenology. His thought took a dramatic turn in the mid-1930s when he focused on the philosophical threat of Nazism. He spent 1940–1945 in a German POW camp. Returning to Paris after the war, he immediately went back to work for the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), where he became director of the École Normale Israélite Orientale (Enio), the Jewish day school. He resumed working on his question from the 1930s—the philosophical problem of identity and transcendence—with an added urgency in the wake of World War II. From 1946 until his death in 1995,...

In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp, 2017

AJS Review, 2015

rather than a mere object of study” (113). In chapter 6 Katz turns to Totality and Infinity and s... more rather than a mere object of study” (113). In chapter 6 Katz turns to Totality and Infinity and seeks to show that this same conception of the crisis of humanism and the centrality of education and teaching that are so prominent in his Jewish writings also inform that philosophical work. In this way, she argues that “the face is both the ground and the aim of ethics,” to use Martin Kavka’s formulation (129). In Totality and Infinity, as in his Jewish writings, education or teaching is how the self “becomes an ethical subject.” Moreover, throughout her treatment of the role of these texts for non-Jewish education and the Talmud for Jewish education, Katz focuses on “modeling the kind of interaction encouraged by or reflected in the Bavli for educational practice” (138). The Talmud shares with this literature, when viewed from the perspective of a theorist like Bakhtin, a special status; “the text becomes part of the social relation, not as something to replace another human member of the educational community, but as a supplement” (139). The challenge that Katz discloses, then, is an ethical one that is also an educational and political one. It requires an effort and a commitment that is demanding, exceedingly so, and Katz underscores in conclusion how rare such an accomplishment is (148–149). It is tempting to read Katz’s book as if it were answering the simple, if challenging, question: how does one come to be an adult subject responsive to the needs and demands of other persons? I have tried to show, by exploring her argument, that she wants to claim more and that her detailed examination of texts, many rarely considered Jewish writings, and her overall argument has purposes that are much deeper and much more profound. In the end, I am not persuaded that she succeeds in showing that Jewish education provides the “warrant” or “explanation” for the normativity of ethical subjectivity. I think that Katz is looking in the wrong place to find an “explanation” for the normative force or authority of that ideal. Nonetheless, she has a boldly conceptual and not simply a practical goal in mind. For this reason, in addition to its excellent readings of many texts and its helpful contextualizing of Levinas’s project, Katz’s book is a very good one indeed and one to be highly recommended.

Symposium, 2007

Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros, first published in the 19305, was a landmark treatment of the rad... more Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros, first published in the 19305, was a landmark treatment of the radical distinction between eros and agape.! Realizing that the Christian Bible makes large use of agape and little use of eros, Nygren seeks to understand why this is the case. Eros, Nygren teils us, is largely associated with Plato while agape is largely associated with Paul. Where eros is the desire to behold and participate in divine attributes, to make them part of oneself, agape is God's love freely bestowed on us. Although the most colloquial usage of eros does not point to a religious connotation, eros, like agape, is deeply religious in its original meaning, even as the two terms differ in significant ways. We can see remnants of this same discussion in the ethical project of Emmanuel Levinas, which became the subject of terrific criticism, precisely because he separated the ethical relation from the erotic experience. As a result, Levinas's commentators frequently compare Levinas's ethics to Christian agape. 2 Using the same distinction between agape and eros, even if implicitly, these commentators conclude that if Levinas distances the ethical relation from eros, his ethics must be like agape. Conversely, other commentators, for example, Luce Irigaray, prefer to bring together Levinas's ethics and eros while still maintaining some of the structure of Levinasian ethics. 3 That is, they are not satisfied with this separation, yet they are persuaded by some of the structure that identifies Levinas's ethical relation. If we keep in mind what ethics and eros mean for Levinas, it is not clear that this bridge from ethics to eros can be completed. Nor is it clear that Levinas has Christian agape in mind when he describes our responsibility for the Other. Thus, it seems that we must now address both issues at once: Levinas's ethical relation as distinct from the erotic and also as distinct from agape. This essay uses Nygren's examination of these two terms in order to think through how the relationship between eros and agape stands today, and in particular what this discussion means for Levinas's project. I then turn to some recent attempts to bridge the eroticjethical distinction in Levinas's project to see if there is a way to think productively about the intersection of eros and ethics and still maintain the integrity of Levinas's ethics. In his introductory discussion, Nygren recalls the distinction Pausanias made between vulgar eros and heavenly eros found in Plato's Symposium. 4 The distinction is significant for Nygren. If the only kind of eros is a love for sensible objects-earthly, sensuallove-then there is not much point in undertaking the comparison with agape, which is often under

Studies in Practical Philosophy, 2003

Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2009

In Bernhard Schlink's, The Reader, a father is asked by his son if it is better to do what i... more In Bernhard Schlink's, The Reader, a father is asked by his son if it is better to do what is in another's best interest, even if that action is against the wishes of the individual. The father replies that even with children this is a difficult question, it is a philosophical problem, ''but philosophy ...

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2012

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2011

Levinas's Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens, by Ephraim Meir. Jerusalem. The Hebre... more Levinas's Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens, by Ephraim Meir. Jerusalem. The Hebrew University Magnes Press. 301 pp. $100.00. In spite of, or maybe because of, those scholars who continue to keep Levinas's writings unproductively segregated into two categories - writings on Judaism and philosophical writings - there has been a proliferation of work attempting to stitch the categories together. Most recently, Ephraim Meir's book, Levinas's Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens, joins this group with the stated objective to "[discuss] Levinas's Jewish thinking and [discuss] the relationship between his philosophical and his Jewish thinking" (p. 3). The question which guides this discussion - "In what way is Levinas's philosophical discourse on a non-eudaimonic ethics related to his Jewish writings?" - was formulated at the 2006 Levinas Congress held in Jerusalem, where a substantial number of the attendees were in fact willing to entertain the productive relationship between these bodies of writing. As a result, Meir uses the tension that typically characterizes the discussions of Athens and Jerusalem as a productive starting point for his own examination. The book is divided into an introduction, five main chapters, and a conclusion. Meir begins with a discussion in the first chapter, "Between Professional and Confessional Writings," that draws the two sets of writings closer together. He moves from this chapter, which successfully blurs or removes the boundary between these bodies of writing, to Chapters Two and Three, which examine the ways that "the Greek" and "the Hebrew" each play off each other. By addressing this relationship in two chapters rather than one, and by inverting the relationship in each chapter, Meir demonstrates that each is dependent on the other, without privileging one over the other or subordinating one to the other. Finally, in Chapter Five, Meir turns specifically to Levinas's Jewish thought and considers a selection of themes that permeate Levinas's thought from his conception of revelation, a term deployed in both his philosophical (professional) writings and his writings on Judaism (confessional writings) to the State of Israel. Meir opens his conclusion with the following puzzlement: "It is strange that Levinas's philosophical thought draws so much attention, whereas he devoted so much of time to writing on Judaism, which scholars hardly discuss. This is even stranger since the positions adopted by Levinas and many terms used overlap in both kinds of writing" (p. 255). It is strange indeed. Meir s line that Levinas was not schizophrenic, while humorous, is also a propos. Quite literally, Levinas did not have a split mind, and indeed, as scholars, we should be more concerned if these two sets of writings were completely unrelated. What kind of mind could accomplish such a task? We would have to say literally that one side did not know what the other side was doing or to the extent that there was overlap or influence, these were not significant. …

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2009

This essay returns to the Dixie Chicks "incident" in order to reexamine the backlash against them... more This essay returns to the Dixie Chicks "incident" in order to reexamine the backlash against them. Their critics claim that patriotism and their contract with country music are at stake; I argue that the backlash is old-fashioned misogyny. My examination considers the concepts of prayer, patriotism, and the American Pledge of Allegiance. These words, though used loosely, are part of the central criticism of the Dixie Chicks actions. To accomplish my task, I turn, on the one hand, to Levinas and Heschel, and on the other to Hegel' s reading of Antigone. On March 10 th , 2003, ten days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, and responding to the anti-war, anti-U.S. protests in the streets outside the London concert venue, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks announced to the audience, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." The comment, reported in the British media, was picked up by the AP, and shortly thereafter made its way through American blogs and conservative news outlets before it completely exploded in the mainstream media. For most people, this comment was an innocuous, even if disrespectful, insult. However, for others, the Dixie Chicks' words represented the epitome of American decay. The accusations ranged from disloyalty to treason, with words like "betrayal" peppered into the epithets hurled at them. From the people who believed these women had transgressed certain lines of right behavior, punishment was delivered swiftly and severely. To say that the response to the Dixie 1 Information about the Dixie Chicks incident is cited from the documentary, Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing, Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, Woolly Puddin' Films, 2006. 2 In response to Maines' s question in this song, Frank Kogan asks, "OK, Natalie, try to answer your own question. What is it about the Dixie Chicks that provoked such a hysterical reaction, given the puniness of what you said?" ("Shame and Sensibility," Village Voice, July 25, 2006). Although Kogan asks several rhetorical questions about why this incident might have happened, he does not present any clear answers.

Philosophy Today, 2006

What is Jewish philosophy?1 Why is it philosophy? And if there is such a thing as Jewish philosop... more What is Jewish philosophy?1 Why is it philosophy? And if there is such a thing as Jewish philosophy, who counts as a Jewish philosopher? These questions guide any number of essays devoted to the topic of Jewish philosophy; some specifically address the meta-question of what constitutes Jewish philosophy and what thinkers are included in this category. As we see in the history of philosophy and in current trends in contemporary philosophy, defining those who are allowed in a particular category and those who are not is not an easy task; nor does it usually have a logic other than a political movement of the time. I would be remiss if I did not recognize that the question of Jewish philosophy still remains, for some, a question: what is it and why is it philosophy? A brief tour of some of the most prominent and recognizable names in the Jewish philosophical canon whose "identity" has caused a bit of a stir will help us to orient ourselves in this field called Jewish philosophy. Beginning with Spinoza, who is generally accepted as part of the Western philosophical canon, we can ask, as Emil Fackenheim does, if his acceptance is the result of his opting out of Judaism and/or because the Jewish community of Amsterdam excluded him, making him and his thought seem less Jewish and therefore less parochial. The Moses Mendelssohn (a philosophical contemporary and friend of Kant's) who appears in histories of early modern philosophy-the one who debates with Jacobi over Lessing's Spinozism-is not the Moses Mendelssohn who appears in accounts of modern Jewish philosophy. The central text for this latter Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, addresses concerns regarding state and religious power: what is the relationship, if any, between the two and what limits on each should be imposed?2 His interest lies in persuading his readership that there is no inconsistency in being a German citizen and remaining Jewish. His exploration into the relationship between national citizenship and religious identity is still relevant today. In the late modern period, Hermann Cohen, a brilliant neo-Kantian and the teacher of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber, is also largely ignored, though Cohen's work is infused with Kantian philosophy. As Fackenheim points out, insofar as Cohen is a neo-Kantian, he cannot be completely ignored, but little heed, if any, is paid to the way in which Cohen takes up Kantian philosophy into a Jewish framework. Rosenzweig, who wrote his dissertation on Hegel, is rarely, if ever taught, in existentialism courses and we can lament the lack of attention given by philosophers to his The Star of Redemption. Certainly, The Star is a daunting book, and it is no easy task to read it; however, other difficult books (e.g., Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit) are not only central to the canon of modern philosophy, but they are celebrated in part because of their level of difficulty. In any event, Rosenzweig often inspires his own set of debates precisely over the issue of whether he was a Jewish thinker or a German philosopher. Was The Star a work of philosophy or, as he feared, simply a "Jewish book"? Buber's / and Thou (like Tillich's The Courage to Be and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling) frequently appears in introductory philosophy courses or in courses on existentialism, usually when dealing with questions of religious experience or the role of the human in religious experience. This frequency, however, might be more of an indication that Buber's sophisticated philosophical ideas appear simplistic and/or that the mystical religious tradition that informs his thought is either unknown or viewed as irrelevant.3 When we move to the more contemporary thinkers and explore the debate surrounding Levinas's Judaism and the role that Judaism plays in informing his philosophical thought, it is difficult not to speculate about why such debates become so heated. What is at stake in proclaiming Levinas to be a Jewish philosopher? …

Philosophy Today, 2006

While the structure and the bare content of prophetic consciousness may be made accessible by an ... more While the structure and the bare content of prophetic consciousness may be made accessible by an attitude of pure reflection, in which the concern for their truth and validity is suspended, the sheer force of what is disclosed in such reflection quietly corrodes the hardness of self-detachment. The magic of the process seems to be stronger than an asceticism of the intellect.... In the course of listening to their words one cannot long retain the security of a prudent, impartial observer. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (xvii) Let justice well up like water, Righteousness like an unfailing stream. (Amos 5:24)1 And they shall beat their swords into plow-shares And their spears into pruning hooks Nation shall not take up Sword against nation; They shall never again know war. (Isaiah 2:4) Here I am; send me (Isaiah 6:8) Emmanuel Levinas' 1934 essay "Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism" warned us of precisely what others were unable to see, much less admit: Hitlerism was not simply an accident of evil, the acts of a "sick" man.2 Rather, its underlying logic permeates a type of thinking that puts into jeopardy, "the very humanity of man" (Levinas, 199Ob, 71). In this essay, Levinas reveals the two poles of thinking that provide the context for the tension between immanence and transcendence both as traditionally understood. In 1990, fifty-six years after the essay first appeared in French, an English translation of the essay was published in Critical Inquiry. In a prefatory note, written expressly for the translation and republication of the essay, Levinas asks: "Does the subject arrive at the human condition prior to assuming responsibility for the other man in the act of election that raises him up to this height?" The prefatory note appears anachronistic because of his references to "election" and "responsibility to the other man," themes that emerge only later in his writings.3 This early essay tackles the dual problems of classical transcendence and immanence.4 How then could this essay be about ethics, a term not only absent in this early work, but also not mentioned until 1961 in Totality and Infinity?5 The claim that this prefatory note is anachronistic assumes that Levinas' interest in transcendence and immanence is simply philosophical-the result of a conceptual problem or puzzle in the history of philosophy that he needed to address. Further, this concern with transcendence might also suggest that Levinas' interest in ethics was not a primary concern; rather, it was a secondary concern, the result of seeing the ethical relation as the solution to the problem of immanence and transcendence. Is the relationship between Levinas' early work and his later work simply the relationship between the posing of a philosophical question and finding its answer? In contrast to the view sketched above, this essay argues that Levinas' philosophical work follows a continuity of thought from his early concerns in the 1930s expressed in his essay on Hitlerism to his final works in the 1970s and 80s. My claim is that although we can mark changes in his use of vocabulary and the emphasis he places on different themes, his concern for and interest in ethics, religion, and social justice not only underlie all of his work, but motivate it. This paper proceeds as follows. I first examine Levinas' essay, "Philosophical Reflections on Hitlerism," in order to track the initial framing of the philosophical concern regarding the problematic relationship between immanence and transcendence. I then turn briefly to Levinas' 1946/47 lecture course, published as Time and the Other and his essay "The Trace of the Other" in order to suggest that Levinas' conception of time as the relationship to the Other is his solution to the problem of finding a middle way between immanence and transcendence. Finally, I turn to the notion of the prophetic in Judaism and Levinas' employment of the prophetic, especially in his later work, in order to suggest that his concern for ethics and social justice permeates his work from its beginning in the 1930s until his death in 1995. …

Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, Dec 31, 2023

In June 2016, Texas A&M University hosted its inaugural philosophy camp for teens. In this articl... more In June 2016, Texas A&M University hosted its inaugural philosophy camp for teens. In this article, we address how running a philosophy camp for pre-college students can have a positive impact on both the campers and the staff, which included philosophy faculty, graduate students (Philosophy and English), and undergraduates. We designed the week-long (Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.) philosophy camp with three aims: to introduce pre-college students to philosophical thinking and dialogue; to develop an intellectual community among the campers; and to provide a space in which young people could engage as equal partners in a series of spirited philosophical discussions. Drawing chiefly from our local community, we enrolled a diverse group of campers. We organized the week around themes that we thought would be of particular interest to pre-college students while also providing a broad view of the discipline. What we did not anticipate was the intense friendships that were formed, based on a shared love of philosophical ideas.

Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Jan 26, 2010

philoSOPHIA

Columbine, Judgment Ridge, 9/11, the killing spree at Virginia Tech, and the banal violent events... more Columbine, Judgment Ridge, 9/11, the killing spree at Virginia Tech, and the banal violent events we encounter on a daily basis indicate that while the other might be teaching us—as Emmanuel Levinas says in Totality and Infi nity —many of us are not learning; or, put differently, while the face of the other commands us not to murder, many are not obeying. To say that the face teaches does not help us if we are not open to that particular kind of learning. To say that the face commands seems empty if the command is persistently and horrifi cally violated. At the very least, this persistent violation requires us to ask what the command is and what the fact that it is continually violated means. Diane Perpich addresses this particular point in her recent book, The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas . 1 Let me begin by making a few general remarks. I am grateful for Perpich’s hard work, evidenced in the analyses in this book, which is elegantly written, rigorously argued, and impressively researched. The task that she set for herself—to examine some of the most common and yet most perplexing concepts in Levinas’s philosophical project—is on its own a tremendous service to the study of Levinas. The result is an extraordinary piece of writing, and I think this book is indispensable for anyone continuing to work on Levinas’s project. I would argue that those of us who continue to study Levinas—indeed, those who continue to work in moral theory in general—must contend with the analyses that Perpich produces. scholarly dialogue

South Central Review

IN FEBRUARY OF 2010, THE AUTHORS PARTICIPATED in an “Author Meets Readers” session in response to... more IN FEBRUARY OF 2010, THE AUTHORS PARTICIPATED in an “Author Meets Readers” session in response to the publication of Linda Radzik's Mak-ing Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law and Politics.1 The editor of this special journal issue, Marian Eide, invited us to ...

Not the abstract... This is part of collection edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron Hughes.

This paper examines the impact of a week-long philosophy summer camp on middle and high school-ag... more This paper examines the impact of a week-long philosophy summer camp on middle and high school-age youth with specific attention paid to the development of intellectual humility in the campers. In June 2016 a university in Texas hosted its first philosophy summer camp for youth who had just completed sixth through twelfth grades. Basing our camp on the pedagogical model of the Philosophy for Children program, our aim was specifically to develop a community of inquiry among the campers, providing them with a safe intellectual space to be introduced to philosophy and philosophical discussion. In 2017 we launched a formal longitudinal study to determine what impact a week-long philosophy summer camp would have on teens and tweens. Examining quantitative and qualitative data collected from 2016–2020, we found that the camp has had a significant impact on the teenagers who have attended. In particular, we found that intellectual humility increased over the duration of their camp experien...

Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century, 2014

Literary and Critical Theory, 2020

Emmanuel Levinas (b. 1906–d. 1995) was a French-Jewish thinker known primarily as the philosopher... more Emmanuel Levinas (b. 1906–d. 1995) was a French-Jewish thinker known primarily as the philosopher of the ‘other.’ He studied with Husserl and Heidegger in the 1920s. He introduced phenomenology to France through his translation of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations into French, and he developed a lifelong friendship with Maurice Blanchot. Prior to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, Levinas’s philosophical work focused on Husserlian phenomenology. His thought took a dramatic turn in the mid-1930s when he focused on the philosophical threat of Nazism. He spent 1940–1945 in a German POW camp. Returning to Paris after the war, he immediately went back to work for the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), where he became director of the École Normale Israélite Orientale (Enio), the Jewish day school. He resumed working on his question from the 1930s—the philosophical problem of identity and transcendence—with an added urgency in the wake of World War II. From 1946 until his death in 1995,...

In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp, 2017

AJS Review, 2015

rather than a mere object of study” (113). In chapter 6 Katz turns to Totality and Infinity and s... more rather than a mere object of study” (113). In chapter 6 Katz turns to Totality and Infinity and seeks to show that this same conception of the crisis of humanism and the centrality of education and teaching that are so prominent in his Jewish writings also inform that philosophical work. In this way, she argues that “the face is both the ground and the aim of ethics,” to use Martin Kavka’s formulation (129). In Totality and Infinity, as in his Jewish writings, education or teaching is how the self “becomes an ethical subject.” Moreover, throughout her treatment of the role of these texts for non-Jewish education and the Talmud for Jewish education, Katz focuses on “modeling the kind of interaction encouraged by or reflected in the Bavli for educational practice” (138). The Talmud shares with this literature, when viewed from the perspective of a theorist like Bakhtin, a special status; “the text becomes part of the social relation, not as something to replace another human member of the educational community, but as a supplement” (139). The challenge that Katz discloses, then, is an ethical one that is also an educational and political one. It requires an effort and a commitment that is demanding, exceedingly so, and Katz underscores in conclusion how rare such an accomplishment is (148–149). It is tempting to read Katz’s book as if it were answering the simple, if challenging, question: how does one come to be an adult subject responsive to the needs and demands of other persons? I have tried to show, by exploring her argument, that she wants to claim more and that her detailed examination of texts, many rarely considered Jewish writings, and her overall argument has purposes that are much deeper and much more profound. In the end, I am not persuaded that she succeeds in showing that Jewish education provides the “warrant” or “explanation” for the normativity of ethical subjectivity. I think that Katz is looking in the wrong place to find an “explanation” for the normative force or authority of that ideal. Nonetheless, she has a boldly conceptual and not simply a practical goal in mind. For this reason, in addition to its excellent readings of many texts and its helpful contextualizing of Levinas’s project, Katz’s book is a very good one indeed and one to be highly recommended.

Symposium, 2007

Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros, first published in the 19305, was a landmark treatment of the rad... more Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros, first published in the 19305, was a landmark treatment of the radical distinction between eros and agape.! Realizing that the Christian Bible makes large use of agape and little use of eros, Nygren seeks to understand why this is the case. Eros, Nygren teils us, is largely associated with Plato while agape is largely associated with Paul. Where eros is the desire to behold and participate in divine attributes, to make them part of oneself, agape is God's love freely bestowed on us. Although the most colloquial usage of eros does not point to a religious connotation, eros, like agape, is deeply religious in its original meaning, even as the two terms differ in significant ways. We can see remnants of this same discussion in the ethical project of Emmanuel Levinas, which became the subject of terrific criticism, precisely because he separated the ethical relation from the erotic experience. As a result, Levinas's commentators frequently compare Levinas's ethics to Christian agape. 2 Using the same distinction between agape and eros, even if implicitly, these commentators conclude that if Levinas distances the ethical relation from eros, his ethics must be like agape. Conversely, other commentators, for example, Luce Irigaray, prefer to bring together Levinas's ethics and eros while still maintaining some of the structure of Levinasian ethics. 3 That is, they are not satisfied with this separation, yet they are persuaded by some of the structure that identifies Levinas's ethical relation. If we keep in mind what ethics and eros mean for Levinas, it is not clear that this bridge from ethics to eros can be completed. Nor is it clear that Levinas has Christian agape in mind when he describes our responsibility for the Other. Thus, it seems that we must now address both issues at once: Levinas's ethical relation as distinct from the erotic and also as distinct from agape. This essay uses Nygren's examination of these two terms in order to think through how the relationship between eros and agape stands today, and in particular what this discussion means for Levinas's project. I then turn to some recent attempts to bridge the eroticjethical distinction in Levinas's project to see if there is a way to think productively about the intersection of eros and ethics and still maintain the integrity of Levinas's ethics. In his introductory discussion, Nygren recalls the distinction Pausanias made between vulgar eros and heavenly eros found in Plato's Symposium. 4 The distinction is significant for Nygren. If the only kind of eros is a love for sensible objects-earthly, sensuallove-then there is not much point in undertaking the comparison with agape, which is often under

Studies in Practical Philosophy, 2003

Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2009

In Bernhard Schlink's, The Reader, a father is asked by his son if it is better to do what i... more In Bernhard Schlink's, The Reader, a father is asked by his son if it is better to do what is in another's best interest, even if that action is against the wishes of the individual. The father replies that even with children this is a difficult question, it is a philosophical problem, ''but philosophy ...

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2012

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2011

Levinas's Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens, by Ephraim Meir. Jerusalem. The Hebre... more Levinas's Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens, by Ephraim Meir. Jerusalem. The Hebrew University Magnes Press. 301 pp. $100.00. In spite of, or maybe because of, those scholars who continue to keep Levinas's writings unproductively segregated into two categories - writings on Judaism and philosophical writings - there has been a proliferation of work attempting to stitch the categories together. Most recently, Ephraim Meir's book, Levinas's Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens, joins this group with the stated objective to "[discuss] Levinas's Jewish thinking and [discuss] the relationship between his philosophical and his Jewish thinking" (p. 3). The question which guides this discussion - "In what way is Levinas's philosophical discourse on a non-eudaimonic ethics related to his Jewish writings?" - was formulated at the 2006 Levinas Congress held in Jerusalem, where a substantial number of the attendees were in fact willing to entertain the productive relationship between these bodies of writing. As a result, Meir uses the tension that typically characterizes the discussions of Athens and Jerusalem as a productive starting point for his own examination. The book is divided into an introduction, five main chapters, and a conclusion. Meir begins with a discussion in the first chapter, "Between Professional and Confessional Writings," that draws the two sets of writings closer together. He moves from this chapter, which successfully blurs or removes the boundary between these bodies of writing, to Chapters Two and Three, which examine the ways that "the Greek" and "the Hebrew" each play off each other. By addressing this relationship in two chapters rather than one, and by inverting the relationship in each chapter, Meir demonstrates that each is dependent on the other, without privileging one over the other or subordinating one to the other. Finally, in Chapter Five, Meir turns specifically to Levinas's Jewish thought and considers a selection of themes that permeate Levinas's thought from his conception of revelation, a term deployed in both his philosophical (professional) writings and his writings on Judaism (confessional writings) to the State of Israel. Meir opens his conclusion with the following puzzlement: "It is strange that Levinas's philosophical thought draws so much attention, whereas he devoted so much of time to writing on Judaism, which scholars hardly discuss. This is even stranger since the positions adopted by Levinas and many terms used overlap in both kinds of writing" (p. 255). It is strange indeed. Meir s line that Levinas was not schizophrenic, while humorous, is also a propos. Quite literally, Levinas did not have a split mind, and indeed, as scholars, we should be more concerned if these two sets of writings were completely unrelated. What kind of mind could accomplish such a task? We would have to say literally that one side did not know what the other side was doing or to the extent that there was overlap or influence, these were not significant. …

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2009

This essay returns to the Dixie Chicks "incident" in order to reexamine the backlash against them... more This essay returns to the Dixie Chicks "incident" in order to reexamine the backlash against them. Their critics claim that patriotism and their contract with country music are at stake; I argue that the backlash is old-fashioned misogyny. My examination considers the concepts of prayer, patriotism, and the American Pledge of Allegiance. These words, though used loosely, are part of the central criticism of the Dixie Chicks actions. To accomplish my task, I turn, on the one hand, to Levinas and Heschel, and on the other to Hegel' s reading of Antigone. On March 10 th , 2003, ten days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, and responding to the anti-war, anti-U.S. protests in the streets outside the London concert venue, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks announced to the audience, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." The comment, reported in the British media, was picked up by the AP, and shortly thereafter made its way through American blogs and conservative news outlets before it completely exploded in the mainstream media. For most people, this comment was an innocuous, even if disrespectful, insult. However, for others, the Dixie Chicks' words represented the epitome of American decay. The accusations ranged from disloyalty to treason, with words like "betrayal" peppered into the epithets hurled at them. From the people who believed these women had transgressed certain lines of right behavior, punishment was delivered swiftly and severely. To say that the response to the Dixie 1 Information about the Dixie Chicks incident is cited from the documentary, Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing, Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, Woolly Puddin' Films, 2006. 2 In response to Maines' s question in this song, Frank Kogan asks, "OK, Natalie, try to answer your own question. What is it about the Dixie Chicks that provoked such a hysterical reaction, given the puniness of what you said?" ("Shame and Sensibility," Village Voice, July 25, 2006). Although Kogan asks several rhetorical questions about why this incident might have happened, he does not present any clear answers.

Philosophy Today, 2006

What is Jewish philosophy?1 Why is it philosophy? And if there is such a thing as Jewish philosop... more What is Jewish philosophy?1 Why is it philosophy? And if there is such a thing as Jewish philosophy, who counts as a Jewish philosopher? These questions guide any number of essays devoted to the topic of Jewish philosophy; some specifically address the meta-question of what constitutes Jewish philosophy and what thinkers are included in this category. As we see in the history of philosophy and in current trends in contemporary philosophy, defining those who are allowed in a particular category and those who are not is not an easy task; nor does it usually have a logic other than a political movement of the time. I would be remiss if I did not recognize that the question of Jewish philosophy still remains, for some, a question: what is it and why is it philosophy? A brief tour of some of the most prominent and recognizable names in the Jewish philosophical canon whose "identity" has caused a bit of a stir will help us to orient ourselves in this field called Jewish philosophy. Beginning with Spinoza, who is generally accepted as part of the Western philosophical canon, we can ask, as Emil Fackenheim does, if his acceptance is the result of his opting out of Judaism and/or because the Jewish community of Amsterdam excluded him, making him and his thought seem less Jewish and therefore less parochial. The Moses Mendelssohn (a philosophical contemporary and friend of Kant's) who appears in histories of early modern philosophy-the one who debates with Jacobi over Lessing's Spinozism-is not the Moses Mendelssohn who appears in accounts of modern Jewish philosophy. The central text for this latter Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, addresses concerns regarding state and religious power: what is the relationship, if any, between the two and what limits on each should be imposed?2 His interest lies in persuading his readership that there is no inconsistency in being a German citizen and remaining Jewish. His exploration into the relationship between national citizenship and religious identity is still relevant today. In the late modern period, Hermann Cohen, a brilliant neo-Kantian and the teacher of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber, is also largely ignored, though Cohen's work is infused with Kantian philosophy. As Fackenheim points out, insofar as Cohen is a neo-Kantian, he cannot be completely ignored, but little heed, if any, is paid to the way in which Cohen takes up Kantian philosophy into a Jewish framework. Rosenzweig, who wrote his dissertation on Hegel, is rarely, if ever taught, in existentialism courses and we can lament the lack of attention given by philosophers to his The Star of Redemption. Certainly, The Star is a daunting book, and it is no easy task to read it; however, other difficult books (e.g., Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit) are not only central to the canon of modern philosophy, but they are celebrated in part because of their level of difficulty. In any event, Rosenzweig often inspires his own set of debates precisely over the issue of whether he was a Jewish thinker or a German philosopher. Was The Star a work of philosophy or, as he feared, simply a "Jewish book"? Buber's / and Thou (like Tillich's The Courage to Be and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling) frequently appears in introductory philosophy courses or in courses on existentialism, usually when dealing with questions of religious experience or the role of the human in religious experience. This frequency, however, might be more of an indication that Buber's sophisticated philosophical ideas appear simplistic and/or that the mystical religious tradition that informs his thought is either unknown or viewed as irrelevant.3 When we move to the more contemporary thinkers and explore the debate surrounding Levinas's Judaism and the role that Judaism plays in informing his philosophical thought, it is difficult not to speculate about why such debates become so heated. What is at stake in proclaiming Levinas to be a Jewish philosopher? …

Philosophy Today, 2006

While the structure and the bare content of prophetic consciousness may be made accessible by an ... more While the structure and the bare content of prophetic consciousness may be made accessible by an attitude of pure reflection, in which the concern for their truth and validity is suspended, the sheer force of what is disclosed in such reflection quietly corrodes the hardness of self-detachment. The magic of the process seems to be stronger than an asceticism of the intellect.... In the course of listening to their words one cannot long retain the security of a prudent, impartial observer. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (xvii) Let justice well up like water, Righteousness like an unfailing stream. (Amos 5:24)1 And they shall beat their swords into plow-shares And their spears into pruning hooks Nation shall not take up Sword against nation; They shall never again know war. (Isaiah 2:4) Here I am; send me (Isaiah 6:8) Emmanuel Levinas' 1934 essay "Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism" warned us of precisely what others were unable to see, much less admit: Hitlerism was not simply an accident of evil, the acts of a "sick" man.2 Rather, its underlying logic permeates a type of thinking that puts into jeopardy, "the very humanity of man" (Levinas, 199Ob, 71). In this essay, Levinas reveals the two poles of thinking that provide the context for the tension between immanence and transcendence both as traditionally understood. In 1990, fifty-six years after the essay first appeared in French, an English translation of the essay was published in Critical Inquiry. In a prefatory note, written expressly for the translation and republication of the essay, Levinas asks: "Does the subject arrive at the human condition prior to assuming responsibility for the other man in the act of election that raises him up to this height?" The prefatory note appears anachronistic because of his references to "election" and "responsibility to the other man," themes that emerge only later in his writings.3 This early essay tackles the dual problems of classical transcendence and immanence.4 How then could this essay be about ethics, a term not only absent in this early work, but also not mentioned until 1961 in Totality and Infinity?5 The claim that this prefatory note is anachronistic assumes that Levinas' interest in transcendence and immanence is simply philosophical-the result of a conceptual problem or puzzle in the history of philosophy that he needed to address. Further, this concern with transcendence might also suggest that Levinas' interest in ethics was not a primary concern; rather, it was a secondary concern, the result of seeing the ethical relation as the solution to the problem of immanence and transcendence. Is the relationship between Levinas' early work and his later work simply the relationship between the posing of a philosophical question and finding its answer? In contrast to the view sketched above, this essay argues that Levinas' philosophical work follows a continuity of thought from his early concerns in the 1930s expressed in his essay on Hitlerism to his final works in the 1970s and 80s. My claim is that although we can mark changes in his use of vocabulary and the emphasis he places on different themes, his concern for and interest in ethics, religion, and social justice not only underlie all of his work, but motivate it. This paper proceeds as follows. I first examine Levinas' essay, "Philosophical Reflections on Hitlerism," in order to track the initial framing of the philosophical concern regarding the problematic relationship between immanence and transcendence. I then turn briefly to Levinas' 1946/47 lecture course, published as Time and the Other and his essay "The Trace of the Other" in order to suggest that Levinas' conception of time as the relationship to the Other is his solution to the problem of finding a middle way between immanence and transcendence. Finally, I turn to the notion of the prophetic in Judaism and Levinas' employment of the prophetic, especially in his later work, in order to suggest that his concern for ethics and social justice permeates his work from its beginning in the 1930s until his death in 1995. …