Arnold Davidson

Arnold Ira Davidson, born in 1955, is a philosopher with a distinguished career marked by teaching and research across various academic departments and countries. He currently holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Humanities at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is affiliated with the Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the Department of Jewish Thought, and the Department of Romance Studies. Previously, he was the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, holding joint appointments in Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Romance Languages and Literatures, the Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, the Divinity School, and the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge. Davidson also served as the European Editor of *Critical Inquiry* and was the director of the France-Chicago Center. His primary research interests include the philosophy of Judaism, the history of contemporary European philosophy, moral and political philosophy, the history of human sciences, the philosophy of religion, and literature as a philosophical medium. In recognition of his contributions to French thought and culture, he was appointed Commandeur in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French government in 2021. Davidson has been a visiting professor at numerous French institutions, including the Collège de France and the École Normale Supérieure, and has held professorships at the University of Pisa and the University Ca'Foscari Venice. Additionally, he has contributed as a jazz critic for the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. His current work focuses on figures like Pierre Hadot, Joseph Soloveitchik, Michel Foucault, and Primo Levi, exploring themes such as spiritual exercises, self-transformation, the relationship between Talmudic and philosophical argumentation, and the aesthetics and politics of improvisation. Notably, he co-edited a critical edition of the manuscripts of Zalmen Gradowski, a testimony from Auschwitz. Davidson's publications are available in multiple languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, and English.