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At Princeton parley, profs ponder a renaissance in Jewish philosophy
For the longest time, Jewish thinkers in America have labored under the shadow of 19th- and 20th-century
German-Jewish philosophers, observed Alan Mittleman.
“You didn’t have a technically competent, sophisticated philosophy being produced in philosophy departments by Jewish thinkers,” said Mittleman, professor of philosophy and director of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.
“But it’s been happening for the past couple of decades, and I thought it was interesting,” Mittleman said in an interview. “What does that mean? Is it a kind of coming of age of American-Jewish thought? Does it represent a new pluralization of what philosophy means in the United States?
On Feb. 22 and 23, Mittleman and his fellow philosophers addressed those questions at The Renaissance of Jewish Philosophy in America, a conference on the Princeton University campus sponsored jointly by the Louis Finkelstein Institute and Princeton’s Department of Religion and James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
The scholarly and often esoteric program featured the presentation of papers by more than a dozen scholars from universities across North America. Conference sessions focused on such weighty matters as American-Jewish thought in the light of German Judaism, the tension between classical Judaism and classical liberalism, the connections between philosophical analysis and science, and the balance between ethics and metaphysics.
Mittleman said that he chose the word “renaissance” for the conference title to highlight a cultural trend in Jewish philosophy — something that is all but impossible to quantify.
“Numerically, we’re not talking about hundreds of people,” he said. “We’re probably talking about handfuls of philosophers…a few dozen people working in universities, writing books. It’s still largely an academic discourse. Part of what I wanted to do was to expose them to a different kind of audience.”
As he told the audience on the evening of Feb. 22, “There is something new and important going on in American-Jewish letters and learning. Jewish philosophy no longer refers solely to works in Arabic, medieval philosophical Hebrew, or German classics, but to contemporary constructive philosophizing in English.”
Jewish philosophy is no longer just something studied by historians, but rather something actually being done by Jewish philosophers, Mittleman added. Whether or not that constitutes a “renaissance,” he said, the conference signals the renewal of this mode of intellectual engagement in contemporary American-Jewish life. “Our purpose,” he said, “is to explore it, understand it, celebrate it, and further it.”
One of those celebrating that renewal was political philosopher William Galston, Saul Stern Professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. Galston — who has filled such seemingly disparate roles as deputy assistant for domestic policy for President Bill Clinton and chief speechwriter for Republican John Anderson’s 1980 presidential campaign — wrapped up the conference with some challenging observations of his own.
“A Jewish philosopher must be a person who is committed to Jewish tradition,” Galston told the 60 scholars and students gathered at Princeton’s Whig Hall on the afternoon of Feb. 23.
“Without that full, existential commitment, a Jewish philosopher is not much more than a philosopher who happens to be Jewish,” he said. However, he asked, “is the activity of philosophy, in the fullest sense, compatible with an existential commitment to anything other than the activity of philosophy itself?
“I’m bold enough to suggest that the answer to that question is no,” he said. “A Jewish philosopher is a Jew first and a philosopher second. Jewish philosophizing comes to an end in the commitment to the tradition itself. If philosophy means that, in principle, everything is open to question, then everything in the phrase ‘Jewish philosopher’ is an oxymoron.”
Jewish philosophy should be thought of as instrumental rather than foundational, according to Galston.
“It is a way of clarifying and defending the principal modes and categories of Jewish tradition — ritual, law, covenant, and commandment,” he said. “Philosophy has an important role to play in the explication of the Jewish experience.
“Another important function of Jewish philosophy is supplementing the ongoing work of halachic interpretation — applying Jewish principles to a range of issues, including public issues,” he added. “With regard to most of these issues, Judaism is not neutral.”
If one begins from a premise of a commitment to the commandments of Jewish tradition, Galston said, that premise then constitutes a reservation against all forms of political authority.
“From the standpoint of Jewish tradition,” Galston said, “political authority can never be total authority. A liberal democracy is a limited democracy. A commitment to a faith tradition such as Judaism is one of the primary sources for understanding that limitation.
“As Jewish Americans,” he said, “our commitment as citizens to the democratic authority of our country also comes with an implicit reservation: If the democratic tradition commands what our tradition forbids, then we have a problem.”
For example, he said, what if liberal democracies were to ban kosher slaughtering as a form of cruelty to animals? “What would happen if that became the law of the land?” he asked.
But American Jews are extremely reluctant to admit even the possibility of tension between their commitment to Jewish tradition and their commitment to the liberal democracy of the United States, Galston said.
“Jews, like all other human beings, have an aversion to cognitive dissonance,” he said, explaining that when it comes to Judaism and democracy, our inclination is to believe that the two things go together.
“In candor, we must admit that certain features of North American life — the seduction of abundance, pleasure, and unfettered liberty — may incline us to chafe at some of the restraints of Halacha,” Galston said. “The United States has done a very good job of freeing Jews from the burden of pharaohnic oppression. There is a tendency for liberal democracy to become a form of idolatry.”
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