Hermann Cohen

And Herman Cohn was part of the Marburg school of neo-Kantian thinkers.

And Hermann Cohen was looking at the role within Judaism of pure thought and ethics.

Thought and ethics, he said, Hermann Cohen maintained, was more important to Jewish thought than mystical thought or than metaphysical speculation.

In other words, he says that the essence of Jewish thought was not metaphysical speculation, but simple rationalism and ethical behavior, which is an interesting way of looking at Judaism.

And Rabbi Soloveitchik did his PhD on this very man, Herman Cohen.