Idolatry and Representation

The philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig reconsidered.This text focuses on the relevance of the proper name in the conceptions of language and history that inform the thought of Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger and Rosenzweig. Their interest in the proper name is because it does not simply operate as a conventional linguistic sign.A specific experience of the Jewish religious tradition (Adorno, Benjamin, Rosenzweig) and a vision of poetry resulting from the reading of Hoelderlin (Heidegger) lead to the idea of an absolute singularity, it is a singularity that resists all conceptual identificaiton and the proper name expresses this singularity in language.In this analysis, history is conceived as a movement that both betrays and tends towards the absolute singularity that manifests itself in the unsayable, i.e. in the name of God, or in poetical language. questions of gesture, translation and melancholia and the moment of apparition in the work of art are comprehensible within Dr Duttmann´s discussion.
Contents: Acknowledgments ix Introduction Reconsidering Rosenzweig and Modern Conceptions of Idolatry 3 PART I: ETHICS AND MONOTHEISM 15 One The Eradication of Alien Worship: Rosenzweig as Ethical Monotheist 17 Two Miracles and Martyrs, Ethics and Hermeneutics: Idolatry from Mendelssohn to Rosenzweig 32 Three The Philosophical Import of Carnal Israel: Hermeneutics and the Structure of Rosenzweig´s The Star of Redemption 62 PART II: ART AND LANGUAGE 81 Four Risky Images: Rosenzweig´s Aesthetic Theory and Jewish Uncanniness 83 Five The Problem of Translation: Risking the Present for the Sake of the Past 105 PART III: RELIGION AND POLITICS 143 Six Risking Religion: Christian Idolatry 145 Seven Risking Politics: Jewish Idolatry 169 Eight After Israel: Rosenzweig´s Philosophy of Risk Reconsidered 188 Conclusion The Future of Monotheism 207 Notes 227 Index 273