A travessia do nada na Filosofia da Religião de Franz Rosenzweig

Abstract

This thesis researches how Franz Rosenzweig, the German Jewish philosopher and theologian, faces the challenges of relativism and nihilism. The works of Rosenzweig are the object of this research, especially his most important book, The Star of Redemption, along with the text named The New Thinking, whose aim was to serve as a preface to the main book and to clarify its meaning and content. Our hypothesis is that Rosenzweig´s philosophy makes itself able to face those challenges only when it assumes some categories from the traditional Jewish thinking when he makes his return to Judaism, and combines it with the existential and pragmatic sort of philosophy that he elaborates. He calls his own way of producing his philosophy as his Jewish method . This method presupposes a kind of thinking completely immersed in contingency and temporality, acknowledging the insufficiency and lack of ontological autonomy to man and also to the world and an existential attitude of walking alongside God. It also implies that one assimilates the language of Jewish tradition which will function as the means of expression of his philosophy. So, we will research Rosenzweig´s two main texts along with some supporting texts, among them some articles as well as some letters, where we can find some clarification about elements that he used to build his system of philosophy which make him able to face relativism and nihilism, and also to come up with his own form of rationality and existential attitudes. The use of traditional Jewish categories of thinking along with elements of existential and pragmatic philosophy will allow him to change the concept of nothing into a creative category and a point of departure to his own thinking. The nothing will never be a halt or an end point. Those characteristics will bestow the singularity and power of Rosenzweig´s work