Moses Mendelssohn on Spinoza

Pätzold, Detlev

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2451-8_6

Detlev Pätzold²

Part of the book series: Studies in German Idealism ((SIGI,volume 13))

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Abstract

Two philosophical events spoilt Moses Mendelssohn’s last years and the second of these is supposed to have even caused his death.

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Notes

1.
Cf. frequently Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), 592, 609, 702–4.
2.
In Morgenstunden (1785), Mendelssohn points out he had not sufficiently studied the metaphysical works of Kant (“des alles zermalmenden Kants”; Moses Mendelssohn, vol. 3.2 of Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1929–; Stuttgart/Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1974], 3; hereafter cited as JubA) and others, like Lambert, Tetens, and Platner, in their original form. But this has to be doubted; cf. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 673–75. His comment on the state of his own knowledge as that of 1775, refers to his acceptance but not his study of the developments in recent philosophy. At that time he had felt urged to turn away from those developments. And despite of this, in a letter to Kant he writes of all his best efforts to fully comprehend Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781) at the date of April 10, 1783.
3.
Cf. Herrn Christian Wolfs Widerlegung der B.v.S. Sittenlehre aus dem andern Theile seiner natürlichen Gottesgelahrtheit genommen (1744), in: Christian Wolff, Gesammelte Werke, Materialien und Dokumente, vol. 15, ed. Jean École et al. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1981), part 3, 3–128.
4.
JubA 3.2: 5. Moses Mendelssohn, Morning Hours: Lectures on God’s Existence, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom and Corey Dyck (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), xx.
5.
Immanuel Kant, “Was heißt: Sich im Denken orientieren?” in Gesammelte Schriften. Akademie Ausgabe, vol. 8 (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1900–; Berlin/Leipzig: De Gruyter, 1968–), 131–47. Hereafter cited as AA and volume, followed by colon and page number.
6.
Some examples from the last four decades are: Alexander Altmann, “Lessing und Jacobi: Das Gespräch über den Spinozismus,” in Die trostvolle Aufklärung. Studien zur Metaphysik und politischen Theorie Moses Mendelssohns (Stuttgart etc.: Frommann-Holzboog, 1982); Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 593–744; Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 44–126; David Bell, Spinoza in Germany from 1670 to the Age of Goethe (London: University of London, 1984); Kurt Christ, Jacobi und Mendelssohn: eine Analyse des Spinozastreits (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1988); Willi Goetschel, Spinoza’s Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 170–80; Rüdiger Otto, Studien zur Spinozarezeption in Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt: Lang, 1994), 173–298; Detlev Pätzold, Spinoza, Aufklärung, Idealismus: die Substanz der Moderne, 2nd ed. (Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2002), 80–113.
7.
Cf. Alexander Altmann, “Moses Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” in Die trostvolle Aufklärung. The frame of reference here is restricted to Gespräche and the later correspondence with Lessing on the topic from 1763, though.
8.
Cf. the postscript to the reprint from Verzeichniß der auserlesenen Büchersammlung des seeligen Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, ed. Hermann Meyer (Berlin: F. A. Brockhaus, 1926), 2: “Die vorstehenden Blätter erhalten in getreuer Reproduktion das Verzeichnis der Bücher, die Moses Mendelssohn hinterlassen hat. Aus den Erzählungen seiner Freunde kennen wir die als Studierzimmer eingerichtete Mansarde, in der der größte Teil dieser Bibliothek aufgestellt war, während einige besonders erlesene Werke in seinem Kantor zwischen Warenproben und Kassenbüchern ihren Platz gefunden hatten; aber leider ist uns über Verbleib und Schicksal der Sammlung nichts bekannt geworden.”
9.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 16, no. 253.
10.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 17, no. 282.
11.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 3, nos. 43–45.
12.
As can be concluded from the quotations in Gespräche, according to Altmann, “Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” 34n32. See note 7 above.
13.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 44, no. 500.
14.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 52, no. 651.
15.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 7, nos. 7–8.
16.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 38, no. 336.
17.
The same line of argumentation is already employed in Mendelssohn’s and Lessing’s first common writing Pope ein Metaphysiker (1755); cf. Pätzold, Spinoza, Aufklärung, Idealismus, 90–92.
18.
Cf. Fritz Bamberger, introduction to Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsgausgabe, by Moses Mendelssohn (Stuttgart/Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1971–), JubA 1:xxi–xxiii; Altmann, “Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” 35–36. A documentation of the controversy can be found in Mendelssohn’s library: Ausführlicher Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der wolfischen Philosophie herausgegeben von Ludovici. Leibzig 1738; cf. Verzeichniß, 34, no. 286.
19.
Only a few years after Mendelssohn’s death the controversy was revived in the context of Heinrich Heydenreich’s defence of Jacobi’s position against Mendelssohn in Natur und Gott nach Spinoza (1789); cf. Altmann, “Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” 44–46.
20.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, in Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 97; JubA 1:4, 338. The second page of JubA 1 refers to (almost) identical phrases in the later edition (1771).
21.
For Mendelssohn’s undated letter to Lessing see JubA 12.1:9–14.
22.
Cf. his letter to Mendelssohn from April 17, 1763; JubA 12.1:5–8.
23.
The thesis Mendelssohn presents in 1755 is rather developmental than doctrinary. This has been pointed out earlier (cf. Pätzold, Spinoza, Aufklärung, Idealismus, 28 [1995: 44]). Another affirmation can be seen in the fact that Mendelssohn did not revise his view, despite Lessing’s modified opinion on this issue.
24.
Most of the extensions and specifications Mendelssohn introduces in the later editions refer to his presentation of Leibniz’ philosophy. Those of relevance and referring to Spinoza will be considered at the end of each section respectively.
25.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 100; JubA 1:7, 341.
26.
Cf. G.W. Leibniz, Eclaircissement des difficultés que Monsieur Bayle a trouvées dans Le Systeme Nouveau de L’Union de L’Ame et de Corps (1696), in Kleine Schriften zur Metaphysik, ed. H. H. Holz et al. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1959–1992), 252–70. Addition (1696), ibid., 271–318, could also be considered.
27.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 102; JubA 1:9, 343.
28.
Cf. Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 103; JubA 1:10, 345; Verzeichniß, 3, nos. 43–45.
29.
Cf. Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 100–101, 103; JubA 1:7, 342; 8, 343; 10, 345.
30.
See his conclusion in Altmann, “Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” 48. Here he agrees with the later interpretations of Lessing, Jacobi, and Heydenreich and writes about Mendelssohn: “Mendelssohn’s thesis has, therefore, no locus standi.”
31.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 100; JubA 1:7, 342.
32.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 100–101; JubA 1:7–8, 342; cf. Ethica 3, prop. 2, schol.
33.
Cf. Detlev Pätzold, “Spinoza’s lof van het lichaam,” in Spinoza: zijn boeken en zijn denken, ed. Alex C. Klugkist and Jacob van Sluis (Voorschoten: Uitgeverij Spinozahuis, 2010), 63–66.
34.
Cf. Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 107; JubA 1:15, 350: “For example, the concept Spinoza appears to make for himself of extension was contested by Bayle with sound reasons, and he showed adequately that extension could not possibly be regarded as an infinite property of God.” This issue has already been discussed with some controversy at quite an early stage in Leibniz’ correspondence with Clarke by reason of Newton’s remark, that the absolute infinite space could as well be seen as the “Sensorium of God”; cf. Henry G. Alexander, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence: together with Extracts from Newton’s Principia and Opticks (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1998).
35.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 101; JubA 1:8, 342; cf. Ethica 3, prop. 3.
36.
Cf. Dialogues, 101–2; JubA 1:9, 343.
37.
JubA 1:10. In the 1771 edition it reads: “I content myself for the present with showing you that Spinoza must very well have thought of the difficulty that you touched on. The experience that the succession of our thoughts is interrupted by sensuous sentiments is too common for a philosopher to have been able to overlook it. In the seventh...” Dialogues, 103; JubA 1:345.
38.
Dialogues, 103; cf. JubA 1:10, 344. Only the 1755 edition has “even.”
39.
Cf. Dialogues, 102; JubA 1:344.
40.
Dialogues, 103; JubA 1:345–46.
41.
Cf. Altmann, “Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” 29.
42.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 106; JubA 1:14, 349.
43.
Dialogues, 107; JubA 1:15, 350.
44.
Dialogues, 108; JubA 1:16, 351.
45.
Cf. Ethica 1, def. 6; ibid., 2, prop. 1, 2.; ibid., 1, def. 2; ibid., 1, prop. 23; ibid., 1, prop. 16.
46.
Cf. Pierre Bayle, Historisches und Critisches Wörterbuch. Nach der neuesten Auflage von 1740 ins Deutsche übersetzt; auch mit einer Vorrede und verschiedenen Anmerkungen versehen von Johann Christoph Gottsched, vierter und letzter Theil O – Z. Leipzig 1744, originally published 1695–1697, repr. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1974), 4:268–69. For Mendelssohn see note 34 above.
47.
JubA 1:17. A part of this passage is changed in the 1771 edition: “... and all visible things were not subsisting for themselves, up to this hour, outside God, but instead were still and always to be found in the divine intellect alone,” Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 108; JubA 1:352.
48.
Neither Ethica 1, prop. 15, which only claims the causal dependence of the “modi” on the divine substance (this is the meaning of “in esse”!), nor the mentioning of “causa immanens” in prop. 18 can be of any support for this assumption. Many of Spinoza’s remarks, though, give evidence of the very antithesis; e.g., Ethica 1, prop. 16, 25, 28, 29, 33.
49.
Mendelssohn, Dialogues, 110–11; JubA 1:19, 354–55. The 1771 edition has “indifference” instead of “aequilibrium.”
50.
Dialogues, 110; JubA 1:354.
51.
Cf. JubA 1:26–27, 363.
52.
Dialogues, 106; JubA 1:14, 349.
53.
Dialogues, 108; JubA 1:17, 352; cf. Dialogues, 103; JubA 1:10, 344: “[Neophil] many of Spinoza’s views can coexist with true philosophy and (even) with religion.”
54.
In his last writing, An die Freunde Lessings, Mendelssohn is completely clear about Spinoza’s philosophy of religion, i.e., “daß Spinoza, seiner spekulativen Lehre ungeachtet, ein orthodoxer Jude hätte bleiben können, wenn er nicht in andern Schriften das ächte Judenthum bestritten, und sich dadurch dem Gesetze entzogen hätte. Die Lehre des Spinoza kömmt dem Judenthume offenbar weit näher, als die orthodoxe Lehre der Christen,” JubA 3.2:188. Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico politicus Mendelssohn obviously hints at, was published not before 1670, though; many years after his banishment from the Jewish community.
55.
JubA 12.1:11–12.
56.
JubA 12.1:12.
57.
Cf. JubA 12.1:12.
58.
JubA 12.1:13.
59.
JubA 12.1:13.
60.
Cf. JubA 12.1:8, 13. Mendelssohn tries to bridge the gap between Spinoza and Leibniz in the following way: “Da nun die Seele [according to Leibniz] sich die Welt, (alle Veränderungen, die in den einfachen Dingen [simple substances or monads] vorgehen,) nach der Lage ihres Körpers in derselben vorstellet, (das heißt beym Spinoza, da der Körper das Objekt der Seele ist,) und da der Körper selbst nichts anders ist, als der Inbegriff der Veränderungen, die in gewissen einfachen Dingen vorgehen, und die ich als Erscheinungen wahrnehme; so muß freylich die Reihe der Erscheinungen mit der Reihe der Realitäten, das heißt die Bewegungen des Leibes mit den Begriffen der Seele harmoniren. – ” (JubA 12.1:14). See Altmann’s criticism in: Altmann, “Moses Mendelssohn on Leibniz and Spinoza,” 44.
61.
Cf. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 603–712, 729–53. Leo Strauss pioneerd in this field, but on many a detail he took a view that differed from Altmann’s later accounts; cf. Strauss, “Einleitung zu Morgenstunden und An die Freunde Lessings,” JubA 3.2:vii–cx.
62.
Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, xx; JubA 3.2:4.
63.
For further details see Goetschel, Spinoza’s Modernity, 170–80.
64.
Cf. Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, 83–84, 88–89; JubA 3.2: 115–16, 122–24.
65.
Cf. Verzeichniß, 38, no. 336 and 44, no. 500.
66.
Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, 76; JubA 3.2:106.
67.
Morning Hours, 77; JubA 3.2:106–7.
68.
Morning Hours, 77; JubA 3.2:107.
69.
These are letters (on Opera posthuma and known to Mendelssohn) from Tschirnhaus of May 2, 1676 and of June 23, 1676, as well as Spinoza’s replies of May 5, 1676 and of July 15, 1676, which might well have been disappointing; for further details see Pätzold, Spinoza, Aufklärung, Idealismus, 69–70.
70.
Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, 78; JubA 3.2:108.
71.
Morning Hours, 79; JubA 3.2:109.
72.
Cf. the short version in Monadology §§ 87–90, in G.W. Leibniz, Kleine Schriften zur Metaphysik, 478–83.
73.
Cf. Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, 79–81; JubA 3.2:112–13; for Herder see: Detlev Pätzold, “Deus sive Natura. J.G. Herder’s romanticised reading of Spinoza,” in The Book of Nature in Early Modern and Modern History, ed. K. van Berkel and A. Vanderjagt, (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 162–66.
74.
Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, 81; JubA 3.2:113.
75.
JubA 3.2:186.
76.
JubA 3.2:188.
77.
The best example of his rhetorical brilliance is: JubA 3.2:209.
78.
Cf. the chivalrous note in his accompanying letter to Jacobi of August 1, 1784: JubA 13:216–17.
79.
Cf. the reference to Wolff: JubA 3.2:206–7.
80.
JubA 3.2:200–201.
81.
Cf. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Über die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, in Schriften zum Spinozastreit, vol. 1.1 of Werke, ed. Klaus Hammacher and Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Meiner, 1998), 20.
82.
JubA 3.2:204–6.
83.
JubA 3.2:202. Cf. Ethica 1, prop. 21, 22, 23, 29; and above all axioma 3.
84.
Cf. JubA 3.2:202.
85.
JubA 3.2:204.
86.
Cf. Pätzold, Spinoza, Aufklärung, Idealismus, 37–57.

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Pätzold, D. (2011). Moses Mendelssohn on Spinoza. In: Munk, R. (eds) Moses Mendelssohn's Metaphysics and Aesthetics. Studies in German Idealism, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2451-8_6

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