ABSTRACT
The chapter presents Johann Georg Hamann as a highly influential figure for later Romantic philosophers in utilising Kabbalistic ideas within philosophy. Hamann, a self-proclaimed “Kabbalistic philologian”, was particularly inspired by the way single words and even letters are interpreted in highly creative and seemingly arbitrary ways in the Kabbalistic tradition. After Hamann, Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis developed his ideas further into unique accounts that combine aesthetics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. Last, the chapter takes up Gershom Scholem – a famous scholar of Kabbalah and a friend of many if not most major Jewish philosophers in the twentieth century – as a thinker who brings the interplay of Kabbalah and Romanticism full circle. While the mentioned philosophers used Kabbalah for philosophical purposes, Scholem has expressed a long-term affinity with Romanticism.
