{"product_id":"thinking-in-public-9780812247848","title":"Thinking in Public","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThinking in Public examines the ambivalence that public political life and the figure of the intellectual provoked in the generation of European Jewish thinkers born around 1900. By comparing Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Leo Strauss, Wurgaft offers a new perspective on the relationship between philosophers and politics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In his powerful and beautifully written \u003ci\u003eThinking in Public,\u003c\/i\u003e Benjamin Wurgaft explores how three giants of twentieth-century thought, Leo Strauss, Emmanuel Levinas, and Hannah Arendt, grappled with the intertwined roles of intellectuals and Jews in modern society. . . . By situating the relationship between thinkers and their public at the center of his protagonists' careers, Wurgaft brings a fresh perspective to texts that have been thoroughly plowed by countless scholars. . . . A tremendous achievement.\" * \u003ci\u003eThe Journal of Modern History\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\"In this wonderfully sweeping and also lovingly detailed book, Benjamin Wurgaft explores the ideas of 'the intellectual' and 'the public' in the work of Leo Strauss, Emmanuel Levinas, and Hannah Arendt. \u003ci\u003eThinking in Public\u003c\/i\u003e is beautifully written, carefully argued, and hugely important at a time when 'public intellectuals' are proliferating, their place in political life is contested, and technology is wildly expanding their productivity and reach.\" * \u003ci\u003ePolitics, Religion \u0026amp; Ideology\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\"In this beautifully written and elegantly argued book, Benjamin Wurgaft brings together three seminal thinkers and uses each to illuminate the others. This is a masterful work of intellectual history, which also raises important normative questions about the scope and nature of philosophy, politics, and religion. Anyone interested in the legacy of European and Jewish thought in the twentieth century, as well as anyone concerned with what public intellectuals can offer us today, will learn a tremendous amount from this wonderful book.\" * Leora Batnitzky, author of \u003ci\u003eLeo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\"A magnificent exploration of philosophy and politics in the second half of the twentieth century. Wurgaft places in conversation the writings of Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Leo Strauss and interrogates a profound tension in their thought: on the one hand, their belief in the philosophic responsibility to engage political and moral life and, on the other, their deep distrust of public intellectuals. Wurgaft shows how the former commitment stems from each thinker's explicit or unwitting appropriation of Jewish philosophic resources, and how the latter revulsion constitutes a response to the complicity of many esteemed mentors and peers with the Nazi regime that forced them into exile. Wurgaft's exposition is illuminating at every turn and compels readers to rethink the relationship of theory and practice, philosophy and power, politics and emigration in the twentieth century and beyond.\" * John P. McCormick, University of Chicago *\u003cbr\u003e\"Wurgaft deftly creates a constellation of three iconic twentieth-century Jewish thinkers, revealing crucial differences but also striking similarities in how they construed the role of the public intellectual-and, indeed, of public thought itself. Intellectual history at its best.\" * Eugene R. Sheppard, Brandeis University, author of \u003ci\u003eLeo Strauss and the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e PART I. LEO STRAUSS AND THE PROBLEM OF \"THE INTELLECTUAL\"\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. Moderns and Medievals\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. The Exoteric Writing Thesis\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Natural Right and Tyranny\u003cbr\u003e PART II. THE DOG AT THE END OF THE VERSE: EMMANUEL LEVINAS BETWEEN ETHICS AND ENGAGEMENT\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Growth of a Moralist\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. Resisting Engagement\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. Witnessing\u003cbr\u003e PART III. AGAINST SPEECHLESS WONDER: HANNAH ARENDT ON PHILOSOPHERS AND INTELLECTUALS\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7. Arendt's Weimar Origins\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 8. From the Camps to Galileo\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 9. One More Strange Island\u003cbr\u003e PARTIV. A MISSED CONVERSATION\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 10. Toward a Jewish Socrates?\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49405727146327,"sku":"9780812247848","price":70.55,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780812247848.jpg?v=1730493408","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/thinking-in-public-9780812247848","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}