Thinking in Public

"In his powerful and beautifully written Thinking in Public, 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."—The Journal of Modern History

"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. Thinking in Public 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."—Politics, Religion & Ideology

"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 Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation

"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

"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 Leo Strauss and the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher