Assessing the implications of modernity

Name: Professor Paul Franks

Position:Senator Jerahmiel S. and Carole S. Grafstein Chair in Jewish Philosophy, held since 2008

Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Centre for Jewish Studies

Education: PhD, Harvard University

Areas of Expertise: Metaphysics and epistemology, modern Jewish philosophy

Teaching

PHL2096    Analytic Philosophy: Kantian and Post-Kantian Themes in Analytic Philosophy

Publications

– “Ontology and Ethics: Questioning First Philosophy in Heidegger and Levinas,” in Fleischacker (ed.), Heidegger’s Jewish Followers (2008) 

– All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism (2005)

Major Awards & Honours

2008      Dean’s Merit Award, University of Toronto Mississauga (3rd time)

2005      American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship

Are we part of nature, or do souls make us something else?

If our current enthrallment to the natural sciences means that concepts like the soul can no longer be taken for granted, then what does it mean to be human? In the wake of Spinoza and Kant, modern thinkers have repeatedly gone back to such fundamental questions as they debate the ways in which individual identity can be reconciled with citizenship in a secular, democratic state.

Over the last few decades, the rise of multicultural societies, like Canada’s, has given philosophical perspectives on human nature a new resonance and urgency. Paul Franks, the Senator Jerahmiel S. and Carole S. Grafstein Chair in Jewish Philosophy, believes that the attempt to provide secular answers to what used to be religious questions lies at the heart of many dilemmas we face when dealing with the competing claims of modern identities — ethnic, religious and political — under the pressure of globalization, widespread immigration and the interpenetration of cultures.

“While Canadian students are typically aware of globalization, they often forget that, even in the West, secularization is a recent phenomenon,” says Franks. “There are groups, here and elsewhere, that resist this secularization, some intellectually, some with violence. If we are to take an informed approach to these conflicts and to the question of how to live, it is important to explore the historical development and philosophical implications of modernity.”

Franks views his role as integrating Jewish thought within philosophy’s broader curriculum. “It can’t be treated in isolation. It addresses universal philosophical issues, whether in metaphysics, ethics or political philosophy. Furthermore, Jewish philosophy has had a tremendous impact on Western philosophy, so it would be an impoverished understanding of the Western philosophical tradition that did not look at Jewish experience and tradition as well.”

The Senator Jerahmiel S. and Carole S. Grafstein Chair in Jewish Philosophy was endowed in 1998 by two of Canada’s leading philanthropists, Senator Grafstein and his wife Carole. A law graduate of U of T, Senator Grafstein was appointed to the Senate in 1984 and is counsel at the law firm Minden Gross Grafstein and Greenstein. “Jewish philosophy has been a building block of our enlightened Western society,” says Senator Grafstein. “It continues to resonate, if at times too quietly, around the globe. Its verities have much to offer in these times of confusion, change and uncertainty. Carole and I are hopeful that we have taken a small step to the better understanding of the relevance of Jewish philosophy right here in Toronto, in our time.”

Story by Brendan de Caires
Photo: John Hryniuk