Tag Archives: Moses Mendelssohn

(Boundary Stones) Moses Mendelssohn (State and Religion)

Posted on May 6, 2021 by zjb

I have been thinking a lot late about religious (Haredi) response to the Coronavirus and the problem of religious-state violence in Israel. Against all that, maybe it’s time for a little neo-Haskalah. Whereas postliberal theorists, political theologians, and theo-politicians, especially … Continue reading →

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Aesthetic Philosophy (He Used to Mate Ideas of the Most Alien Sorts) (Moses Mendelssohn)

Posted on January 7, 2014 by zjb

Poking fun at Jacobi, Mendelssohn addressed these words to the friends of Lessing about his friend, “Whenever the fancy struck, [Lessing] used to mate ideas of the most alien sort, just to see what they would generate in the way … Continue reading →

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Feelings Don’t Lie (Moses Mendelssohn & Human Consciousness )

Posted on January 6, 2014 by zjb

Anticipating current debates about consciousness, Moses Mendelssohn picked up the cudgel against the materialist philosophy of Helvétius, according to which, as paraphrased by Mendelssohn, “[t]hinking is the process of coming to a conclusion that is really the final sensory impression … Continue reading →

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(Truth in the Image) Aesthetic Philosophy (An Object in A Hall of Mirrors) (Moses Mendelssohn)

Posted on January 3, 2014 by zjb

  “Picture if you will a room whose walls are all covered with mirrors, and an image of an object is repeated in every mirror according to its position. Let these mirrors enter into a dispute about whether the object … Continue reading →

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Moses Mendelssohn, Aesthetic Philosophy, and the Actuality of God (Morning Hours)

Posted on January 2, 2014 by zjb

Moses Mendelssohn was not a rationalist. He put much less faith in rationalism and reason than did Maimon or Kant and Hegel, who left him in the historical dustbin. Less a philosopher, Mendelssohn may have been less of a philosopher … Continue reading →

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