On the Rational Basis of Revelation in Rosenzweig's _Star of Redemption_

The present study focuses on ‘revelation,’ one of the three constitutive concepts, and possibly the most central such concept, in Rosenzweig’s philosophy. As opposed to its ostensibly religious meaning, the article offers a view of the rational element enfolded within this concept in Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption. By employing a textual exegesis based on a close reading of Rosenzweig’s language, the article seeks to show that Rosenzweig’s conception of revelation does not refer to an intuitive, Kabbalistic-mystical or esoteric concept. As a central pillar of Rosenzweig’s star-shaped method, revelation is the mediator between God’s love of people to a person’s love of others – which, in turn, is the basis for global redemption. The exposure of the rational-intellectual aspect of revelation thus advances the desired objective of Rosenzweig’s method, and accords with Rosenzweig’s own words when he suggested that neither does it make the claim to be a philosophy of religion – how could it do that when the word ‘religion’ does not occur in it at all! Rather, it is merely a system of philosophy. The study seeks to explore the dialectical thicket of descriptions and arguments in The Star of Redemption in order to expose the logical kernel of Rosenzweig’s philosophical method. Indeed, a close reading which isolates the mechanical concepts of Rosenzweig’s thought reveals The Star of Redemption’s philosophical motivation when Rosenzweig denudes the text from the complex of religious concepts that are the proverbial flesh that surrounds the proverbial bones of the system Rosenzweig attacks. Insofar as The Star of Redemption is concerned, we are not dealing with systematicism in the sense of a rigid consistency of rationality as a concept, but rather with a methodical outline where Rosenzweig describes religion’s sociological ‘skeleton’ and weaves his method around it using such concepts as “orientation” = “revelation” = “sharing” = “redemption.” Furthermore, the affinity between God and human passes through the affinity between one human and another. It therefore follows that the ‘warm welcome’ of revelation, is not a mystical experience, but rather a person’s conscious, rational, and reflexive orientation in her or his human environment.


The Association between Faith and Reason
This issue represents one of Rosenzweig's central teachings in The Star of Redemption.
What we are concerned with her is his suggestion for the definition of a personality that accords with the teachings of his absolute empiricism. 1 The basic teaching of merging through Cohen's notion of "pouring." Indeed, Cohen explains the logical unfolding of his method in the book's introduction. He begins by explaining the concept of reason, which acts as the first source of a religion, proceeds to a discussion of the concept of religion, and concludes his discussion with the sources of Judaism. 2 (1995 [1919]), Translated by Simon Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-34. 3 The three domains of Cohen's method and their association with their respective sources accord with three of Cohen's essays: The Logic of Pure Knowledge (1902), The Ethics of Pure Will (1904), and The Aesthetics of Pure Feeling (1912). While an interpretation of the relation between the late book and those which preceded it is quite problematiceven for a reader capable of encompassing the large amount of material required to this endit is possible, without entering into too much detail, to determine that Cohen's early writings are concerned with the same matters he discusses in the aforementioned late book. 4 In his review of the reasons for the contradicting opinions pertaining to the interpretation of Rosenzweig's method, Fisher (2016) believes that the idea of "common sense" encapsulates Rosenzweig's philosophical method and can be used for explaining Rosenzweig's work in The Star of

On the Position of the Subject in Rosenzweig's Method
The concept of a 'new philosopher' was born at the time Rosenzweig discovered Schelling's "systemic method" 5 which later crystallized in accordance with the revelation system's internal logic. In revelation, a person discovers her or himself in relation to things outside her or himself -God and the world. In other words, the fact of a person's existence as an individualmethodically speaking -comes before any discussion of content. This is clearly manifested in the great importance Rosenzweig accords to a person's proper name as a symbol of the subject's most intimate meaning.
This, in turn, can be learned from Rosenzweig's citation of the dialogue between Moses and God. Indeed, it is in the midst of the most intimate instance of revelation between God and humanity in the scriptures that Moses tells God "…Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight…" (Exodus 33:12 [KJV]), and God replies "…for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name" (Exodus 33:18 [KJV]). It should be stressed that knowledge is the bible's strongest expression indicating intimacy. Unlike Western languages, the Hebrew verb 'yada' does not belong to the domain of sight, but to the domain of touch. 6 The closeness between God and human beings is the closeness of subjects whose subjective uniqueness lies in their names. A person's proper name represents the deepest meaning

Revelation: A Subject's Heritage
Rosenzweig's chapter on revelation leads the discussion from a preliminary stage where God loves and a person is loved, to the next stagethat of a loving person. It is at this stage that an individual's position is actual established as an I, a loved one, and a lover, that is to say, her or his position in the relations between her or himself and that which she or he is not, and this by way of dialogue (Star of Redemption, 188-189).
Rosenzweig stresses discoursethe universe was created in words, viz. "And God said, `Let there be light`" (and heaven, etc.) (Genesis 1 [KJV]). Revelation is also realized in the conversation between subject and subject, such as between God and humanity: "Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9 [KJV]) and "I am" (Exodus 20:2 [KJV])the opening statement of the Ten Commandments (see Star of Redemption,152). It should be noted that the discourse of creation and the discourse of revelation to an individual (which enfolds the discourse of revelation to many), as well as the Ten Commandments are all phrased as addressing the individual which Rosenzweig is always careful about positioning at the center of the discussion, which is possibly why he preferred the literary-biblical narrative for conceptualizing his ideas in The Star of Redemption. Rosenzweig rules out any possibility of a discourse between objects or between subject and object, and argues that discourse can only take place between subjects. Therefore, and unlike the meta-ethical person who lacks the power of speech, the person as a loving subject is engaged in a dialogue with otherswith god and the worldas subjects. Such a discourse is referred to a discourse from real word to real word (ibid., 188). According to Rosenzweig, there is nothing real between objects. The object is a frozen thing that does not create relations and which is not capable of being related toany speech that does not exist between subjects is no speech at all. And in this respect he notes: And so let us not continue, like with Creation, to proceed from linguistic category to linguistic category, but in accordance with the entirely real linguistic expression of language where, because for us it is the central part of this whole work, we are going to stay, we shall proceed from real word to real word.
Only reflectivelyit is only through reflection that we shall be ableand that we shall, of course, be compelledto recognize also in the real word the representative of its linguistic category. But as such, we do not discover a representative of a category: we discover it directly as word and answer. (ibid., 188). This statement seeks to fix the irreversible position of the subject in Rosenzweig's methodthe subject that the critique of idealism and the theory of the non-reductive individual has extracted from the pantheist totality. A reflection on discourse allows and is even compelled to noticing the position and value of the singular individual as a preface to a significant discourse between subjects who are named, defined and unexchangeable or unblurrable within the types, nations and other totalities (ibid. 188-190). Apparently, what we are concerned with here is a kind of radical subjectivism as a prerequisite for revelation -to the subject's orientation in space, in time, and in relations with those around her or him.
Schematically speaking, this identification is based in the equivalence of three factors: revelation, orientation, and reflection.

Rosenzweig's Concept of "Revelation"
In the section entitled Reason's Grounds Rosenzweig states that the loving god's response to a person …does not have the I for its subject; as such, it is more than the mere word of one's own heart, and even if in the narrowest, most intimate circle it sets a relation into the world of things. (ibid., 197) He later proceeds to state that …For, although it now remains entirely in the present, Revelation remembers its past and recognizes its past as a part of a past world [reflection]; but along with this, it also gives to its present actuality the status of a reality in the world. (ibid., 198). In other words, Rosenzweig is stating that realization becomes an existential certainty which crystallizes into evident knowledge even as its reality is recognized.
Put differently, that means that present evidence receives reflexive reinforcement of its reality from the past. In the words of the text, in its absorption in the present it saw nothing outside of itself. Now it can open its eyes with full serenity and look around itself in the world of things… (ibid., 198). What we concerned with here is with revelation as an act of breaking through humans' circle of closed-mindedness, imperviousness, and metaethical disconnectedness and toward openness-love.
Revelation must open its eyes to see the worldto becomes familiar with the world of thingsthe present orientation from which it becomes familiar with its pastan inquisitive and critical reflection as an a posteriori basis for options and certainty. 7 The orientational fixing of the individual and her or his position in Rosenzweig's method as described above lays the foundation for the relations that form the core of Rosenzweig's radical empiricismthe real dialogue. Thus, it is its own genus unto itself. It no longer has its place in the world, or its moment in the becoming; rather, 7 It should be noted that Jacobi is the spiritual father of this idea despite the fact that Rosenzweig does not mention this. Jacobi makes a distinction between reason and intellect. Jacobi states that -unlike traditional philosophy, which sought to employ discursive intellect to attain anything which could be attained by reason -reason is the capacity for direct perception and intellect is the capacity for reflection. This distinction leads to a conclusion that reflection is more perfect and that it is reflection that distinguishes between humans and other animals. it carries with it its here and its now; the place where it is a center, and the moment where it opens its mouth is a beginning… (ibid., 201). From this point forward, Rosenzweig leads this progression to the next stageemphasizing the experiencer's essential need to know. An experience that does not know is nothing but a delusion or a dream. This, first and foremost, raises the need for a clearly defined point of self amounting to a certainty which determines the individual's non-reductive world. In this respect Rosenzweig states that the I with its proper name is in itself at once center and beginning, in accordance with its creation simultaneously as man and as "Adam": it now brings these concepts of center and beginning into the world; for the I demands, as center of its lived experience, a center, and as beginning of its lived reality, a beginning. It aspires after an orientation… (ibid., 201). While this statement is clear, Rosenzweig is not satisfied, and he proceeds to explain the nature of this orientation as follows: … Because it is in the world, this foundation must be spatial and temporal, just so that it can give a foundation to the absolute certitude of its lived reality of having its own space and time…. (ibid., 202). This orientation does not take place in a dream, in a play, or in the imagination, butas a baseline for certaintyrevolves around the self in its relations as receiver and giver, and must possess a spatial and temporal character. 8 The …[orientational] foundation must bring to the lived reality [must reveal itself as love and knowledge] in the world a center and a beginning in one, the center in space, the beginning in time…. There must be a where, a place still visible in the world, from where Revelation radiates, and a when, a moment where it opens its mouth, a continuously re-echoing moment…. (ibid., 202). These words thus emphasize the mutual dependence existing between the two components of the concept of revelation. These two join each other, but we are not concerned with their synthesis. Parenthetically, I will also note that the rule of joining applies to all of the components included in Rosenzweig's method and accompanies all the stages in its discussion: affirmative and negative, liberty and necessity, near and far, etc. All of these become relevant to each other through the linguistic symbol of mechanical revelation: the "and" which fundamentally leaves the full extent of its self-identity in each of these components. Rosenzweig defines revelation as the orientational act by which a person discovers god and her or himself in relation to god in experience and in relation to the world in space and time. In this respect, it is worth noting that we are not concerned with selfawareness as a precondition for knowledge, as is the case with Descartes. This also follows from a later part of Rosenzweig's letter to Gertrud Oppenheim, where he explains the intellectual and practical meaning of revelation in the sense of selforientation as a clearly defined pointas a non-reductive center which has its own methodological standingthat is not embedded in the totality. In his opinion, the lack of such a clearly defined point expresses loss.
The justification for identifying revelation with reflection necessarily follows from this identification's cumulative logic, and this may be schematically represented as follows: 1) revelation is orientation: revelation = orientation; 2) orientation = above and below, early and late, that is to say true knowledge of the ( on the aforementioned things, on Rosenzweig's description of orientation, and on his explanations identifying it with reflection on a practical level.
An analysis of Rosenzweig's reasoning for Rosenstock's definition reflects a combined definitional and interpretive explanation that forms a logical connection between its constitutive parts.
It is based on the applied nature of orientation as it is understood from Rosenzweig's explanation that we can determine the presence of reflection as a knowable part of the experience of revelation that reveals the self in relation to space and time. Without reflection, after all, no person can find her or himself as a defined central point. The conclusion that follows from the identification states the existence of a knowable dimension of revelation, or -in Rosenzweig's words: …Only reflectively-it is only through reflection that we shall be able-and that we shall, of course, be compelled to recognize also in the real word…. (Star of Redemption, 188). We are concerned with actual knowledge. In Rosenzweig's opinion, the real word is the creation of the world in speaking of everything that arose, arises, and will arise from it in the universe, includingprimarily and among other thingsthe dialogue of creation, revelation, redemption and choral singing as the complete redemption. Rosenzweig is concerned with the fact that the knowledge of all these is acquired as a result of reflexive reflection.
Here we should note that we are not concerned with theological creation, but with creation as a relation between two complements (person and world) who have been broken away from the totality. Rosenzweig's use of speech -'the creation of the world in speech' may misdirect us. This statement does not seek to express religious motivation, but rather to stress the momentum of relations between subjects that primarily take place in the linguistic-spoken dimension.
The above cannot but lead me to conclude that the concept of revelation -as a mainstay of Rosenzweig's system -manifests the inter-domain principle as follows: 1) domain of knowledge = philosophy = time and space = shape of the method; 2) domain of faith = the constant experience = the love = the method's contents.
The centrality of this principle in the Star's methodical fabric arises from its conjunctive capacity. The joining of the two above domains situates it as a modal nucleus that validates the 'and'. All the contrasting concepts that express the Star's contents, such as liberty and necessity, affirmative and negative, will and rebellion, commandment

Neighbor) as a Subject is the World Around Me
In describing a person's orientation in the world, Rosenzweig is not referring to a world of wood and stone in which a person can orient her or himself in the geographical sense.
What he means is relations between people. A person must orient her or himself among subjects rather than objects. When Rosenzweig speaks of the world, he means humanity.
A person's orientation in a human environment she or he is in contact with, whether distant or close, whether expected or coincidental or unexpected. The world = people.
By relating to people, a person realizes god's love of him, which is revelation.

On Intersubjective Revelation as Redemption: A Few Words on the Star of Redemption's Moral Core
Most Rosenzweig scholars agree that his outlook as expressed in The Star of Redemption is humanist in character. 13 We are concerned with a kind of humanist thought where the love of people comes as a response to god (or divine benevolence)'s love of people. As a whole, it may be assumed that humanism constitutes an ethical- In other words, Rosenzweig argues that the source of every moral value is present in the connection between the knowledge of self as experiencing in space and time and the experience of love. The aforementioned affiliation is a kind of model of the ability to give rise to relations which are directed outwards from the closed and defined self (such as dialogue, neighborly love, the conjunction 'and' etc.). According to Rosenzweig, love is not a blind emotional mechanism, but an activity that is accompanied by awarenessby knowledge of the self and the state of affairs outside the self, for which the self is capable of accounting for and even compelled to account for. We are not concerned with an act of first innocence which, according to In interpreting Simon's article "The Second Innocence," Luz argues that Simon follows West in viewing faith as based on the effect of awe, and philosophy as based on the effect of wonder that gives rise to scholarly discernment, with both being derived from the same root. In this respect, Luz determines three stages: 1) childhood, which is characterized as innocent faith; 2) education, which destroys innocence in its skepticism and in its critical approach; 3) the reunification of faith and knowledge. Luz notes that the path to this reunification is found by Simon (and by Bergman too) in the teachings of Cusanus, Hermann Cohen and Franz Rosenzweig (p. 620). Simon states that the second innocence is stronger than the first since it recognizes reality with all its faults. In his article "The Second Innocence," Simon argues that "we are not permitted to rid ourselves of the duty of reflection, and the issue of second innocence at hand is also subordinated to it to the full extent of its perception and applicability. . Given the aforementioned interpretations, I believe Rosenzweig was not entitled to rid himself of reflection either. Despite aspiring toward innocencea second innocence which certainly awards reflection a central place as an equal partner to faith. In other words, the second innocenceunlike the first, which lacked reflection, manifests reflection within itself. Rosenzweig, who was aware of these insights, proceeded to included them in the fundamental concept of his methodrevelation.

The Two Dimensions: A Philosophical Foundation for a Theory of Ethics
Many philosophical systems of thought have attempted to resolve the problem of the subject-object gap insofar as ethics are concerned. Such attempts as theories of identification, pantheism, delegation, dialectics, etc.as discussed in the introduction to the present articlewere all ruled out by Rosenzweig.
The manifestation of a fundamental moral principle in the context of revelation can be reconciled with the fact that humans alone among the totality of creation are gifted with the capacity for reflection in general, and normative and value-laden reflection in particular. It is only a human being that can observe reflectively and examine ethical significances in an analogous fashion. According to Rosenzweig, a philosopher or scientist's rational capacity to recognize the chain of causes and corollaries that constitute the object she or he is aiming for does not make either of them a moral person.
A moral personas the object and subject of revelationcan and even must observe her or himself as a primary causeliberty, centerthe medium and point of origin for her or his relations with the world. As such, she or he would be able to see others as she or he sees her or himselfas a subject, and to realize the commandment of …For man must love his neighbor as himself…. he is like you. "Like you," hence not "you." You remain You and you will remain You. But he will not remain a He for you and hence only a This for your You… no, he is like you, like your You, a You like you, an I-a soul…. (The Star of Redemption, p. 257). Only a world of subjects is a redeemed world. 16 However, seeing her or his neighbor as her or himself is not a general statement, nor is it a mere analogical statement. Insofar as The Star of Redemption is concerned, there is an unambiguous demand to transform him from an objecta Thisto a subjecta You. And in order to sharpen this emphasis on the other as subject, I will stress that, unlike Kant, whose practical rule considers others as an end in itself, Rosenzweig perceives others as a subject like myself rather than an end. This is the intention of the stressing-repetition of the word you; this is the uncompromising ethical yardstickthe moral directive that stands at the core of the discussion and constitutes its final objectivethe redemption of humankind. Indeed, the system could not fulfill its stated goal without this requirement. Put differently, revelation, and certainly not redemptionneighborly lovedo not have any meaning without subject-to-subject relations. What we shall see in what follows is how this transformation is also manifested in the concept of revelation.

On Controlled Ecstasy
Before I proceed, I will note that when we are concerned with Rosenzweig's concept of revelation, we are not concerned with ecstasy as a psychological state of selftransference from everyday reality to another contextual apparatus, nor are we concerned with an internal transformation of our awareness, senses, imagination and memory. Rosenzweig was intimately familiar with Max Weber's sociological approach 16 Levi argues that Rosenzweig was influenced by the atheist Feuerbach and that revelation and redemption should not be considered as activities in the religious domain, but rather manifestly humanist in nature. to religion, as well as with William James' teachings, which classify all religious experiences according to psychological strata. James associated the sense of joy that accompanies religious ecstasy with a psychological-religious process arising from a crisis caused by a change of heart. 17 I will now present James' description of St. In a manner akin to the definition suggesting that revelation is orientation, this is another case where Rosenzweig -employing a definitional utterance and a present-tense 24 While writing The Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig was familiar with Schelling's later teachings and considered the latter's concept of ecstasy as an important fundament of the liberty principle. Schelling explicitly establishes the concept of 'ecstasy' as an 'I' that is established outside itself, that is, outside its place (Sämmtliche Werke, Part I, Volume X, p. 229), by which he means the transformation of the self into a more real entity through reflexive though. What joins both thinkers is that their conception of ecstasy transforms the thinking self that is unaware of itself as a thinker, to the object of knowledge. A certain proximity to the later Schelling's idea of ecstasy is present in Rosenzweig due to both thinkers' moral context; in this respect, Schelling's teachings manifest ecstasy as the cancellation of the subject's selfishness which morally signifies a shift from evil to good (Sämmtliche Werke, Part II, Volume XIII, p. 202). Other than this, I cannot find any parallels between Schelling's concept of ecstasy and the action of ecstasy in our present discussion. After all, Schelling ascribes the rational subject's capacity for ecstasy to the absolute subjectdivine reason and liberty (ibid., Part II, Volume XIII,p. 202 . In other words, thought is capable of negating itselfnegating its non-knowledge (negating negation). Schwartz considers such negation as Rosenzweig's manifestation of the freedom of the elements: god, world, and humaneach in its own wayand suggests this position as influenced by Schelling. Rosenzweig builds his method from within itselffrom actual real experience, and not by virtue of ex-systematic rational speculations. In other words, Rosenzweig sought to attain a system whose cohesion relies on an empirical grounding and which does not rely on anything other than its own internal arguments.

Teresa's Ecstasy
outlook -identifies revelation with the anticipation of that which shall eventuateredemption. If redemption, as something that shall eventuate, constitutes -as does the past -part of the necessary content of the revelation in the present, then it becomes possible to establish the following equation: if creation = revelation, and redemption = revelation, then reflection = revelation and pre-flection (anticipation) = revelation.
I shall now address the corroboration of the aforementioned identification through an analysis of the god -human dialog as revelation, and the human -neighbor (world) as redemption.
We are concerned with what is discussed under the heading the Form of Dialog (ibid., 188). Rosenzweig establishes god's subjective position in his method by employing the double negation instrument in the service of grammatically parsing the sentence so and not otherwise; the passage begins by presenting the individual as a defined subject whose lobar presence is equivalent to the totality. According to Rosenzweig, when you mark something as 'so and not otherwise' you simply delimit it against the 'whole'.
He then explains this as unlike the whole, that is, it was already established as a nonreductive subject at 'so,' while the added 'and not otherwise' specifically means that despite being 'otherwise' it is not an other in relation to the whole, meaning that it can be ascribed to the whole... only 'thinking,' which is identical to 'being' the totality and every individual-thing within it, but nonetheless opposed to it -is the self ((ibid.,188-189.). 25 Despite it being a negation of god's concealment as a reason for creation and a negation of humans' rebellion as a reason for their creation, what Rosenzweig presents here is -in principle -a model of equivalent derivation with respect to the issue of humans' ecstatic standing. If a thing can be a subject at 'so' and an object at 'not otherwise', then humans -even as reflective beings as discussed above -can -as subjects responding to the question of 'where art thou' in revelation -observe it temporarily, if only for the purpose of answering this orientational question about the self as an object of reflection.
On the other hand, the anticipation of revelation as pre-flection transforms the This from an object to a subjectmakes the distant closer in Rosenzweig's terms; not physically, but cognitively closer. Rosenzweig concludes this discussion by stating that it is only through reflection that we recognize the real world as speech and its response. These two (speech and its response) are found first and foremost within the individual, who learned the meaning of each of the concepts from itselffrom recognizing itself simultaneously as both subject and object; as a moral person aware of meanings, the individual will prefer others as itselfas a subject and not an object (others). It is only when the individual moves from discoursing with her or himself to the true dialog that she or he becomes that same self that we have just now established as the primordial no which had disassembled and become everything.
There is a world of objects, there is also an enclosed selfhood; and yet where art thou? Indeed, where art though? This is also a question posed by god (160-161). And insofar as Rosenzweig's method is concerned, these words apply to any subject, whether divine or human. It all depends on correcting the human viewpoint. An enclosed selfhood exists alongside a world of objects; however, once a response to the question of where art thou has been provided, then the partition is removed, selfenclosedness is gone, and a world of relationsand meaningsis opened. It is around the question of where art thou that Rosenzweig embroiders his methodological fabric.
The question itself reflects the revelation of the asker as an experience on the one hand and indicates the orientation requirement (the need to define the self in relation to…) of the respondent on the other hand. This, in turn, is the sum total of the possibility of establishing a principled basis for a theory of ethics.
This question, whose validity relies the empirical basis of Rosenzweig's method, derives an equivalent derivation in two domains: 1) revelation = reflection; 2) revelation = pre-flection. By virtue of being empirical, both arise from the entity associated with the revelationa human, that is to say, from the human ability to be both subject and object at the same time and infer a self-delimitation of itself in relation to a delimitation of others. After establishing revelation as a focus of his method, Rosenzweig derives an equivalent derivation from the relation between revelation and creation and the relation between revelation and redemption. As noted above, the manifestation of this derivation relies on a human's natural cognitive capacity for reflection and anticipation.
A shift in the focus of the discussion from the ontological problem to the question of ethics is manifested in the reflection test, where a person establishes her or himself as the point of origin for her or his relations with god and other humans. On the ethical level, this test is meant for establishing a person's place in relation to others as nonreductive subjects. In other words, it is concerned with intersubjective relations as a necessary precondition for a theory of ethics. Put differently, this means that the ecstatic capacity for self-orientation that arises by virtue of the gaze existing outside the self, which, in turn, means observing the self as object from another's place. This, in turn, is the selfsame capacity to observe what is outside the self as a subject from within the self as a subject. The alternating capacity of the self's subject-object awareness, can be used for deriving an equivalent derivation pertaining to the object's capacity to convert Thisan object, into a subject -You. This, in turn, establishes ecstasy as a methodological tool which manifests relations at the ethical level of thy neighbor rather than the neighbor as object.
The fact that Rosenzweig establishes the aforementioned inter-domain principle at the center of his method and utterly identifies with it illuminates his ethical outlook as the latter has been presented in the present article. According to Rosenzweig, it is impossible to establish ethically-meaningful human relations between objects, as well as between subject and object, sinceafter allobjects belong to the ontological domain, while relations, which are not 'is's but meanings, belong in the ethical domain.
It therefore follows that the love of god and the love of a neighbor can only be established between subjects.
The Star of Redemption appears to indicate the connection between the inter-domain affiliation principles and the ecstatic capacity to consciously receive revelation as a methodical point of origin for suitable behavior. Conscious ecstasy is thus nothing more than a concrete (experiential) reflection manifested in the dimension of understanding and orientation even as it is also a methodical infrastructure for loving the neighbor within the framework of the experiential (religious) dimension. As noted above, both dimensions form the concrete foundation for the ethical principles of Rosenzweig's method and constitute central components of the humanist meaning of his teachings.
All in all, it may be stated that Rosenzweig establishes the methodological basis of the ethical meaning of intersubjective relations in relation to humankind's natural reflexive capabilitiestheir ability to thoughtfully observe the self, the world, and the relation between them. It is from this point forward that a person can follow the path toward transforming the neighbor from an objecta This, to a Youa subject. All of these, in turn, arise from the principle of inter-domain affiliation discussed in the present article.
In other words, they are inherent to Rosenzweig's method in terms of their twodimensionality of faith-reason rather than being external one-dimensional rational or faith-related auxiliaries. Moreover, Rosenzweig extracts the maximum degree of utility from this methodical datumwhich relies on human cognitive capacities -in order to support his method's radical empirical tendencies.
In addition, exposing the methodological tools humans use to recognize and define themselves imbues them with the capacity of recognizing others as themselvesa recognition which is meaningful at both the personal and social levels. Intellectually speaking, these tools are combined with what takes place in the experientialspontaneous-innocent aspect of the experience of revelation and jointly shape the content of the discussions in The Star of Redemption. The events and their meaning, even if they may not always be explained rationally and crystallized into a philosophical method, may still be realized methodologically as ethical objectives: the love of a neighbor and human redemption. According to The Star of Redemption, others should not be recognized as subjects by rational means alone, nor by faith alone, but only within the framework of applying the principle of inter-domain affiliation which itself accords with the cognitive structure of the entity which possesses a second innocence humans who have eaten from the tree of knowledge.
In closing, I shall note that what we have done in the present article is to address the basic two-dimensional structure of revelation and its meaning as a key concept in Rosenzweig's method, and from this and within this to address The Star of Redemption's rational-reflexive mode of thought as a philosophical method and system.