In existographies, Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) (IQ:165|#450) (Cattell 1000:404) [RGM:944|1,360+] was a German-Jewish philosopher, aka "modern Plato" (Cox, 1926) or "German Socrates" (Hecht, 2003), noted for []
Education
In 1742, Mendelssohn, age 13, read Maimonides’s Guide for he Perplexed (1190), a book banned, by the Jewish community, to anyone under 25.
Family
Mendelssohn educated his three daughters: Brendel, Recha, and Henriette, in philosophy, literature, mathematics, and religion; among these, Brendel, who changed her name to Dorothea, was known for her "forthright manner and staggering erudition" (Mercer-Taylor, 2000), ran one of Germany's central enlightenment salons, and acquired Friedrich Schlegel in her second marriage.
Moses Mendelssohn’s grandson is Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) (Ѻ) (IQ:165|#325), the noted Romantic period composer, pianist, and conductor.
Pantheism | Atheism
Mendelssohn died in the wake of the so-called “pantheism controversy”, and event in German history lasting between 1785-1789, on whether the late Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) (Ѻ), a confessed “Spinozist philosopher”, was a pantheist or an atheist.
Mendelssohn, in short, met a stress-induced reaction end when, in circa 1785, he was ruminating on the idea of writing an existography on his friend Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) (Ѻ), and avowed Spinozist, whom he believed this meant that he a pantheist, in specifics, and that pantheism, meant theism, which he considered the same thing. [1]
Friedrich Jacobi, however, maintained that Lessing was a Spinozist in the sense of being a pure materialism atheist.
Mendelssohn was thus drawn into a poisonous literary controversy, and found himself attacked from all sides, including former friends or acquaintances such as Johann Herder and Johann Hamann.
He died (dereacted) four days after carrying a reply manuscript, entitled To Lessing’s Friends to the publishers.
Quotes | On
The following are quotes on or related to Mendelssohn:
“A bad philosopher who is a bad Catholic, hereby begs a philosopher who is a bad Protestant, to grant a favor to a philosopher who is a bad Jew. There is too much philosophy in all this for reason not to side with my request.”
— Marquis d’Argens (c.1750), “Letter to Frederick II” [2]
“Never have I seen such great wine in such an ugly vessel.”
— Frederick the Great (c.1755) (Ѻ)
“You may remain faithful to an oppressed, persecuted religion, you may leave it to your children as a prospect of life-long martyrdom, as long as you believe it to be absolute truth. But when you have ceased to believe that, it is barbarism.”
— Jacob Bartholdy (c.1800) (Ѻ), comment (Ѻ) to Abraham Mendelssohn (son of Moses Mendelssohn) on religious conversion [6]
Quotes | By
The following are quotes by Mendelssohn:
“Let Plutarch and Bayle inquire ever so much whether a state might not be better off with atheism than with superstition. The state should take notice of this, but only from a distance.”
— Moses Mendelssohn (1783), Jerusalem: On Religious Power and Judaism [3]
“Happy will they be if in the year 2240 they cease to act against them.”
— Moses Mendelssohn (1783), Jerusalem: On Religious Power and Judaism
References
1. Pantheism controversy – Wikipedia.
2. (a) Mercer-Taylor, Peter. (2000). The Life of Mendelssohn (pg. 8). Cambridge University Press.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 363). HarperOne.
3. (a) Mendelssohn, Moses. (1783). Jerusalem: On Religious Power and Judaism (pg. 63) (translator: Allan Arkush; Introduction and comment: Alexander Altamann). Brandeis University Press, 1983.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 364). HarperOne.
4. (a) Mercer-Taylor, Peter. (2000). The Life of Mendelssohn (pg. 16). Cambridge University Press.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 373-74). HarperOne.
5. (a) Mercer-Taylor, Peter. (2000). The Life of Mendelssohn (pg. 16). Cambridge University Press.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 373-74). HarperOne.
6. Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 375). HarperOne.
Further reading
● Cox, Catharine. (1926). Genetic Studies of Genius. Volume II. The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses (GB) (Arc) (pdf) (pg. 589-). Stanford University Press.
External links
● Moses Mendelssohn – Wikipedia.
