Baumgardt, David (1890–1963)

Baumgardt’s early works dealt with the problem of modalities in the philosophies of Kant, Husserl and Meinong and with German philosophical romanticism, especially in the mystic Franz von Baader. Although he never engaged in systematic inquiry into Judaism or Jewish philosophy, he was fascinated by the Jewish religious legacy, and his philosophical reflections on Jewish issues were integral to his philosophical work. A secular Jew, he associated himself with the liberal trends within Judaism. The Jewish philosophers he most highly prized were Maimonides, Spinoza and Mendelssohn. The chief goal of his Jewish studies was to promote those beliefs in Judaism that are of ethical significance and to draw out the import of the moral demands found scattered throughout the ancient Jewish Scriptures. Baumgardt’s concern with ethics grew with his increasingly critical stance towards traditional religion. In that vein, he laid great stress on the distinction between knowledge and belief and on that between Jewish rituals and their underlying meaning.