Sprache:
Englisch
Erscheinungsjahr:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Quarterly Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
111,3 (2021) 470-495
Schlagwort(e):
Gordon, Aaron David,
;
Metmann, Leo
;
ha-Gimnasyah ha-ʻIvrit (Jerusalem) History
;
Nature study History 20th century
;
Education Philosophy
;
Zionism
;
Jewish philosophers 20th century
Kurzfassung:
Aaron David Gordon's life and writings have been gaining renewed interest in recent years. The prevailing position among scholars is that, in contrast to his articles, his philosophical magnum opus, Man and Nature, was not written in response to public polemics in the New Yishuv, but rather as a philosophical study, intentionally kept distant from the events of the hour. In contrast, this study demonstrates that Gordon wrote the first chapter of Man and Nature, which bears the book's title and delineates its conceptual framework, as a critical response to Life and Nature (1909) by Yehuda Leib Metmann (1869–1939), the founder of the Hebrew Gymnasium. In his Man and Nature, Gordon came out against Metmann's educational vision, which called for gaining control of nature in the Land of Israel by means of rigorous scientific investigation, in the spirit of the Baconian slogan "knowledge is power." Exploring Gordon's critique of Metmann's Life and Nature may shed new light not only on the circumstances that led to the writing of one of the major Jewish philosophical works of the twentieth century, but also on Gordon's compelling and acutely relevant call for the preservation and protection of nature regardless of human interests and needs.
DOI:
10.1353/jqr.2021.0022
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink
