1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910779130103321

Autore

Feiner Shmuel

Titolo

Moses Mendelssohn [[electronic resource] ] : sage of modernity / / Shmuel Feiner ; translated from the Hebrew by Anthony Berris

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven [Conn.], : Yale University Press, c2010

ISBN

0-300-16752-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (224 p.)

Collana

Jewish lives

Altri autori (Persone)

BerrisAnthony

Disciplina

193

B

Soggetti

Philosophers - Germany - Berlin

Jews - Germany - Berlin

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

A stroll down Unter den Linden -- From Dessau to Berlin: an unpredicted career -- Cultural conversion: the three formative years -- War and peace, love and family, fame and frustration -- Affront and sickness: the Lavater Affair -- Dreams, nightmares, and struggles for religious tolerance -- Jerusalem: the road to civic happiness -- Specters: the last two years.

Sommario/riassunto

The "German Socrates," Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was the most influential Jewish thinker of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A Berlin celebrity and a major figure in the Enlightenment, revered by Immanuel Kant, Mendelssohn suffered the indignities common to Jews of his time while formulating the philosophical foundations of a modern Judaism suited for a new age. His most influential books included the groundbreaking Jerusalem and a translation of the Bible into German that paved the way for generations of Jews to master the language of the larger culture.Feiner's book is the first that offers a full, human portrait of this fascinating man-uncommonly modest, acutely aware of his task as an intellectual pioneer, shrewd, traditionally Jewish, yet thoroughly conversant with the world around him-providing a vivid sense of Mendelssohn's daily life as well as of his philosophical endeavors. Feiner, a leading scholar of Jewish intellectual history, examines Mendelssohn as father and husband, as a friend (Mendelssohn's long-standing friendship with the German dramatist



Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was seen as a model for Jews and non-Jews worldwide), as a tireless advocate for his people, and as an equally indefatigable spokesman for the paramount importance of intellectual independence.