Download Free Lessing And The Enlightenment Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Lessing And The Enlightenment and write the review.

A comprehensive study of Lessing’s religious thought. Although only one aspect of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s diverse oeuvre, his religious thought had a significant influence on thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and present-day liberal Protestant theologians. His thought is particularly difficult to assess, however, because it is found largely in a series of essays, reviews, critical studies, polemical writings, and commentary on theological texts. Beyond these, his correspondence, and a few fragmentary essays unpublished during his lifetime, we have his famous drama of religious toleration, Nathan the Wise, and his philosophical-historical sketch, The Education of the Human Race. In these scattered texts, Lessing challenged the full range of theological views in the Enlightenment, from Protestant orthodoxy, with its belief in Biblical inerrancy, to a radical naturalism, which rejected both the concept of a divine revelation and the historically based claims of Christianity to be one, as well as virtually everything in between. Since he refused to identify himself with any of these parties, Lessing was an enigmatic figure, and a central question from his time to today is where he stood on the issue of the truth of the Christian religion. Now back in print, and with the addition of two supplementary essays, Henry E. Allison’s book argues that, despite appearances, Lessing was not merely an eclectic thinker or intellectual provocateur, but a serious philosopher of religion, who combined a basically Spinozistic conception of God with a sophisticated pluralistic conception of religious truth inspired by Leibniz.
This essay collection grew out of a Hofstra University conference on the life, works, and influence of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the eighteenth-century German playwright, critic, and philosopher who essentially established a new national literature in Germany during the Enlightenment. The volume is divided into two main sections, in which various scholars confront and reevaluate two contrasting aspects of Lessing's character; the irrational poet and the rational thinker. In the first section, Lessing's aesthetics are discussed. His link to English literature, as well as his influence upon the then emerging novel, are the subject of special consideration here. In the second section, Lessing's philosophical connection to traditions such as utopianism, classical republicanism, and eighteen-century humanism is discussed. Also considered are Lessing's intellectual connections with Rumanian literature; feminist and other ideological interpretations of his works; and his relation to some of his contemporaries. An introductory article stresses current and future trends in Lessing scholarhip.
One of the most independent thinkers in German intellectual history, the Enlightenment author Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) contributed in decisive and lasting fashion to literature, philosophy, theology, criticism, and drama theory. Lessing invented the brgerliches Trauerspiel (bourgeois tragedy) and wrote one of the first successful German tragedies as well as one of the finest German comedies. In his final dramatic masterpiece, Nathan der Weise, he writes of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, of religious tolerance and intolerance and the clash of civilizations. Lessing's dramas are the oldest German theater pieces still regularly performed (both in Germany and internationally), and both his plays and his drama theory have influenced such writers as Goethe, Schiller, Hebbel, Hauptmann, Ibsen, Strindberg, Schnitzler, and Brecht. Addressing an audience ranging from graduate students to seasoned scholars, this volume introduces Lessing's life and times and places him within the broader context of the European Enlightenment. It discusses his pathbreaking dramas, his equally revolutionary theoretical, critical, and aesthetic writings, his original fables, his innovative work in philosophy and theology, and his significant contributions to Jewish emancipation. The volume concludes by examining 20th-century reception of Lessing and his oeuvre. Contributors: Barbara Fischer, Thomas C. Fox, Steven D. Martinson, Klaus L. Berghahn, John Pizer, Beate Allert, H. B. Nisbet, Arno Schilson, Willi Goetschel, Peter Hyng, Karin A. Wurst, Ann Schmiesing, Reinhart Meyer, Hans-Joachim Kertscher, Hinrich C. Seeba, Dieter Fratzke, Helmut Berthold, Herbert Rowland. Barbara Fischer is associateprofessor of German and Thomas C. Fox is professor of German, both at the University of Alabama.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing first published Laokoon, oder uber die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (Laocoon, or on the Limits of Painting and Poetry) in 1766. Over the last 250 years, Lessing's essay has exerted an incalculable influence on western critical thinking. Not only has it directed the history of post-Enlightenment aesthetics, it has also shaped the very practices of 'poetry' and 'painting' in a myriad of different ways. In this anthology of specially commissioned chapters - comprising the first ever edited book on the Laocoon in English - a range of leading critical voices has been brought together to reassess Lessing's essay on its 250th anniversary. Combining perspectives from multiple disciplines (including classics, intellectual history, philosophy, aesthetics, media studies, comparative literature, and art history), the book explores the Laocoon from a plethora of critical angles. Chapters discuss Lessing's interpretation of ancient art and poetry, the cultural backdrops of the eighteenth century, and the validity of the Laocoon's observations in the fields of aesthetics, semiotics, and philosophy. The volume shows how the Laocoon exploits Greek and Roman models to sketch the proper spatial and temporal 'limits' (Grenzen) of what Lessing called 'poetry' and 'painting'; at the same time it demonstrates how Lessing's essay is embedded within Enlightenment theories of art, perception, and historical interpretation, as well as within nascent eighteenth-century ideas about the 'scientific' study of Classical antiquity (Altertumswissenschaft). To engage critically with the Laocoon, and to make sense of its legacy over the last 250 years, consequently involves excavating various 'classical presences': by looking back to the Graeco-Roman past, the volume demonstrates, Lessing forged a whole new tradition of modern aesthetics.
Moses Mendelssohn, the author of numerous works on natural theology and ethics, was also the first modern philosopher of Judaism. This book places Mendelssohn's thought within the context of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school, the writings of Kant and Lessing and other major figures of the Enlightenment, and within the age-old tradition of Jewish rationalism. More than any previous treatment of this subject, it questions the extent to which Mendelssohn truly succeeded in reconciling his allegiance to the philosophy of the Enlightenment with his adherence to Judaism.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is the most representative figure of the German Enlightenment. His defense of Spinoza, who had traditionally been condemned as an atheist, provoked a major controversy in philosophy, and his publication of Reimarus' radical assault on Christianity led to fundamental changes in Protestant theology. This volume presents the most comprehensive collection in English of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings, several of which are translated for the first time.
Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Alan Charles Kors / Just and Arbitrary Authority in Enlightenment Thought -- 2. Richard Kennington / Bacon's Reform of Nature -- 3. Pamela Kraus / Method and Metaphysics: The Foundation of Philosophy in the Discourse on Method -- 4. Robert P. Kraynak / Hobbes and the Dogmatism of the Enlightenment -- 5. John C. Mccarthy / Pascal on Certainty and Utility -- 6. Paul J. Bagley / Spinoza, Biblical Criticism, and the Enlightenment -- 7. Philippe Raynaud / Leibniz, Reason -- and Evil -- 8. F.J. Crosson / Hume's Unnatural Religion (Some Humean Footnotes) -- 9. Terence E. Marshall / Poetry and Praxis in Rousseau's Emile: Human Rights and the Sentiment of Humanity -- 10. Kenneth L. Schmitz / Lessing at God's Left Hand -- 11. John R. Silber / Kant and the Mythic Roots of Morality -- 12. Nicholas Capaldi / The Enlightenment Project in Twentieth-Century Philosophy -- Contributors -- Bibliography -- Index
One of the urgent tasks of modern philosophy is to find a path between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the relativism of postmodernism. Rationalism alone cannot suffice to solve today's problems, but neither can we dispense with reasonable critique. The task is to find ways to broaden the scope of rational thought without losing its critical power. The first part of this volume explores the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers and shows nuances often absent from the common view of the Enlightenment. The second part deals with some of the modern heirs of Enlightenment, such as Durkheim, Habermas, and Derrida. In the third part this volume looks at alternatives to Enlightenment thought in West European, Russian and Buddhist philosophy. Part four provides, over against the Enlightenment, a new starting point for the philosophy of religion in thinking about human beings, God, and the description of phenomena.
Inspired by Voltaire’s advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century authors, from the most famous philosophers of the age to those whose brilliant writings are less well-known. These passages are immensely diverse in style and topic, but all have in common a passionate commitment to equality, freedom, and tolerance. Each text resonates powerfully with the issues our world faces today. Tolerance was first published by the Société française d’étude du dix-huitième siècle (the French Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in January 2015 as an act of solidarity and as a response to the surge of interest in Enlightenment values. With the support of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, it has now been translated by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University.