Idealistic Studies

ONLINE FIRST

published on May 29, 2015

Dana Hollander

Understanding Law (“Gesetz” and “Recht”) in Hermann Cohen, with Help from the Early Strauss

I present the early, incisive reading of Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) offered by Leo Strauss in parts of the book Philosophy and Law (1935) and in the closely related lecture “Cohen and Maimonides” (1931), and show that that reading can help frame and sharpen our analysis of Cohen’s approach to law in both his ethics and his philosophy of Judaism.