Henry M. Rosenthal (1906 - 1977) schreef over de Ethica “an original and emancipated religio-philosophic meditation” - #spinoza

Waar het tegenkomen van een cover toe kan leiden… Dit (en een volgend blog) wordt weer zo’n voorbeeld van hoe ’t met de cover begon van een boek over Spinoza van iemand van wie geen Wikipedia- of andere pagina bestaat en over wie ik dan een en ander aan gegevens bij elkaar sprokkel. Oké er bestaat een overlijdensbericht in de New York Times van de auteur van wie postuum verscheen:

Henry M. Rosenthal, The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes's Secret, Spinoza's Way. Edited and with an introduction by Abigail L. Rosenthal. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, May 1, 1989 - IX, 211 pp. [cover van Amazon]

De Duitse Spinoza Bibliografie vermeldt het, maar – ik heb er enige boeken uit de secundaire literatuur op nagekeken – nergens worden hij of de titel van zijn boek vermeld.

In de NYT van 5 juli 1977 is te lezen:

Henry M. Rosenthal, professor emeritus of the philosophy department at Hunter College, died July 29 at the Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth. Professor Rosenthal, who lived at 65 East 96th Street. was 71 years old.

He joined the faculty of Hunter College in 1948 and remained until his retirement in 1973. He was born in Louisville, Ky., and graduated from Columbia University in 1925 and from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1929. He received his doctorate at Columbia in 1940.

From 1930 to 1942 he was religious director of the 92d Street Young Men's Hebrew Association and from 1939 to 1942 he was director of the Adult School of Jewish Studies at that institution. From 1942 to 1945 he was director of the Hillel Foundation at Hunter College.

Professor Rosenthal was a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1962 and an extension lecturer in social philosophy at Cooper Union from 1945 to 1947.

He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 194748, a member of the American Philosophical Association and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was the author of “On the Function of Religion in Culture” co‐author of “Foundations of Western Thought,” and a contributor to the “Library of Living Philosphers” with an essay entitled “The Philosophy of George Santayana.”

He is survived by his wife, the former Rachel Chernowitz; two daughters, Lucy Rosenthal, a judge of the Book‐of‐the. Month Club, and Dr. Abigail Rosenthal; a sister, Marion Jaffe, and a brother, Dr. Oscar Rosenthal.

Bij het artikel van zijn hand, “The Essentials of Jewish Knowledge for the American Jew” [Cf. tandfonline], staat vermeld: “Henry M. Rosenthal. Director of Bnai Brith Hillel Foundation at the Sara Delano Roosevelt Interfaith House of Hunter College, and Member Board of Governors of National Academy for Adult Jewish Studies.”

“In the spring of '73, at his retirement, he began a philosophic work which was essentially finished in late spring of '77, just before the summer of his death.” Dit schreven Joan Stambaugh en James L. Muyskens namens het Department of Philosophy of Hunter College in de Memorial Minutes "Henry M. Rosenthal 1906-1977" [in: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 51, No.5 (May, 1978), pp. 583-584]

De eerste alinea van het ruim drie pagina’s lange Review van Emily Grosholz van dit boek in: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1990), pp. 283-286 [cf. Jstor] levert weer interessante aanvullende informatie (gegevens die hij waarschijnlijk ontleende aan de inleiding van de dochter):

“The story behind this book is interesting and the substance of the book, reflections on the philosophical commitments underlying Hobbes' Leviathan and Spinoza's Ethics, no less so. Henry M. Rosenthal, son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who settled in Louisville, Kentucky, was a member of the Columbia class of 1925 that included inter alia Lionel Trilling, his best friend, Clifton Fadiman, and Meyer Shapiro. Despite the expectation of his peers, Rosenthal did not choose to make a big name for himself among the New York intelligentsia. He spent most of his professional life teaching philosophy at Hunter College, where he did no fashionable publishing and "never made a useful friend." After he retired, he started work on the manuscript of this book in characteristically uncompromising fashion: it consists of two long meditations, without chapters or sections, whose argument has the uncanny ability to turn into aphorism without losing its discursive force. The book was finally published posthumously through the good offices of his daughter Abigail Rosenthal, herself a professional philosopher, whose tenacious conviction of its value proves to be wholly justified.”

In een volgend blog neem ik het gedeelte over Spinoza uit dit review over.

Zijn dochter, doctor in de filosofie Abigail L. Rosenthal, verzorgde, zoals we net lazen, de uitgave van het genoemde boek. Dat verscheen twaalf jaar na de dood van haar vader. In de eerder vermelde “Memorial Minutes” in de Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association schreef zij in 1977 [ik ontleende de titel van dit blog eraan]:

“My father was a teacher of philosophy, and he knew a great deal. Beyond the matters that he knew, there was also the impression he projected, of the integration of those matters known in an original, self-achieved personality, an integration so deep that it seemed effortless, so incessant that it seemed to have been there as a given from the beginning. He did not stand at a helpless distance from what he knew. He was what he knew: an object lesson in how to be an individual.

His final work, which can be described as the setting-down of that object lesson, will eventually be published as a book in two parts: there is a first essay on the individual in public life, with special reference to Hobbes' Leviathan and there is a companion essay, referring to Spinoza's Ethics, on those aspects of private life that may be said to "survive" death and be eternal. The whole work is an original and emacipated religio-philosophic meditation.

Dat schreef ze al in het jaar van zijn overlijden. Abigail L. Rosenthal bracht haar prachtig geschreven inleiding op het boek van haar vader op haar pagina bij academia.edu. Daarin was ook een foto van haar vader opgenomen, die nu via dit blog voor het eerst op internet te zien zal zijn (ik zocht tevergeefs naar zo’n afbeelding voor ik hem hier vond; zijn portret heb ik als een uitsnede hieruit gehaald).

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cf. ook de volgende blogs:

5 juli 2018: Henry M. Rosenthal’s verduidelijking van Spinoza’s scientia intuitiva a.d.h.v. El Greco's View of Toledo

7 juli 2018: Henry M. Rosenthal (1906 - 1977) wat hij schreef over de Ethica “did not fit the recognized niches.”