Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein (review)

The analytic philosopher Hilary Putnam, Cogan University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University, has in his retirement produced a slim and unpretentious volume of four studies devoted to modern Jewish thought. As described in an autobiographical introduction, Putnam developed a personal interest in his Jewishness late in life. He notes a course on Jewish thought that he developed in 1997, though he does not mention that he also published an article on negative theology and a study in the philosophy of religion in that same year ("On Negative Theology," Faith and Philosophy 14.4 [October 1997]: 407–422; "God and the Philosophers," in P. A. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein, eds., Philosophy of Religion [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997], pp. 175–187). This is not to say that Putnam became a full-blown Jewish philosopher. Given the grand scale of his larger philosophical production, these pieces remain comparatively minor elements in an imposing corpus. Nor does Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life attempt to "reconcile" his faith with his analytic philosophy. Putnam describes his current religious standpoint as "somewhere between John Dewey in A Common Faith and Martin Buber" (p. 5).

Drawing on the model of Pierre Hadot's Philosophy as a Way of Life, Putnam prefers a Jewish philosophy that is not reducible to a set of propositions, but rather provides models for a "way of life." Putnam reads Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, and Wittgenstein in support of this view, and his readings are provocative and insightful. Still, except perhaps in the case of Wittgenstein, who is not a "Jewish thinker" (Putnam calls him one-fourth of a Jewish philosopher), Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life will not be an extraordinary resource for those already familiar with these thinkers. Nonetheless, Putnam is a masterful teacher, and his elucidations of four difficult thinkers are valuable in themselves. Perhaps the most striking reading in the present climate of thought is his admittedly out of-step "What I and Thou is Really Saying" (pp. 55–67). He acknowledges this state of affairs: "Very often people are surprised that I value the thought of Martin Buber" (p. 58). He provides examples of misunderstandings of I and Thou in an effort to redress this situation.

The sub-title, Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life, may perplex Jewishly informed prospective readers with its inclusion of Wittgenstein. To this reviewer, however, Putnam's inclusion of Wittgenstein is an admirable feature of this pleasing and instructive little volume. While acknowledging from the outset that Wittgenstein is not a "Jewish philosopher," Putnam nevertheless deploys him in an especially useful comparison with Rosenzweig. As a philosopher who "thinks with" Wittgenstein, Putnam applies his long-cultivated powers of insight and concision, expressive sensitivity and conceptual rigor, virtues he certainly cultivated under the example of Wittgenstein, to his re-discovered Jewish identity. Or, perhaps more accurately, to his Jewish life.

The path running through Putnam's gently passionate readings leads beyond the classroom and into life itself. His chosen Jewish thinkers philosophize as guides to life. For Wittgenstein, the "religious person theorizing about God is, as it were, beside the point" (p. 6). For Buber, "a certain mode of being in the world" is necessary (p. 67). For Rosenzweig, what is needed is "experiential philosophy," "narrative philosophy"; "the whole purpose of human life is revelation, and the whole content of revelation is love" (p. 54). For Levinas, "the obligation [is] to make ourselves available to the neediness (and especially the suffering) of the other person" (p. 74, emphasis in original). Putnam's philosophy of Judaism, accordingly, directs the reader beyond theory and into life (ins Leben).

Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life will be attractive to some readers as a modest but still meaningful attempt at a philosophical position in modern Jewish thought. As artifacts in the sociology of knowledge, his Introduction and especially his Afterward are particularly...