The Philosopher’s Project

Abstract

As a philosopher tripped up by history, my aim is to find out what happened to ethics during and after the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s genocide against the Jewish people. That project also entails reflection on what ethics can and should be in our post-Holocaust world. In the history of philosophy, such concerns are recent and particular. Usually they are not at the center of contemporary philosophical reflection. Their particularity, however, does connect with the history of philosophy. By tracing those connections, one can see why the project undertaken in Ethics During and After the Holocaust should concern not only philosophers but also every critically thinking person who lives after Auschwitz.

Since some philosophers lived in a different age—and perhaps in a completely different culture from ours—it is a good idea to try and see what each philosopher’s project is. By this I mean that we must try to grasp precisely what it is that each particular philosopher is especially concerned with finding out.

Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World¹