Moses Mendelssohn
Judaism reveals laws, not doctrines – its truths are those of reason, open to all; the state has no business in matters of belief, and everyone must be free to follow their conscience.
Placement
The “German Socrates”: Enlightenment philosopher and a leading figure of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) who pleaded for freedom of conscience and the separation of state and religion.
Key ideas
- Freedom of conscience
- Immortality of the soul
- Judaism as revealed law, not revealed doctrine
Influence
Influenced by 5
Plato
influenced by
Mendelssohn’s Phaedon (1767) recast Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul, keeping its setting but replacing its arguments with proofs from modern metaphysics. M. Mendelssohn, Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (1767); SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: AI draft
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Maimonides
influenced by
Mendelssohn studied Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed from his youth and wrote a Hebrew commentary on Maimonides’ Treatise on Logic (Be’ur Millot ha-Higgayon, 1761). M. Mendelssohn, Be’ur Millot ha-Higgayon (1761); A. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (1973); SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: AI draft
Maimonides › 1138–1204
John Locke
influenced by ✓
In Jerusalem (1783) Mendelssohn took up Locke’s distinction between state and church from the Letter concerning Toleration (1689), arguing that neither may coerce belief. M. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum (1783); J. Locke, Epistola de tolerantia (1689); SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
John Locke › 1632–1704
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
influenced by ✓
Mendelssohn defended Leibniz’s metaphysics; in Pope a Metaphysician! (1755, with Lessing) he set Leibniz’s optimism apart from the poetic optimism of Pope’s Essay on Man. M. Mendelssohn and G. E. Lessing, Pope ein Metaphysiker! (1755); SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz › 1646–1716
Christian Wolff
influenced by
Mendelssohn worked within Wolff’s school metaphysics, as in his Berlin prize essay On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences (1763) and the proofs of God in Morning Hours (1785). M. Mendelssohn, Abhandlung über die Evidenz in metaphysischen Wissenschaften (1763, printed 1764); Morgenstunden (1785); SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: AI draft
Christian Wolff › 1679–1754
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Immanuel Kant
criticised by
Kant rejected Mendelssohn’s proof of the soul’s immortality in Phaedon (1767): a simple soul could still fade away by degrees of intensity (Critique of Pure Reason, B 413–415). I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1787), B 413–415 (“Refutation of Mendelssohn’s Proof of the Permanence of the Soul”); M. Mendelssohn, Phädon (1767)
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
criticised by
Jacobi revealed to Mendelssohn Lessing’s avowal of Spinozism and argued against Mendelssohn’s rational theism that demonstration ends in fatalism, escaped only by a leap of faith (1785). F. H. Jacobi, Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn (1785); SEP “Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi”
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi › 1743–1819
Criticizes 1
Baruch de Spinoza influenced by
influenced by ✓
In his Philosophical Dialogues (1755) Mendelssohn praised Spinoza as a forerunner of Leibniz, arguing that Leibniz had found pre-established harmony in his work. M. Mendelssohn, Philosophische Gespräche (1755); SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised
In Morning Hours (1785) Mendelssohn rejected Spinoza’s pantheism but argued that a ‘purified pantheism’ differs from theism in no point that matters for religion and morals. M. Mendelssohn, Morgenstunden (1785), Lectures XIII–XIV; SEP “Moses Mendelssohn”
Evidence: AI draft
Baruch de Spinoza › 1632–1677
Works
Plato’s dialogue rewritten for the Enlightenment – a bestseller across Europe.
The state may compel actions, never convictions – a plea for freedom of conscience.
Position
Mendelssohn defended a rational metaphysics in the tradition of Leibniz and Wolff. His Phaedon renewed Plato’s arguments for the immortality of the soul and made him famous across Europe, and in 1763 he won the Prussian Academy’s prize ahead of Kant. In Jerusalem he argued that the state may regulate actions but never convictions, and that no church may compel belief. Judaism, he held, is not a revealed doctrine but a revealed law; its truths are those of reason, open to everyone. He translated the Torah into German and became a leading figure of Jewish emancipation; his last years were overshadowed by the pantheism controversy with Jacobi.
Life & context
Moses Mendelssohn was born in 1729 in Dessau, the son of a Torah scribe, and followed his teacher to Berlin at fourteen. Largely self-taught in German, Latin and philosophy, he earned his living as a tutor and then in a silk factory, later as its partner. His friendship with Lessing, who drew on him for Nathan the Wise, opened the Enlightenment to him. He died in Berlin in 1786.
Further main works
- Philosophical Dialogues (1755)
- Morning Hours (1785)
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