Exemplarity and Chosenness is a combined study of the philosophies of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) that explores the question: How may we account for the possibility of philosophy, of universalism in thinking, without denying that all thinking is also idiomatic and particular? The book traces Derrida's interest in this topic, particularly emphasizing his work on "philosophical nationality" and his insight that philosophy is challenged in a special way by its particular "national" instantiations and that, conversely, discourses invoking a nationality comprise a philosophical ambition, a claim to being "exemplary." Taking as its cue Derrida's readings of German-Jewish authors and his ongoing interest in questions of Jewishness, this book pairs his philosophy with that of Franz Rosenzweig, who developed a theory of Judaism for which election is essential and who understood chosenness in an "exemplarist" sense as constitutive of human individuality as well as of the Jews' role in universal human history.
β¦ Table of Contents
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 12
List of Abbreviations......Page 14
Introduction......Page 22
Part I: Individuality and Universality
......Page 32
1 On Rosenzweigβs Reception of the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen: Individuality, Jewish Election, and the Infinitesimal......Page 34
Part II: Exemplarity
......Page 62
2 Derridaβs Early Considerations of Historicism and Relativism......Page 64
3 Thematizations of Language: Between Translatability and Singularity......Page 95
Part III: Philosophical Nationality......Page 120
4 On the Philosophical Ambition of National Affirmation......Page 122
5 Nationality, Judaism, and the Sacredness of Language......Page 139
Part IV: Messianicity
......Page 178
6 Time and History in Rosenzweig: From Temporal Existence to Eternity......Page 180
7 Specters of Messiah......Page 205
Appendix: Jacques Derridaβs Seminar Cycle βNationalitΓ© et nationalisme philosophiquesβ......Page 226
Notes......Page 228
Index......Page 276
