Public evening lecture by Professor em. Dr. Christoph Schulte (Potsdam)
In the modern philosophy of history, from Voltaire to Hegel and Marx, the course of world history is seen as progress. Jewish intellectuals were sceptical of this optimism about progress from the very beginning: from Mendelssohn to Rosenzweig, philosophers and rabbis criticized the historical-philosophical assumption that Christianity had historically 'overcome' and replaced Judaism. In the material battles of the First World War, in the industrialized mass murder of the Shoah, but also in the atomic bomb, the destructive side of technological progress manifested itself at the expense of humanity. Its criticism can be found in W. Benjamin, Horkheimer/Adorno, G. Anders and H. Arendt. What they all have in common is the experience that no progress has ever eliminated anti-Semitism.
Christoph Schulte was Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam from 2001 to 2024. He studied philosophy, Jewish studies, theology and journalism in Heidelberg, Berlin and Jerusalem. He received his doctorate in Berlin in 1987 and his habilitation in Potsdam in 1996. He was awarded the Gleim Literature Prize in 2003 and the Inclusion Prize of the University of Potsdam in 2021. He has been a Fellow/Guest Professor in Jerusalem, Montreal, Paris, Chicago, Aix-en-Provence, Philadelphia, Zurich, Basel, Haifa, Hamburg and a Research Fellow at the Bucerius Institute at the University of Haifa. He has published numerous books, including The Jewish Enlightenment (2002), Zimzum (2014, English 2023), From Moses to Moses (2020).
Moderation: Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Heinrich Assel
