ABSTRACT Daniel H. Weiss seeks to refute the idea that Moses Mendelssohn sought to excise all traces of theocracy from the Jewish religion. Weiss wishes to show that he regarded “the Mosaic constitution” not as something timebound and obsolete but as permanently in effect, albeit unenforceable, and replete with strong political implications for Jewish citizens of non-Jewish polities. Properly understood, the Mosaic constitution would impose upon them, according to Mendelssohn, duties that might bar them from participating in their earthly sovereign's military endeavours. While outwardly propounding a political teaching that was “politically non-threatening to the basic status quo,” Mendelssohn was in fact transmitting radical ideas. But he did so cautiously when he wrote for a general audience, “where they might have met with a hostile or unsympathetic response.” Consequently, Weiss says, “the vast majority of Mendelssohn's contemporaries did not recognize this dimension of his thought.” I question whether Weiss has discovered an overlooked dimension of his thought or, on the contrary, wishfully transformed him into a kind of precursor of the twentieth-century Jewish thinkers with whom he is mostly concerned in his Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence.

German and Polish Jewry have long been viewed as distinct and unrelated entities, and historiography has perhaps overlooked their intricate intertwining in some instances.This essay offers a variety of examples that illustrate personal and intellectual encounters and a neighborhood that challenges some common assumptions. It seems that German Idealism’s focus on reason, ethics, and moral responsibility may have had some influence on Jewish Reform thinkers in German and Polish lands. They sought to harmonize Jewish tradition with modern values and rational inquiry. Enlightenment thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn focused on universal values, and Romanticists emphasized cultural heritage and historical uniqueness. This essay examines David Friedländer’s attempt to reach civic equality by negotiating religion and finding common ground in rational theology. It also examines Friedrich Schleiermacher’s refusal to dilute the Christian religion and presents Israel Jacobson’s attempts at modernizing Judaism. All these deliberations have contributed to developing Polish Jewish thought on identity, culture, and community.

In the context of the emergence of aesthetics as an autonomous discipline in mid-eighteenth-century Germany, Moses Mendelssohn was one of the leading voices in the development of a new theory of sentiments and representation. In this context, Mendelssohn understood the need to delineate the limits of aesthetic representation and addressed the issue through an in-depth study of sentiments. In this article, I propose a study of the category of disgust in Mendelssohn's aesthetics, starting from his theory of aesthetic illusion. Disgust is, in fact, a feeling that cannot be reduced to the illusion created by the work of art but always refers to reality. To this end, I will refer mainly to the 82nd Literaturbrief, in which Mendelssohn expounds his study of disgust, and secondly to the Rhapsody as a text that reveals the need to deepen the theory of aesthetic illusion in light of the limits indicated through disgust. Finally, an aesthetic paradigm will emerge, which is also relevant to the contemporary debate on the possibilities of aesthetic representation

This paper defends two theses concerning the relationship between Kant’s critique of Rational Psychology and the contributions to this discipline made by Christian Wolff and Moses Mendelssohn, namely: (I) that Wolff’s Psychologia Rationalis (1734) is not in fact vulnerable to Kant’s charges, not only because it seeks to explain empirical data, but more crucially because its most basic explanatory ground is itself derived from experience; and that Mendelssohn’s Phaedon (1767), which Kant regarded as a prime example of Rational Psychology, likewise is not adequately captured by Kant’s critique. To do so, the paper will include: (1) an introduction outlining the topic and its interest; a section on Wolff’s Rational Psychology; (3) an analysis of Mendelssohn’s modification of Wolffian Psychology; and some concluding remarks

In this article, we look at the definition of “Jewish philosophy”, a concept whose contours remain unclear. Does the term simply refer to the cultural or religious affiliation of the philosophers concerned, or is there something in their philosophy itself that qualifies it as Jewish? To answer this question, we have drawn on the reflections of Eliezer Berkovits, who has defined Jewish philosophy as the incorporation of philosophical concepts and reasoning into a distinct Hebraic framework of thought and tradition. Using Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem as a case study, we refine and extend the concept of incorporation to show that Jewish philosophy is articulated between the universality of philosophical thought and the particularity of Jewish tradition.

This article offers a detailed analysis of Moses Mendelssohn’s novel proof of God’s existence as developed in chapter 16 of his philosophical testament, Morning Hours. The paper reconstructs the logical structure of the argument, situates it within Mendelssohn’s broader philosophical outlook, and explores its far-reaching implications. It also investigates the possible historical sources and conceptual affinities of the argument. While some scholars have read Mendelssohn’s argument as a version of Berkeleyan idealism, others highlight its cosmological or anti-idealist dimensions. The article concludes by assessing the philosophical significance and limits of Mendelssohn’s approach, arguing that it offers a compelling, if ultimately contestable, attempt to reconcile finite cognition with metaphysical realism through the postulation of an infinite intellect.

Abstract In this paper we present a comparison of Immanuel Kant’s and Moses Mendelssohn’s essays on Enlightenment with respect to the Prussian late absolutistic estate-based society and the so-called “Jewish Question”. Our comparison consists of three aspects: firstly, the relation between theory and practice, secondly, the relation between state and Enlightenment and thirdly, the relation between progress and the dangers of Enlightenment. We argue against an individualising and ahistoric reading of philosophical texts and the focus on philosophers as individual geniuses. Instead, we show that the content of terms like “the public” (Kant) and “education” (Mendelssohn) only becomes comprehensible when the correlation of context and systematicity is reflected.

ABSTRACT This article argues that Moses Mendelssohn’s brief but significant reference to Deaf people in Jerusalem: or on Religious Power and Judaism (1783) is central to his theory of Judaism as a “living script” and its place in the civic life of the modern nation-state. His ambivalent position as a German Jew mirrors that of Deaf people, some of whom used sign language, which—like Jewish practice—was viewed as incompatible with Enlightenment ideals of disembodied reason. By placing Mendelssohn’s philosophy—and particularly his lesser-known essay on “stuttering”—in dialogue with eighteenth-century debates on Deaf education, I show that his thought challenges the “oralist” view that audible speech is essential for thought. He presents Judaism as an embodied “language of action” that resists assimilationist pressures and envisions an enlightened society grounded in religious and linguistic diversity. I argue that Mendelssohn’s engagement with Deafness reflects broader concerns about religious knowledge, the politics of signs, and European citizenship and underscore the importance of Deaf studies to religious studies—particularly in understanding how bodily difference intersected with religious and civil status in eighteenth-century Europe.

This paper aims to demonstrate three interrelated theses regarding Elise Reimarus’s role in the early stages of the Pantheismusstreit, namely: (I) that her commitment to fostering dialogue between opposing philosophical perspectives was fundamental in bridging the divide between Friedrich Jacobi and Moses Mendelssohn, thereby advancing the controversy; (II) that her dialogical approach to philosophy represents an original contribution to the Pantheismusstreit, differing from the stances of both Jacobi and Mendelssohn; (III) that, nevertheless, Jacobi appropriated Reimarus’s insights to bolster the dissemination of his own views on philosophy and Spinozism. To substantiate these claims, the paper is structured as follows: an introduction to outline the current state of research on Reimarus and her significance for the Pantheismusstreit (1); an analysis of Jacobi’s conceptualization of Spinozism and its philosophical implications (2); an examination of Reimarus’s mediatory efforts and their distinctive philosophical underpinnings (3); and a concluding discussion assessing the broader impact of Reimarus’s contributions to the debate (4).

Abstract This paper is a methodological response to the dominance of masculinist, logocentric, and discursive frameworks for the “modern” “scientific” study of religion. By combining feminist theory, rabbinic texts, and modern Jewish thought with ethnographic accounts of American Jewish women’s intimate embodied lives, I playfully contort the relations among subjects and objects of religious studies. In so doing, I ask how the commingling of multiple modalities of textual engagement can meet the present moment in the study of religion.

Abstract This essay presents Mendelssohn's neglected vindication of theism through a refutation of Spinoza's philosophy in the Morgenstunden and highlights its relevance for discussions in contemporary philosophy of religion by (i) contextualizing Mendelssohn's argument within the reception of Spinoza's philosophy at the dawn of the 18th century, (ii) tracing the path of Mendelssohn's argument from Spinoza's philosophy to theism, (iii) and applying Mendelssohn's argument to Linda Zagzebski's account of divine omniscience showing that her account is not only incoherent but also undermines the theistic assumption that the world has an existence outside of God.

Este trabajo introduce la vida y obra de Salomón Maimón, filósofo judío relevante. Se examina su contexto vital, su formación en estudios talmúdicos, la Cábala, y la filosofía de Christian Wolf y Moses Mendelssohn. Maimón se interesó en la obra de Immanuel Kant y escribió un comentario crítico sobre la "Crítica de la Razón Pura" titulado "Ensayo sobre la filosofía trascendental". En este ensayo, Maimón plantea la Doctrina de los diferenciales como alternativa al idealismo trascendental, sugiriendo que los diferenciales son la base del conocimiento, combinándose matemáticamente para formar conceptos e intuiciones. También formula el principio de determinabilidad, afirmando que todo objeto debe estar determinado por un concepto que lo distinga de otros. Maimón adopta una actitud escéptica hacia la metafísica y la teología, considerando que no se puede determinar la existencia de Dios y del alma, aunque no las niega, sino que las ve como hipótesis que regulan la moral y el progreso científico. Finalmente, se mencionan los aportes de la filosofía crítica de Maimón a pensadores posteriores como Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer y Gilles Deleuze.

In this paper I discuss Moses Mendelssohn’s argumentation on religious tolerance in his “Vorrede” (“preface”) that he added to his translation of Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel’s letter “Vindiciae judaeorum” in 1782. Instead of solely deducing Mendelssohn’s idea of religious tolerance, I examine Mendelssohn’s argumentation strategies. For this purpose, I firstly determine the political and social conditions in which Mendelssohn wrote the “Vorrede”. Secondly, I examine the normative reasons or resources that Mendelssohn argues for tolerance with. In my observation, he is legitimizing religious tolerance on the normative resources of philosophical reasons (natural law/universal reason) and pragmatic reasons (utility). Further, I will analyse Mendelssohn’s concept of a tolerant Judaism in the “Vorrede”.

The article discusses the philosophical concept of the German thinker of the second half of the 19th century Gustav Teichmüller (1832–1888), professor at the University of Dorpat. As a result of a comprehensive study of the treatise On the Immortality of the Soul (1874) by Gustav Teichmüller, the author of this article came to the con­clusion that Teichmuller’s philosophy is a variant of criticism. According to Teich­müller, the treatise was supposed to crown by itself a long philosophical tradition of writing treatises on this topic. The philosophy of Teichmüller, expanded by him in this treatise, is shown in the context of critical reading of prominent thinkers of the past, his ideological predecessors, philosophers of the century of the German Enlightenment and representatives of critical philosophy, such as Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob. The study of Teichmüller’s ideas was also carried out in the two paragraphs he added to the second edition (1878) in the context of his criticism of idealism and positivism. The final point of consider­ation of Teichmüller’s philosophy in this article is the demonstration of a certain translation of the ideas of German philosophy on Russian philosophical soil, as well as the creative processing and assimilation of Teichmüller’s ideas in the history of Russian philosophy of the 20th century. The author also examines the relationship of Teichmüller’s philosophical heritage to the logical and epistemological trend in the history of philosophy.

Abstract In the late eighteenth century, Johann David Michaelis criticized Moses Mendelssohn for bringing what Michaelis termed his native Jewish tradition into his thinking on universal matters. Yet leaning on Jewish sources had been a key feature of European natural law thinking from the onset of modernity. In this article, the author reads Mendelssohn’s natural law theory as conversant with early modern legal thought that was scrutinized in the enlightenment, shedding new light on Mendelssohn’s innovations and on what Mendelssohn was up against when he offered natural law foundations for toleration. The author finds that arguments for and against toleration of the Jews from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth were tied to the question of whether Judaism contained universal laws or laws particular to the Jews, and suggests that Mendelssohn’s approach, while rejected from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, may be newly relevant today.

Abstract: This article revisits the concept of meliẓah (eloquent language) and its significance in the development of Hebrew literary thought. The study begins with an analysis of meliẓah in the works of maskilim and scholars of Haskalah such as Euchel, Zederbaum, and Finer, who typically viewed meliẓah as a derivative concept that serves a wider philosophical or historical framework. The main body of the article explores how maskilim used meliẓah and figurative language in ways that question the aesthetic affirmation of philosophical knowledge and challenge established views of historical continuity. Drawing from Erich Auerbach's elaborate discussion of figurative speech, this study illustrates how Hebrew writers, including Moses Mendelssohn and Abraham Mapu, employed meliẓot not just to embellish already-accepted images of nature or history. In a manner akin to Auerbach's figura, meliẓah highlights the evasive, transitory, and ideological aspects of literary mediations of history, leading to alternative mediations. The concluding sections focus on Abraham Mapu's fictional portrayal of meliẓah, arguing it should not be read as an imitation of Alexander Pope's concept of "wit." Instead of portraying nature or history in their "methodized" version, I show how Mapu's fiction deprives historical fiction of its rationalist and idealist aura. Rather than self-justifying images, Mapu's meliẓot operate as rhetorical structures that summon up conflicted versions of social reality.

The goal of this article is to argue for the three following theses: (1) that Moses Mendelssohn’s Philosophische Gespräche (1755) offer a rehabilitation of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) in explicit opposition to the stigmatization that Spinoza suffered in the German lands from the beginning of the 1670s; (2) that the article “Rorarius” from Pierre Bayle’s (1647–1706) Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697–1698) is a crucial source for Mendelssohn’s strategy to rehabilitate Spinoza; (3) that Mendelssohn’s use of Bayle as a source constitutes an unexplored link between oppressed religious minorities. To show this, the article will consist of an introductory part to set the subject matter and three subsequent parts, one for each of the points that I am going to argue for.

Abstract A few years after Moses Mendelssohn’s death (1786) David Friedländer wrote life-history descriptions in which he took a fragmentary look at Mendelssohn’s personality and emphasized that he had succeeded in approaching moral perfection as a human being and as a merchant to a high degree. With the virtuous perfection pattern Moses Mendelssohn (Vollkommenheitsmuster Moses Mendelssohn) designed by him, Friedländer initially pursued two intentions: on the one hand, he established a modern Jewish educational ideal, and on the other hand, his image of Mendelssohn served him to combat prejudice among non-Jews. Three decades later, Friedländer published further biographical fragments about Mendelssohn, this time appearing in a distinctly educational context, and again presenting Mendelssohn as an educational ideal. The article analyzes Friedländer’s ›Platonic‹ mode of presenting Mendelssohn and questions the significance of his parallelization of Mendelssohn with Socrates. In addition, it examines Friedländer’s choice of the fragment as a descriptive category and form of biographical representation, with which he functionalizes Mendelssohn for his pedagogical aims.

Ever since the publication of Dohm’s Ueber die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (On the Civil Improvement of the Jews) in 1781, which argued for Jewish political equality on humanitarian grounds, more and more voices joined those demands. Prominent among them was David Friedländer, a friend and disciple of Moses Mendelssohn. One of the leading figures of the Berlin Haskalah, he worked towards establishing equal legal status for Jews in Prussia. Friedländer did not accept the given view of his times, the antithesis of Jew and German. For him only the antithesis Jew–Christian existed and even that he tried to reconcile by finding common ground in a religion of reason, the groundwork of which he laid out in an Open Letter in 1799. What he proposed at that time may have been illusionary, but it certainly met with approval in enlightened Jewish circles. Friedländer therefore not only stands for those who dared to break with the traditions, but also for the generation of those who consciously aimed at the denationalization of traditional Judaism – and thus decided in favour of the confessionalization and the Germanness of the Jews.

In Morning Hours (1785), Moses Mendelssohn presents a proof for the existence of God from the grounding of possibility. Although Mendelssohn claims that this proof is original, it has not received much attention in the secondary literature. In this paper, I analyze this proof and present its historical context. I show that although it resembles Leibniz's proof from eternal truths and Kant's precritical possibility proof, it has unique characteristics that can be regarded as responses to deficiencies Mendelssohn identified in these earlier proofs. I argue that by analyzing the semantics of judgments about dispositions, Mendelssohn provides a novel explanation for the basic premise shared by these proofs, namely that possibility is grounded in actuality. Additionally, this analysis simplifies the inference to a unique infinite mind grounding all possibility. Thus, the proof is worth studying both for historical reasons and for its original account of modal concepts.