Skepticism and Tolerance: Moses Mendelssohn, Salomon Maimon, and Jewish Enlightenment Thought
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Humanities/Philosophies".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2024) | Viewed by 13800
Special Issue Editors
Interests: history of Jewish Religion and Theology; Jewish Pedagogics; Jewish sources of German Idealism
Interests: contemporary Jewish philosophy; philosophy of language; German-Jewish Thought; anarchism and gender studies
Interests: modern Jewish thought and philosophy; German Jewish thought and culture
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) and Salomon Maimon (1753–1800) played a significant role in both the German and Jewish Enlightenments. Both valued rational autonomy and sought to rethink Judaism in modern terms. Topics of major debate during the Enlightenment such as religion, skepticism, language, Bildung, and tolerance, were at the center of their reflections and both embodied enlightened cosmopolitanism and the complex encounter between German and Jewish culture. However, despite their common commitment to Enlightenment, their philosophical outlooks were largely opposed. Where Mendelssohn’s philosophy was balanced and tolerant, Maimon’s was radical and iconoclastic. Mendelssohn embraced a theism predicated on common sense, whereas Maimon was a metaphysical skeptic.
Skepticism and tolerance are defining themes of Maimon’s and Mendelssohn’s intellectual projects. In exploring these themes, this issue will highlight the complexities and ambiguities of the Jewish Enlightenment. The tension between religion and philosophy, revelation and reason, religious authority and rational autonomy and tradition and progress will be explored.
We welcome papers that deal with topics such as:
- Certainty, common sense and skepticism in metaphysics, ethics and politics;
- Revealed vs. natural religion;
- Philosophical readings of Hebrew scripture and rabbinic literature;
- Tolerance, pluralism, and the Other;
- Bildung and self-cultivation;
- German–Jewish symbiosis and the ideals of the Enlightenment;
- The impact and afterlife of Mendelssohn’s and Maimon’s undertakings.
The editors would like to express their gratitude to the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies (MCAS)—Jewish Skepticism at the University of Hamburg, supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), as much of the research and many of the discussions that shaped this Special Issue would not have been possible without the intellectual exchange and supportive environment provided by MCAS.
Dr. Ze’ev Strauss
Dr. Libera Pisano
Dr. Michah Gottlieb
Dr. José María Sánchez de León Serrano
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- Judaism
- Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah)
- Skepticism
- Tolerance
- Education (Bildung)
- Exegesis
- German Enlightenment
- Religion
- Philosophy
- Reason
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