Kant and Jakob Facing Mendelssohn’s New Proof for the Existence of God: A Case of Misunderstanding

Rogelio Rovira

doi:10.7203/REK.8.2.27511

Kant and Jakob Facing Mendelssohn’s New Proof for the Existence of God: A Case of Misunderstanding

Rogelio Rovira

Resumen

After an overview of Mendelssohn’s catalogue of proofs for the existence of God, a detailed analysis of his new and original proof from the imperfectness of our self-knowledge, set out in Morning Hours, is offered. Kant’s and his disciple Jakob’s criticisms are then stated. The former refers very briefly to the Mendelssohnian proof on two occasions. The latter, instead, scrutinises it thoroughly in his Examination of Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours. The main result of this confrontation is that Kant and Jakob fail to adequately assess the peculiarity and novelty of Mendelssohn’s proof since both thinkers interpret the proof as being based not so much on the imperfection of our self-knowledge as on the demands of our reason in thinking the possible and the actual.

Palabras clave

Moses Mendelssohn, Ludwig Heinrich Jakob, proofs for the existence of God, imperfection of self-knowledge, possibility, actuality

Texto completo:

PDF HTML

Referencias

Altmann, A., 1973. Moses Mendelssohn. A Biographical Study. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press.

Altmann, A., 1975. Moses Mendelssohn’s Proofs for the Existence of God. Mendelssohn-Studien, 2, pp. 9-29.

Atlas, D. N. 2019. What God Does Not Possess: Moses Mendelssohn’s Philosophy of Imperfection. Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy, 27, pp. 26-59.

Guyer, P., 2020. Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jakob, L. H., 1786. Prüfung der Mendelssohnschen Morgenstunden oder aller spekulativen Beweise für das Daseyn Gottes in Vorlesungen. Nebst einer Abhandlung von Herrn Professor Kant. Leipzig: Johann Samuel Heinseius.

Jonas, H., 1992. Vergangenheit und Wahrheit. Ein später Nachtrag zu den sogenannten Gottesbeweisen. In: Philosophische Untersuchungen und metaphysische Vermutungen. Frankfurt a. M.-Leipzig: Insel Verlag, pp. 173-189.

Kant, I., 1992. The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God. In: Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 107-201.

Kant, I., 1996. What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? Translated by A. W. Wood. In: Religion and Rational Theology. Translated and edited by A. W. Wood and G. Di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.

Kant, I., 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, I., 1999. Letter to Christian Gottfried Schütz, end of November 1785. In: Correspondence. Translated and edited by A. Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 237-239.

Kant, I. 2007. Some remarks on Ludwig Heinrich Jakob’s Examination of Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours. Translated by G. Zöller. In: Anthropology, History, and Education. Edited and translated by R. B. Louden and G. Zöller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176-181.

König, Ch., 2020. Mendelssohns Vermächtnis. Die bleibende Bedeutung der Gottesbeweise für die Vernunft nach Kant und Mendelssohn. In: Ch. König und B. Nonnenmacher (Hrsg.), Gott und Denken Zeitgenössische und klassische Positionen zu zentralen Fragen ihrer Verhältnisbestimmung. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020, pp. 89-131.

Mendelssohn, M., 1764a [orig. ed.]. Abhandlung über die Evidenz in Metaphysische Wissenschaften. In: Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1929– (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1971–), vol II, pp. 267-330. Edited by Fritz Bambergen and Leo Strauss.

Mendelssohn, M., 1764b [orig. ed.]. [Review of Kant’s The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God]. In: Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, ed. cit., vol. V/1, pp. 602-616. Edited by Eva J. Engel.

Mendelssohn, M., 1766 [orig. ed.]. [Review of Lambert’s New Organon]. In: Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, ed. cit., vol. V/2, pp. 31-64. Edited by Eva J. Engel.

Mendelssohn, M., 1778 [orig. ed.]. Das Dasein Gottes a priori erwiesen. (Published as enclosure to the letter to Daniel Schumann, Johann Bernhard Basedow and Marcus Herz, early May 1778). In: Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe. Briefwechsel, ed. cit., vol XII/2, pp. 117-119. Edited by Alexander Altmann.

Mendelssohn, M., 1785 [orig. ed.]. Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen über das Daseyn Gottes. In: Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, ed. cit., vol III/2, pp. 3-175. Edited by Leo Strauss.

Mendelssohn, M., 1997. On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences. In: Moses Mendelssohn, Philosophical Writings. Translated and edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 251-306.

Mendelssohn, M., 2011. Morning Hours. Lectures on God’s Existence. Translated by Daniel O. Dahlstrom and Corey Dyck. Amsterdam-New York: Springer.

Reinhold, K. L., 1790. Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie. Leipzig: Georg Joachim Göschen.

Rovira, R., 2017. Mendelssohn’s Refutation of Kant’s Critique of the Ontological Proof. Kant-Studien, 108(3), pp. 401-426.

Schütz, Ch. G., 1786. [Review of Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours]. Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 1 and 7 January, pp. 1-6 and 49-56. (Available online at http://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/receive/jportal_jparticle_00024056).

Spaemann, R., 2007. Die Vernünftigkeit des Glaubens an Gott. In: Der letzte Gottesbeweis. München: Pattloch Verlag, pp. 9-32.

Strauss, L., 2012. On Moses Mendelssohn. Translated and edited, with an interpretive essay, by M. D. Yaffe. Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press.