Wissenschaft Des Judentums - Guttmann and His Philosophie Des Judentums

Guttmann and His Philosophie Des Judentums

Julius Guttmann is best known for Die Philosophie des Judentums (Reinhardt, 1933), translations of which are available in Hebrew, Spanish, English, Japanese, etc. The English title is The Philosophy of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig (New York, 1964).

Roth sees in this publication "the last product in the direct line of the authentic Judaeo-German 'Science of Judaism'" (more commonly known as Wissenschaft des Judentums). While the movement did not utterly expire with the publication Guttman's work—its spirit living on in the work of G. Scholem and H.A. Wolfson among many others—it is certainly the case that the Wissenschaft movement in Germany had by the 1930s already ceased to thrive.

The original German edition of Philosophie des Judentums ends with Hermann Cohen, the primary influence on Guttman's own philosophy, while the later Hebrew edition includes Franz Rosenzweig. It is also notable that Guttman's work excludes major thinkers of the Kabbalistic school, which reflects his own attitude toward Jewish philosophy