<p> My thesis investigates and evaluates Hermann Cohen's interest in and critiques of Protestant biblical criticism. In this thesis, I argue that Cohen's interest in Protestant biblical criticism stems from his quest to rejuvenate Jewish learning, foster relations between Jewish and Christian scholars and develop a philosophically sophisticated method for the study of the Hebrew Bible. To argue this point, I look at Cohen's philosophical construction of concepts such as monotheism, messianism and social justice, his methodology for the study of texts, his philosophical conception of "Jewish sources", and how this conception reflects contemporary interactions and tensions in Germany between scholarly biblical criticism, Jewish intellectual culture, and antisemitism. In doing so, I also examine how Cohen's complicated relationship with Protestant biblical criticism can be seen as part of Cohen's attempts to balance the assumptions he shared with Protestant biblical scholars, such as Julius Wellhausen, with his polemical response to Protestant biases in the work of other biblical scholars, such as Rudolf Kittel. This thesis, then, looks at both Cohen's implicit and explicit critiques of Protestant biblical scholarship in several of his "Jewish Writings" and in his Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, and investigates how Cohen's interactions with Protestant biblical criticism influenced his own methodology for the study of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In this study of the nineteenth-century German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, I argue that Cohen’s revision of Kantian ethics and moral theology is permeated with concepts drawn from and logically contoured by his interpretation of Maimonidean rationalism and Jewish sources, more generally. Through an idealizing hermeneutic, Cohen normativizes certain philosophical problems in post-Kantian philosophy and addresses them under the title of "pantheism" and "positivism". Between both pantheism and positivism, Cohen’s idealism presents a middle path, which I describe as "prophetic idealism", or a philosophy of time and ideality that interprets history, law, and ethical normativity as future-oriented. In other words, "prophecy" intimates a methodological role for temporality in practical philosophy and introduces a new meaning for legality in ethics. Cohen therefore offers a philosophy of Judaism, as a philosophy of religion, by normativizing the idea of prophecy and making it a conceptual model for reason-giving, agency, legal norms and ethical action. By focusing upon the critique of both pantheism and positivism, this dissertation therefore argues that Cohen’s negotiations of nineteenth-century philosophical problems introduces a normative role for Judaism as a public philosophy and the argument concludes by suggesting that Cohen’s philosophy of Judaism is instructive for contemporary public philosophy.

In this study of the nineteenth-century German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, I argue that Cohen’s revision of Kantian ethics and moral theology is permeated with concepts drawn from and logically contoured by his interpretation of Maimonidean rationalism and Jewish sources, more generally. Through an idealizing hermeneutic, Cohen normativizes certain philosophical problems in post-Kantian philosophy and addresses them under the title of "pantheism" and "positivism". Between both pantheism and positivism, Cohen’s idealism presents a middle path, which I describe as "prophetic idealism", or a philosophy of time and ideality that interprets history, law, and ethical normativity as future-oriented. In other words, "prophecy" intimates a methodological role for temporality in practical philosophy and introduces a new meaning for legality in ethics. Cohen therefore offers a philosophy of Judaism, as a philosophy of religion, by normativizing the idea of prophecy and making it a conceptual model for reason-giving, agency, legal norms and ethical action. By focusing upon the critique of both pantheism and positivism, this dissertation therefore argues that Cohen’s negotiations of nineteenth-century philosophical problems introduces a normative role for Judaism as a public philosophy and the argument concludes by suggesting that Cohen’s philosophy of Judaism is instructive for contemporary public philosophy.

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