| Vladimir Jankelevitch did not write a book that could, according to traditional categories, be classified as philosophy of religion or philosophical theology, yet references to works of Christian theology and spirituality permeate his texts, in addition to which, he often wrote and spoke about the meaning of Jewish identity and existence in the modern world. If he never engaged in apologetics or dogmatic theology of any sort, Jankelevitch's thought nonetheless presumes a constitutive relationship between philosophy and spirituality. Infinite Ambiguity: Elements of Vladimir Jankelevitch's Philosophy of Religion examines this configuration, through an interpretation of his relation to the work of Henri Bergson, whose philosophical achievement Jankelevitch regards as primarily of the order of practice, method, or, more strongly, spirituality, and, additionally, through an analysis of Jankelevitch's approach to a philosophical question that he regards from a decidedly non-Bergsonist point of view, namely the question of death.;By considering Jankelevitch's response to a problem raised by Bergson's philosophy of religions, chapter one illustrates Jankelevitch's general approach to Bergsonism, especially as it concerns the relation between philosophy and spirituality. With Jankelevitch's debt to Bergson established, chapter two and three identify an important difference between the two philosophers on the question of death, on which Jankelevitch appears much closer to Georg Simmel, whose writings offer Jankelevitch a starting point from which to reinvent the Bergsonist inheritance. Jankelevitch reads Simmel together with Pascal to construct an anthropology of "intermediacy," the subject of chapter four. A consideration of this creaturely condition, in all its physical, temporal, and epistemological manifestations, leads Jankelevitch to elaborate upon how a kind of philosophical seriousness about life, death, and religion remains possible within these intrinsic limits. This philosophical position or attitude is designated "serious agnosticism," which maintains the anonymity of God, but not the nonexistence of God. Chapters four and five consider this position and its consequences. Chapter six concerns the "infinite ambiguity of the beyond," that is, Jankelevitch's agnosticism about the soul's ultimate fate, which position conflicts with Bergson's rather sanguine optimism about immortality. The conclusion signals the relevance of the material discussed in this dissertation for an interpretation of Jankelevitch's moral philosophy. |
