Stolen Goods: Cultural Identity after the Counterenlightenment in Salomon Maimon's Autobiography (1792)

Abstract

ness which dialectically entails in turn the excessive materiality of the letter of Jewish law. Analogously, Maimon's materialist view of the law as a purely material institution overcomes the idealization of the law in Mendelssohn, an idealization that induces Mendelssohn to retain, unbeknownst to himself, a merely political stance on the Jewish law. By taking a materialist view of the law, Maimon thinks he is able to liberate This content downloaded from 157.55.39.45 on Wed, 05 Oct 2016 05:15:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms