Repository | Book | Chapter

211836

Love strong as death

Jews against Heidegger (on the issue of finitude)

Agata Bielik-Robson

pp. 159-189

Abstract

According to Levinas, in Heidegger's death-dominated thought there is no place for being-with-the-other. But Levinas is not the first and not the only Jewish philosopher who uttered his objection to Heidegger's overestimation of death by drawing "out of the sources of Judaism": Franz Rosenzweig, Hannah Arendt, and Harold Bloom are also opposed to the Heideggerian mode of doing philosophy solely under the auspices of death. There is one feature they share: the importance of the intellectual heritage of the Song of Songs. In their approaches, "love as strong as death" lends itself to the philosophical speculation which offers a different conception of the finite existence, destined to die but no means exhausted by its lethal destiny and marked by passionate relations with others.

Publication details

Published in:

Björk Mårten, Svenungsson Jayne (2017) Heidegger's Black notebooks and the future of theology. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 159-189

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-64927-6_7

Full citation:

Bielik-Robson Agata (2017) „Love strong as death: Jews against Heidegger (on the issue of finitude)“, In: M. Björk & J. Svenungsson (eds.), Heidegger's Black notebooks and the future of theology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 159–189.