Willi Goetschel is Professor of German and Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Heine and Critical Theory (Bloomsbury, 2019), The Discipline of Philosophy and the Invention of Modern Jewish Thought (Fordham, 2013), Spinoza’s Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine (Wisconsin, 2004) and Constituting Critique: Kant’s Writing as Critical Praxis (Duke, 1994).

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsDifference and Alterity: An Introduction1. La Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude2. Montaigne’s Project3. Difference and Alterity in Spinoza4. Spinoza’s Dream5. Diversity and Pluralism: Mendelssohn’s Difference6. Meaning and Translation: Mendelssohn’s ‘Living Script’BibliographyIndex

In this engagingly written and deeply erudite study, Goetschel stages a compelling conversation between Boétie, Montaigne, Spinoza, and Mendelssohn on difference and alterity. Through his impressively skilful tracking of the movement of the liberatory and constructive potentialities of alterity and difference in their writings, Goetschel reveals the power of this constellation of thinkers to profoundly reframe contemporary thought.