In German Idealism and the Jew, Michael Mack uncovers the deep roots of anti-Semitism in the German philosophical tradition, contending that the redefinition of the Jews as an irrational, oriental Other forms the very cornerstone of German idealism. He shows how fundamental thinkers such as Kant and Hegel created a construction of Jews as symbolic of the worldlines that hindered the development of a body politic, and how thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Franz Rosenzweig, and Sigmund Freud grappled with being both German and Jewish-pinpointing the particular Jewish notion of enlightenment that came out of it. The first analytical account of the connection between anti-Semitism and philosophy, German Idealism and the Jew speaks the unspoken in German philosophy, profoundly reshaping our understanding of it.

About the Author
Michael Mack is a Minerva Amos de Shalit fellow at the Franz Rosenzweig Research Center for German Jewish Literature and Cultural History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of many books, most recently Spinoza and the Specters of Modernity and How Literature Changes the Way We Think.

Reviews
"German Idealism and the Jew is a work long overdue, of great importance to scholarly understandings of Nazi Germany and anti-Semitism and the larger problem of the functioning of the scapegoat mechanism in chaotic societies." (Philosophy in Review)"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226500966
Author Michael Mack
Format Paperback
Page Count 237
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 369g
Dimensions(mm) 24mm * 17mm * 2mm