Lenn E. Goodman
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Lenn E. Goodman or Lenn Evan Goodman (born 1944) is a Jewish-American philosopher. He draws from classical and medieval sources as well as religious texts in his philosophical views, particularly his constructive work.[1] Goodman is also an academic, scholar, and a historian with research interest in metaphysics, ethics, and Jewish philosophy.
Biography
Goodman was born in Detroit, Michigan. His family, however, moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and later to Putney, Vermont before finally settling in Los Angeles, California.[1] He is the son of Calvin and Florence Goodman. His father was a World War II veteran while his mother was a poet and professor of English.[1]
In 1965, Goodman completed a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. He later obtained his doctorate in 1968 as a Marshall Scholar.
Philosophy
One of Goodman's philosophical projects is realist messianism where he evaluated the means to the messianic end.[2]
On Spinoza's philosophy
Goodman used Baruch Spinoza's views in his discourse on Jewish philosophy. Particularly, he maintained that the Dutch thinker's philosophy addresses the problems that the Jewish philosophical tradition share with other school through creative and constructive solutions.[3] Goodman also found several Jewish themes in the Spinoza's philosophy. There is, for instance, the strong emphasis on philosophical monotheism, driving what Goodman believes as the most coherent metaphysical approach to philosophical speculation.[3] Goodman also supported Spinoza's reconciliations of classical oppositions. This is demonstrated in the way perfection and imperfection has been reconciled. In reconstructing Spinoza, Goodman, said that God becomes the image of imperfect humanity not because perfection "becomes an active principle at work in the mind".[4]
References
- ^ a b c Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava; Hughes, Aaron W. (2014). Lenn E. Goodman: Judaism, Humanity, and Nature: Judaism, Humanity, and Nature. Leiden: BRILL. p. 1. ISBN 9789004280748.
- ^ Jenson, Robert; Korn, Eugene (2012). Covenant and Hope: Christian and Jewish Reflections. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 237. ISBN 9780802867049.
- ^ a b Ravven, Heidi M.; Goodman, Lenn Evan (2012). Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. p. 6. ISBN 079145309X.
- ^ Cristaudo, Wayne; Kaplan, Gregory (2011). Love in the Religions of the World. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 97. ISBN 9781443835046.