Grundlegung der positiven Philosophie, and: F. W. J. Schelling: Briefe und Dokumente Band II, 1775-1803 (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 265 Jews to their respective non-Jewish majoritieswa trend which they denounced as a major threat to Jewish survival. While admitting that this offshoot of the German-Jewish ghetto, turned into a representative figure of the German Enlightenment, was himself a loyal Jew, they pointed out that he was unable to keep his own children and grandchildren (including the famous composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) within the Jewish fold. Our generation is likely to take a more balanced view. We are increasingly realizing that Jewish Emancipation was not the achievement of any one man or any single generation , but a slow historic process progressing from one country to another in different stages. We are inclined to view it as an historic necessity for the modern state even more than for the modern Jew. Not surprisingly, in the turmoil of the Two World Wars, the great Holocaust, and the epochal rise of the State of Israel, the philosopher of Dessau has become almost a "forgotten man." We must be doubly grateful, therefore, to Professor Alexander Altmann for having, through dedicated labor of many years, rekindled our interest in this remarkable personality who, in his humble way, left a permanent imprint on modern Jewry. A former Officiating rabbi and in more recent years an influential educator and author of many monographic studies in the history of Jewish philosophy, Altmann has here presented what may indeed become the definitive biography of Mendelssohn. After a gigantic effort to assemble an enormous amount of first-hand documentation, much of it hitherto unpublished, the author was able to present a vivid picture of the man against the background of an intellectually effervescent society of Prussian Jews and nonJews . The reader will find here much new information on Mendelssohn's controversy with the Zurich pastor, Johann Kaspar Lavater, who had challenged him to adopt Christianity (pp. 209 frO; on his epoch-making German translation of the Pentateuch (pp. 368 ft.); on his numerous friendships, including those with the famous poet, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Christian Wilhelm Dohm, who under his influence wrote a most influential tract on the reform of the Jewish legal status; and his numerous philosophical tracts. In short, even our fast-moving generation will find the reading of this lucidly written and often eloquent volume highly rewarding. Despite the author's warning that he did not attempt to assess Mendelssohn's "significance from the hindsight of historical perspective or to trace his image in subsequent generations," the reader will find in this work much that is completely "relevant" to his own problems today. SALOW. BARON Columbia University Grundlegung der positiven Philosophie. By Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. Herausgegeben und kommentiert yon Horst Fuhrmans. (Torino: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1972. Pp. 493) F. W. J. Schelling: Brie/e und Dokumente, Band II, 1775-1803. Zusatzband herausgegeben yon Horst Fuhrmans. (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1973. Pp. xvi+555. DM 78) Horst Fuhrmans has written two books and a number of fine articles on the middle and late philosophies of Schelling, but his greatest contribution to Schelling studies might very well be his many text editions. After the discovery of two unknown versions of the Ages o/the WorM, published afterwards as the Nachlassband of the Jubileumausgabe, he presented the scholars of German idealism and romanticism with a bulky volume of letters (subsequently followed by a marvelous critical edition of the correspondence between Schelling and Cotta). More recently he has been able to print the whole Kollegnachschrfft of the Initia Philosophiae Universae (I 82t). His latest publications fall in the same line: a Kollegnachschrifl of the Foundation o[ Positive Philosophy and another volume of letters and personal documents. 266 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY When K. F. A. Scbelling took up the edition of his father's works, following the latter's instructions he endeavored to present the Spiitphilosophie in its most complete form. He printed therefore mainly the manuscripts of the 'forties and the 'fifties. From the second Munich period (1827-1841) he only chose two very important and extensive fragments: the history of modem philosophy and the exposition of philosophical empiricism. However , in general he left out important texts on the doctrine of God and on the positive philosophy...