Schechter, Oded
Junior Fellow: October 2017–September 2018
Research Project: Scepticism and Hermeneutics—Spinoza’s New Hermeneutics
Part of a larger research project, this project plays a fundamental role in explicating the significance of literal sense reading in modern hermeneutics; the larger project examines different aspects of literal sense reading, among them metaphysical commitments, its ethical and political implications, and the new role hermeneutics plays in modernity, secularism, and the Bible.
Spinoza’s new method is tightly connected to Cartesian doubt. Within that context, the role of scepticism in Spinoza’s new method of reading is of crucial importance for the examination of modern hermeneutics in general as much as for the understanding of Spinoza’s political philosophy.
The examination of this issue is divided into three parts:
The first part of this project is focused on the importance of Cartesian doubt to Spinoza’s new hermeneutics. The second part is focused on the apparent difference between Spinoza’s TTP and his Ethics concerning the Cartesian epoché. The third part is focused on the appropriation of the distinction between spirit and letter into Spinoza’s new method.
Before coming to Hamburg, Oded Schechter was affiliated with different universities, among these are the University of Chicago, Universität Potsdam, Princeton University, and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.