Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment

Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment PDF Author: David Sorkin
Publisher: Halban Publishers
ISBN: 1905559518
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was the premier Jewish thinker of his day and one of the best-known figures of the German Enlightenment, earning the sobriquet 'the Socrates of Berlin'. He was thoroughly involved in the central issue of Enlightenment religious thinking: the inevitable conflict between reason and revelation in an age contending with individual rights and religious toleration. He did not aspire to a comprehensive philosophy of Judaism, since he thought human reason was limited, but he did see Judaism as compatible with toleration and rights. David Sorkin offers a close study of Mendelssohn's complete writings, treating the German, and the often-neglected Hebrew writings, as a single corpus and arguing that Mendelssohn's two spheres of endeavour were entirely consistent.

Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment

Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment PDF Author: David Sorkin
Publisher: Halban Publishers
ISBN: 1905559518
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was the premier Jewish thinker of his day and one of the best-known figures of the German Enlightenment, earning the sobriquet 'the Socrates of Berlin'. He was thoroughly involved in the central issue of Enlightenment religious thinking: the inevitable conflict between reason and revelation in an age contending with individual rights and religious toleration. He did not aspire to a comprehensive philosophy of Judaism, since he thought human reason was limited, but he did see Judaism as compatible with toleration and rights. David Sorkin offers a close study of Mendelssohn's complete writings, treating the German, and the often-neglected Hebrew writings, as a single corpus and arguing that Mendelssohn's two spheres of endeavour were entirely consistent.

The Religious Enlightenment

The Religious Enlightenment PDF Author: David Sorkin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691149372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
"Sorkin is right to argue that enlightenment and faith went together for most participants in the Enlightenment, and that this is a major topic that has been relatively neglected. He has written an outstanding and eminently accessible book bringing the whole question centrally to scholars' attention. He skillfully demonstrates that all confessions and religious traditions found themselves very much in a common predicament and sought similar solutions."--Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study "Powerfully cogent. Sorkin seeks to show that the 'religious Enlightenment' was not a contradiction in terms but was an integral and central part of the Enlightenment. Anyone interested in the history of the Enlightenment in particular or the eighteenth century in general will want to read this book. Sorkin is one of the leading scholars working in the field. His scholarship is as wide as it is deep."--Tim Blanning, University of Cambridge

Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment

Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment PDF Author: Allan Arkush
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495264
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Moses Mendelssohn, the author of numerous works on natural theology and ethics, was also the first modern philosopher of Judaism. This book places Mendelssohn's thought within the context of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school, the writings of Kant and Lessing and other major figures of the Enlightenment, and within the age-old tradition of Jewish rationalism. More than any previous treatment of this subject, it questions the extent to which Mendelssohn truly succeeded in reconciling his allegiance to the philosophy of the Enlightenment with his adherence to Judaism.

No Religion Without Idolatry

No Religion Without Idolatry PDF Author: Gideon Freudenthal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268206635
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
No Religion without Idolatry offers an interpretation of Mendelssohn's general philosophy and discusses for the first time his semiotic interpretation of idolatry in his commentaries.

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn PDF Author: Shmuel Feiner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300167520
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, an accessible and fascinating biography of Moses Mendelssohn, the seminal Jewish philosopher "A fascinating portrait of an important Enlightenment figure."—Library Journal The “German Socrates,” Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) was the most influential Jewish thinker of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A Berlin celebrity and a major figure in the Enlightenment, revered by Immanuel Kant, Mendelssohn suffered the indignities common to Jews of his time while formulating the philosophical foundations of a modern Judaism suited for a new age. His most influential books included the groundbreaking Jerusalem and a translation of the Bible into German that paved the way for generations of Jews to master the language of the larger culture. Feiner’s book is the first that offers a full, human portrait of this fascinating man—uncommonly modest, acutely aware of his task as an intellectual pioneer, shrewd, traditionally Jewish, yet thoroughly conversant with the world around him—providing a vivid sense of Mendelssohn’s daily life as well as of his philosophical endeavors. Feiner, a leading scholar of Jewish intellectual history, examines Mendelssohn as father and husband, as a friend (Mendelssohn’s long-standing friendship with the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was seen as a model for Jews and non-Jews worldwide), as a tireless advocate for his people, and as an equally indefatigable spokesman for the paramount importance of intellectual independence.

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn PDF Author: Moses Mendelssohn
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 1611682142
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
An English translation of key works, many never before translated, by Moses Mendelssohn, the founder of modern Jewish philosophy

Faith and Freedom

Faith and Freedom PDF Author: Michah Gottlieb
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199838240
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The recent renewal of the faith-reason debate has focused attention on earlier episodes in its history. One of its memorable highlights occurred during the Enlightenment, with the outbreak of the "Pantheism Controversy" between the eighteenth century Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the Christian Counter-Enlightenment thinker Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. While Mendelssohn argued that reason confirmed belief in a providential God and in an immortal soul, Jacobi claimed that its consistent application led ineluctably to atheism and fatalism. At present, there are two leading interpretations of Moses Mendelssohn's thought. One casts him as a Jewish traditionalist who draws on German philosophy to support his premodern Jewish beliefs, while the other portrays him as a secret Deist who seeks to encourage his fellow Jews to integrate into German society and so disingenuously defends Judaism to avoid arousing their opposition. By exploring the Pantheism Controversy and Mendelssohn's relation to his two greatest Jewish philosophical predecessors, the medieval Rabbi Moses Maimonides and the seventeenth century heretic Baruch Spinoza, Michah Gottlieb presents a new reading of Mendelssohn arguing that he defends Jewish religious concepts sincerely, but gives them a humanistic interpretation appropriate to life in a free, diverse modern society. Gottlieb argues that the faith-reason debate is best understood not primarily as an argument about metaphysical questions, such as whether or not God exists, but rather as a contest between two competing conceptions of human dignity and freedom. Mendelssohn, Gottlieb contends, gives expression to a humanistic religious perspective worthy of renewed consideration today.

Moses, Mendelssohn, and the Religious Enlightenment [by] David Sorkin

Moses, Mendelssohn, and the Religious Enlightenment [by] David Sorkin PDF Author: David B. Starr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 3

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Book Description


Moses Mendelssohn's Hebrew Writings

Moses Mendelssohn's Hebrew Writings PDF Author:
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030022902X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 561

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Book Description
The first annotated English translation of the Hebrew writings of the great eighteenth-century Berlin philosopher

Faith and Freedom

Faith and Freedom PDF Author: Michah Gottlieb
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195398947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Moses Mendelssohn has been cast by some scholars as a Jewish traditionalist who uses enlightened German philosophy to bolster his pre-modern religious beliefs, by others as a radical Deist who defends Judaism in order to avoid opposition from his co-religionists, while facilitating their social integration into enlightened European society. Michah Gottlieb offers a new reading of Mendelssohn's life and writings, arguing that he defends pre-modern Jewish religious concepts sincerely, but unconsciously gives them a humanistic valence appropriate to life in a diverse, enlightened society.