Die Aufhellung des Judentums im Platonismus

This study traces G. W. F. Hegel's intellectual engagement with the Jewish Platonist Philo of Alexandria. In a historic-systematical investigation, Strauss elucidates the ambivalence of Hegel's image of Philo. Hegel understood him as a transitional figure between Judaism and Christianity. At the same time, he saw Philo's thought as an early form of Neo-Platonism in which the Biblical God encounters the metaphysical Logos of the Greeks for the first time.

Autorentext

Ze'ev Strauss, Universität Hamburg.

Zusammenfassung

Ze'ev Strauss' Die Aufhellung des Judentums im Platonismus. Zu den jüdisch-platonischen Quellen des deutschen Idealismus, dargestellt anhand von Hegels Auseinandersetzung mit Philon von Alexandria is a learned, philosophically deep study of Philo's surprising, insufficiently acknowledged importance for Hegel. In its careful mapping and explication of the source materials, in the comprehensive understanding it reveals of both Philo's and Hegel's respective systematic works and historical contexts, in the "Auseinandersetzung" it indeed carries out between Philo and Hegel, and in the illumination it grants our understanding of the history of philosophy along the way, this is a masterful book and is highly recommended reading for scholars of Philo's and of Hegel's thought alike.

Benjamin Pollock, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in: The Studia Philonica Annual 34 (2022)