Tag Archives: dialectical life

Believers

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Abigail

Believers When I was a child, the grownups around me held all kinds of beliefs and I wished I could be like them. Failing that, I hoped they wouldn’t find out how I really felt. As a high school girl, … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art of living, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, books, childhood, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", American girls, American hostage in Teheran, anti-Jewish persecution, Barry Rosen, becoming a Jew, belief and identity, believers, Brooklyn College philosophy, child's insincerity, City University of New York, coherent narrative, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, core identity, courtship modalities, damned if you do damned if you don't, dialectical life, different strokes different folks, discovering Jewish identity, discovering one is Jewish, explaining everything, explaining one’s life, finding a narrative thread, French courtship, French women, Freudian psychoanalysis, girlfriends and boyfriends, God and chronology, God in history, God's presence, grownups' beliefs, handling insults, harassing Jewish students, hazing in Australia, Hegelian narrative, holding nothing back, Jewish explanations, Jewish identity, joke that's not a joke, keeping your cool, keeping your honor, losing social power, maintaining a sense of belonging, misspent youth, Park Avenue psychoanalysis, partnering with God, persecution and identity, personal motivation, personal uniqueness, philosophic memoir, post-modern deconstructions, pretend adoration, reductive explanation, Smith College girls, social clumsiness, social cuts, social double bind, social power, standing up to persecution, unified self, Yaffa Eliach's Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust | Leave a comment

Did My Story Just Get Longer?

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Abigail

Did My Story Just Get Longer? In recent days, I’ve felt that it’s time for philosophy — the discipline, with its history and skills — to step up, as it did in days past. To identify and negotiate the great … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, femininity, freedom, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, immorality, immortality, Jews, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, love, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, seduction, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 1930s in Germany, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", author and book, children's Holocaust memories, clues to past life, culture and personal choice, dialectical life, Edith Wyschogrod, evil agent, German Jews, German Jews in hiding, God and the Covenant, God and the Jews, Holocaust non-survivors, intelligence of evil, learning who one is, life adventures, life review, living one’s story, love of wisdom, many lives, narrative continuity, narrative view, out of body experience, past life regression, past-life dislocations, past-life memories, personal identity, philosophy in culture, Plato's dialogues, reincarnation, scope of the Holocaust, sealed trucks in Holocaust, self-congratulation, self-correction, understanding evil, understanding the good life, woman philosopher, zeitgeist and anti-semitism, Zyklon B | Leave a comment

What’s My Relation to God as of Now?

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Abigail

What’s My Relation to God as of Now? From my earliest memories, the question, Is there a God, wasn’t a question I asked. This though, once I grew up, I got to be a philosopher by profession, temperament and conviction. … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, books, childhood, cities, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, evil, existentialism, faith, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, Hegel, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, idolatry, Jews, Judaism, life and death struggle, love, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, motherhood, ontology, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", Abraham, Abraham and Isaac, agnosticism, akeda, Anselm, Anselm's ontological argument, Aquinas, Aquinas's 5 ways, Ariadne's Thread, art of motherhood, Biblical literalism, breaking up with God, clues to a life, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, connecting life phases, connecting the dots, conversion stories, covenantal relationship, crisis of youth, David Hume, decoding clues, dialectical life, Divine command, divine/human relationship, empty altars, false gods, former believer, Freudian diagnostic, getting to God, God's existence, Hegel, inner logic, ironical attitude, Is there God?, life and art, life attitudes, life compromises, life secret, life's questions, loss of faith, maternal art, meaning of life, open-minded search, ousting divinity, personal God, philosopher of history, philosophical life, philosophy major, philosophy of religion, piety, pilgrimage of the spirit, quarter-life crisis, recuperation, rejecting God, relation to God, relationship with God, relationship's foundation, relationships, repressed desires, retrospection, sad clown, self-discovery, self-inquiry, self-irony, self-understanding, Sigmund Freud, skeptical arguments, striking a pose, stumbling of the soul, truth of a life, turbulent twenties, unbelief, unseen connections, witnessing a life, woman philosopher | 2 Comments

Read it Here First! My Obit!

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Abigail

Read it Here First! My Obit! All this week, Jerry and I have been attending to what I call “Last Arrangements.” Though we’re not expecting to kick off any time soon, you never know, and one of the chores I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged A.J. Ayer, Abigail L. Rosenthal, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s “A Hegelian Key to Hegel’s Method”, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s “Feminism without Contradictions”, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s “God and the Care for One’s Story”, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s “The Right Way to Act”, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s Confessions of a Young Philosopher, academic arbitrator, academic job fight, anthologized philosophy articles, Augustinian confession, banality of evil, Barnard College, Bernard Williams, Brooklyn College Philosophy Department, Chaim Tchernowitz, chance episodes, chief rabbi of Odessa, Chronicle of Higher Education, College de France, Columbia class of 1925, Columbia M.A., Columbia University, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, defending Holocaust victims, defending introspection, dialectical life, doctoral exams, doing philosophy, evil life, falling in love, feminine wisdom, filial piety, Fulbright Scholar, good life, Hannah Arendt, Hebraist renaissance, Hegel in a Hegelian way, Hegel’s humanism, Henry M. Rosenthal, Henry M. Rosenthal’s The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Secret; Spinoza’s Way, Hermeneutics, High School of Music and Arts, Holocaust, hometown Manhattan, honors in philosophy, Jacob Taubes, Jerry L. Martin, Jerusalem street name, John Bacon, last arrangements, life as a search for truth, Marx and Freud, Memorial Minute, Morality in the Modern World, obituary, Penn State, philosopher’s daughter, philosophic friendship, philosophic life, Proceedings and Addresses, providential intervention, Rachelle Rosenthal, Rav Tsair, self-corrective narrative, sensitivity measure, spoiling the story, SUNY at Stony Brook, Sydney Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, Sydney University, The class genius, The Jewish Daily Forward, the lives of women, The New York Post, the Sorbonne, University Seminar on Hermeneutics | 7 Comments

Therapy from the Jews

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Abigail

Therapy from the Jews Have the Jews anything to offer the world today in their capacity as Jews? The remarkable plasticity and resilience of anti-semitism doesn’t answer my question about being a Jew: what the hell good is it? Let’s … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Bible, Biblical God, childhood, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, Gnosticism, Hegel, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, idolatry, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, memoir, memory, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mysticism, nineteenth-century, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, public facade, reductionism, relationships, roles, secular, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, Zeitgeist | Tagged Alber Camus, anti-semitism, assimilation, authorship by committee, being modern. modernity, Bibical record, Bible, Bible as metaphor, Brooklyn College, chronological experience, conventional conduct, covenant, cultural baggage, dialectical life, documentary hypothesis, dogmatism, erasing personhood, escapism, ethnic identity, false transcendence, God as energy, God as Person, God of history, higher criticism, History, human wholeness, human/divine relations, intersectionality, Jewish mind-set, Jewish orthodoxy, Jewish practices, linear thinking, literary reading of Bible, living one’s time, mechanical conformity, merger with the Absolute, Mysticism, observant Jews, Oral Law, Orthodox students, personal God, personhood, pragmatism, pretentiousness, principle of charity miracles, problem-solving, providential interventions, realm of action, religious identity, religious pretense, role of chronology, saintliness, scientism, self-correction, signing on to the covenant, Sinaitic covenant, supersessionism, Talmud, the Biblical record, The Examined Life, The Jewish Review of Books, Thomas Cahill’s The Gift of the Jews & How the Irish Saved Civilization, thought experiment, universality, Utopianism, world without Jews | Leave a comment

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