{"title":"Mendelssohn, Kant, and Enlightenment","authors":"P. Guyer","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter contrasts the two philosophers’ 1784 essays on the question “What is Enlightenment?” True to his faith in theoretical reason, Mendelssohn interprets enlightenment as growth in knowledge, while true to his own faith in practical reason Kant interprets it more as moral maturity, willingness to take responsibility, especially in politics, rather than being passively led by external authority. Next the dispute between Mendelssohn and F.H. Jacobi over whether reason can prove the existence of God or it can be believed only by a leap of faith is examined, and Kant’s intervention in his essay “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thought?,” published in 1786 after the death of Mendelssohn, is then considered: Kant takes the side of reason in this dispute, but only of practical reason.","PeriodicalId":320962,"journal":{"name":"Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122662360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proofs of the Existence of God in the Critique of Pure Reason and Morning Hours","authors":"P. Guyer","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines Kant’s continued criticism of the classical arguments for the existence of God in the Critique of Pure Reason and his critique of his own earlier new argument for God as the ground of all possibility. Kant’s conclusion is that belief in the existence of God must be defended on practical rather than theoretical grounds. In Morning Hours Mendelssohn defended the ontological and cosmological arguments and added a new argument from the incompleteness of human knowledge. Mendelssohn does not accept Kant’s argument for belief in God on moral grounds only but instead adopts a pragmatic position that we have no choice but to rely on the results of the unimpaired use of our own cognitive powers.","PeriodicalId":320962,"journal":{"name":"Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128068436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Freedom of Religion in Mendelssohn and Kant","authors":"P. Guyer","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter compares the two philosophers’ great arguments for separation of church and state. Mendelssohn’s argument is contained in Part I of his 1783 Jerusalem. He holds that the state and any church employ two different means to the same end, human happiness, and that the state’s coercive methods have no place in religious practice. His argument is based on the religious premise that God is pleased only by the free rather than forced convictions of humans. Kant does not treat the separation of church and state in his 1793 Religion at all, because for him religious liberty is an immediate consequence of every human’s innate right to freedom, which is both the objective but also the limit of all state power. Religious liberty can therefore be treated from a purely political point of view, as Kant does in his 1797 Doctrine of Right.","PeriodicalId":320962,"journal":{"name":"Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124182025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mendelssohn, Kant, and Proofs of the Existence of God in Kant’s Pre-Critical Period","authors":"P. Guyer","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reviews Mendelssohn’s early defense of the ontological and cosmological arguments for the existence of God, then examines Kant’s criticism of those arguments, especially in his 1763 book Only Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God and his attempt at a new proof of the existence of God as the ground of all possibility rather than actuality. The chapter then examines Mendelssohn’s critique of Kant’s new argument and defense of his own position in a review of Kant’s book.","PeriodicalId":320962,"journal":{"name":"Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant","volume":"475 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133912472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Kant’s Aesthetics","authors":"P. Guyer","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Kant transforms Mendelssohn’s theory of mental activities in aesthetic experience into his own central idea of the free play of imagination and understanding, and builds his analysis of aesthetic experience and judgments of taste on this basis. Kant organizes his theory of fine art around the concept of genius, which incorporates some elements of Mendelssohn’s account of human artistry and Charles Batteux’s theory of artistic expression, and tacitly accepts Mendelssohn’s distinction between our response to the merits of an artistic representation and to those of what it represents.","PeriodicalId":320962,"journal":{"name":"Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124138400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Judaism, Christianity, and the Religion of Pure Reason","authors":"P. Guyer","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198850335.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reads Kant’s Religion as a response to Part II of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem. Mendelssohn had argued that different peoples can have different ways of practicing the common religion of reason, and that the commandments of Judaism are intended only as occasions for reflection, valid for Jews, on these truths, while other religions can get at them in different ways. In the first two parts of his Religion, Kant argued that the central ideas of Christianity are uniquely well-suited as symbols of the religion of reason, and he further argued in Part III of the book that morality requires a single church of practitioners. However, he then argued that this church must be “invisible” and ultimately transcend all scriptural religion. Mendelssohn’s insistence on the acceptance of religious diversity seems more plausible than Kant’s confidence in the ultimate transcendence of all visible churches.","PeriodicalId":320962,"journal":{"name":"Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114597387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}