Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 491 documenti preparatori allo scritto--il confronto di Feuerbach con il teologo Denys Petau relativamente al dogma della trinitY, con il platonico di Cambridge Ralph Cudworth relativamente all'idea di natura, con i dati allora emergenti dalle scienze fisiche e biologiche--non ~ possibile scorgere nella categoria feuerbachiana di Natur un indulgere verso il determinismo, come i suoi coevi critici sostenevano. La lettura delle differenti stesure di Das Wesen der Religion, compiuta da Tomasoni con sicura perizia filologica, dimostra ampiamente questo punto. L'idea di Natur in Feuerbach non solo non ha un portato deterministico bensi ~ anche e soprattutto una netta rottura con le correnti positivistiche e scientistische del tempo e, potremmo aggiungere, anche un potenziale atto di accusa contro le successive metafisiche neo-razionalistiche che continuano a perseguire ideali dualistici; una critica, insomma, a concezioni che ripropongono un'immagine di natura e di uomo radicalmente separate. Le implicazioni teoretiche della riflessione feuerbachiana sulla "natura non umana" risultano esser quindi notevolissime; esse, di fatto, svincolano il filosofo Iedesco dal suo specifico milieu storico e culturale, proiettandolo sullo sfondo di una critica della modernit ~ che coinvolge, del pari, pensatori quali Stirner, Marx e, su un altro versante, Kierkegaard e che condurr~, anche se molto spesso tramite una penetrazione sotterranea e segreta, alle interrogazioni di Nietzsche, Bergson, Gehlen, Heidegger--tra gli altri--suU'esistenza umana in una natura stravolta dalla tecnica e matematizzata dalla scienza. Se il volume di Tomasonimper l'andamento storico/filologico del discorso che propone--solo marginalmente sfiora questi pur centrali problemi, nondimeno, per la accurata ricerca e per l'attento vaglio dei documenti riportati, fornisce materiali preziosi atti alia ridefinizione del pensiero di Feuerbach quale momento fermo e imprescindibile di una radicale rottura nell'ambito della cultura filosofica e scientifica propria della modernit~t. FABIO BAZZANI UniversitA di Firenze Shlomo Avineri. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Pp. xii + 266. $22.5o. The state of Israel promised more than an end to Jewish suffering. It was to be a land of social milk and honey, a new state in which those ancient dreams which had comforted the Diaspora would be realized through the instrumentality of modern socialism . But after four decades of unrelieved Arab hostility, Jewish Israelis have found only their suffering refreshed. Its youthful dreams and ideals have been replaced by the hard realism of policing the very land it occupies. In the words of one sorrowing Israeli, "Israel has lost its soul." Perhaps this is true. But what is this "soul" that now might be lost? No one would be better prepared to answer this question than Moses Hess (l 812-1875). He was indeed what Avineri has called him: the "Prophet of Communism and Zionism." His thoughts were the first to enter into the theoretical watersheds of both Zionism and socialism, 492 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ~7:3 JULY 1989 and the founders of both movements recognized this. Theodore Herzl once remarked that had he read Hess, he would not have written TheJewish State--since Zionism had been completely anticipated; and Engels simply labels Hess as "the first Communist in the Party." But being recognized as a prophet is not the same as grasping the idea governing the prophecies, and for this task Hess himself could not have found anyone more qualified in both scholarship and sensibility than Avineri. Hess, however, in one respect was not a prophet--at least if we have the heated images of the Old Testament in mind. It is not that he was without passion, but rather his passion was always tempered by a speculative turn. Thought deflected him from entering onto that path of visceral politics taken by Marx and Bakunin. He was, as the title page of his first book was careful to note, "A Young Spinozist" Won einemj~nger Spinozas)--and he remained throughout his life drawn more to the "amor Dei intellectualis " than to "revolutionary praxis." For Avineri, Hess must always be understood as a constant disciple of Spinoza. His first role as proto-Communist and later as proto-Zionist are not (as most commentators have it) merely discordant moments of an incoherent intellectual career, but...