Despite their aspirations to shine the light of reason on the world, and with notable exceptions, the thinkers of the Enlightenment provided posterity with numerous indictments of the Jewish character and religion. How much of an influence the writings of such figures as Voltaire and Kant had on the subsequent evolution of antisemitism remains a subject of scholarly debate.

Antisemitism1 is a late 19th-century (1870) term based on pseudo-scientific racial theory that was coined to describe in a new way opposition to, and hatred of, the Jewish People and their form of life. Though a relatively recent linguistic and ideological construction, it draws on and extends a much older tradition of anti-Jewish enmity that has its roots in the pre-Christian world of Greece, Rome, and Hellenistic Egypt and was then reinterpreted and radically reconceived in early Christianity beginning with the writings of Paul and the four Gospels that form the core of the New Testament.

This chapter traces the way that Jews have been depicted in French literature from the 18th century to the present, including writers such as Voltaire, Balzac, Céline, and Proust. It examines both negative (antisemitic) and positive (philosemitic) representations of Jews, arguing that the ambivalence surrounding the figure of the Jew reflects a larger ambivalence toward the various ideas that Jews represent.

A history and periodization of American antisemitism that asks (1) whether to understand the phenomenon as grimly eternal, dependably cyclical, or just as an occasional and episodic factor in American history; (2) whether to interpret antisemitism as a “cultural code,” revealing less about Jews than about the culture that stigmatizes them; and (3) whether antisemitism is different in the United States than in other diaspora lands where Jews have lived.

Antisemitism in medieval art is explored through selected images that develop the popular pictorial themes of “Christ-killing,” spiritual blindness, demonic allegiance, conspiracy, and animality. The imagery is linked to long-standing Christian theological beliefs and considers the social functions and material consequences for medieval Jews.

This chapter examines the social and legal position of Jews in the medieval Muslim world as determined by readings of the Qur'an and Hadith.

The Weimar Republic, established in Germany at the end of World War I, was not a success and led to the rise of radical politics and the birth of the Nazi party. The racial antisemitism of Nazi ideology is discussed, as is Hitler’s control of Germany and his quest for a “Final Solution” to the so-called Jewish problem, leading to the creation of ghettos, Einsatzgruppen (killing squads), concentration camps, and the killing centers of the Holocaust.

Drawing on classical antisemitic themes, this chapter reconstructs the growth of antisemitism in the modern Muslim world.

Plotinus has two treatises on the central notions of ancient ethics, named by Porphyry On Virtues (peri aretôn) and On Happiness (peri eudaimonias). Both are found in Ennead 1 but they are not chronologically related. The study on virtues (Enn. 1.2) belongs to the earlier half of the treatises (no. 19) and was written between 253 and 264, while the treatise on happiness (Enn. 1.4) dates from the last year and a half in Plotinus’ life. Scholars have debated about whether Plotinus’ reflections on virtue and happiness amount to a consistent ethics that has something to offer for everyday life.1 I shall return to this question in the concluding section after considering the two treatises. It can be noted already that Porphyry’s title On Virtues (peri aretôn)2 could lead us to expect a comprehensive and practical account of virtue in Enn. 1.2 but no detailed guidelines are given for particular situations. This might suggest that ethics is an entirely theoretical affair for Plotinus. However, Plotinus’ focus is narrower, and it would be premature to exclude practical concerns for a Plotinian virtuous person because of the scope of the treatise.

An enduring interest in categories (katēgoriai),1 and in Aristotle’s Categories in particular, has led readers since antiquity to study the treatise which Porphyry entitled On the Genera of Being (6.1–3).2 Ancient and modern readers broadly agree that: (1) Plotinus understands his own subject matter to be ‘the kinds of things that exist’ (peri tōn genōn tou ontos); (2) the treatise displays the result of a deep and substantial engagement with Aristotle’s Categories; and (3) Plotinus raises important and substantive puzzles (aporiai) about what is said in the Categories.3 Beyond this, plausible interpretations diverge. On one view, Plotinus deploys the resources of earlier Platonist critics to challenge the Categories’ ontological prioritization of particular substance, especially as it is treated by earlier Aristotelian commentators.4 On an alternative reading, Plotinus ‘purifies’ Aristotelian ontology in order to sketch a new taxonomy of the sensible world, complementing his own account of the intelligible world and clearing a trail for Porphyry’s integration of Aristotle into a new Platonist curriculum.5

PEQ: Should we retain the decimal numbering of headings according to chapter number?

It can be difficult to get a handle on Plotinus’ conception of Nature (phusis), not least because of the numerous other connections in which Plotinus employs the Greek term phusis.1 Let us put the other uses of the term aside for now and focus on what I shall henceforth refer to as ‘Universal Nature’ or simply ‘Nature’.2 Universal Nature, for Plotinus, is no mere abstraction but a determinate entity that is causally efficacious in the sensible world in a number of ways.

This chapter considers the impact of theological doctrine on papal policy toward the Jews in medieval Europe. Specifically, it focuses on the ambivalence toward Jews and Judaism inherent in the Augustinian doctrine of Jewish witness and its expression in the decrees of Gregory the Great, Innocent III, and those popes who first condemned the Talmud in the 13th century.

This chapter examines the various ways in which antisemitism is defined and how it compares and is contrasted with other forms of prejudice and hatred. Unlike other prejudices, antisemitism has come from both the political left (the Soviet Union) and political right (Nazi Germany). The way in which contemporary “white power” movements have used antisemitism as ideological justification for their racism is also analyzed.

The Greek word empsukhos (‘ensouled’) was used in ordinary language to describe something as alive.1 Philosophers from all major schools specified this linguistically marked connection between soul and life by postulating or arguing that the soul is the principle of life.2 The soul can be understood to be so in three ways. All life-constituting activities of a living being are activities of the soul, or they are activities of the composite of body and soul, or some are activities of the soul and others of the composite. Plotinus defends the first option.3