Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Historical and Methodological Introduction -- The Crisis of Humanism in German Philosophy -- Defense of Humanism through a Return to the Sources of Judaism in Germany -- The Philosophical Campaign for Realizing Humanism as a Universal Jewish Mission: the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen -- The Doctrine of Jewish Nationalism Based on Positivism: the Teaching of Aḥad Ha-Am -- The Debate in Eastern Europe on Judaism as a Secular Culture -- Jewish Socialism and Marxism in Eastern Europe -- Back Matter -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index.

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The culmination of Eliezer Schweid’s life-work as a Jewish intellectual historian, this five-volume work provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the major thinkers and movements in modern Jewish thought, in the context of general philosophy and Jewish social-political historical developments, with extensive primary source excerpts. Volume Three, “The Crisis of Humanism,” commences with an important essay on the challenge to the humanist tradition posed in the late 19th century by historical materialism, existentialism and positivism. This is background for the constructive philosophies which sought at the same time to address the general crisis of moral value and provide a positive basis for Jewish existence. Among the thinkers presented in this volume are Moses Hess, Moritz Lazarus, Hermann Cohen (in impressive depth, with a thorough exposition of the Ethics and Religion of Reason ), Ahad Ha-Am, I. J. Reines, Simon Dubnow, M. Y. Berdiczewski, the theorists of the Bund, Chaim Zhitlovsky, Nachman Syrkin, and Ber Borochov.