The radical enlightenment of Solomon Maimon : Judaism, heresy, and philosophy
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The radical enlightenment of Solomon Maimon : Judaism, heresy, and philosophy
（Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture）
Stanford University Press, 2006
- : cloth
Available at / 2 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Bibliography: p. [213]-229
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
With extraordinary chutzpa and deep philosophical seriousness, Solomon ben Joshua of Lithuania renamed himself after his medieval intellectual hero, Moses Maimonides. Maimon was perhaps the most brilliant and certainly the most controversial figure of the late-eighteenth century Jewish Enlightenment. He scandalized rabbinic authorities, embarrassed Moses Mendelssohn, provoked Kant, charmed Goethe, and inspired Fichte, among others. This is the first study of Maimon to integrate his idiosyncratic philosophical idealism with his popular autobiography, and with his early unpublished exegetical, mystical, and Maimonidean work in Hebrew. In doing so, it illuminates the intellectual and spiritual possibilities open to a European Jew at the turn of the eighteenth century.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents Preface & Acknowledgements Introduction Solomon Maimon Maimon introduced in mid-career. Themes, methods and scope of study exemplified and described. Maimon's literary and intellectual style. Chapter 1 Maimon's Life & "Life History" Maimon's life and the light it sheds on 18th Century Judaism, including Lithuanian Rabbinic culture, Hasidism, and Haskala. Maimon's relationships with Mendelssohn, the Maggid of Miedzerycz and others. Accounts of Maimon's final years. A heretic's burial. Chapter 2 Maimon's Medieval Desire: The Hesheq Shelomo Interpretation of Maimon's first (unpublished) collection of Hebrew writings. Revision of standard accounts of the place of medieval philosophy and Kabbala in early modern Judaism. Medieval and early modern "discourse of perfection" defined and discussed. Chapter 3 German Idealism in a Maimonidean Key Maimon's Kantian interpretation of Maimonides and his Maimonidean Interpretation of Kant. Answer to the question "What is Haskala?" New light on Maimonidean-Averroist doctrine as sources for Maimon's influential Idealism. Conflicting cultural ideals: Maimonidean intellectual perfection and German Bildung. Chapter 4 From Shelomo ben Yehoshua to Solomon Maimon A reinterpretation of Maimon's autobiography: the discourse of perfection ironized, rabbinic style parodied, and Maimon's tales of Enlightenment. Solution to puzzling comic parable with which Maimon closes his autobiography. Chapter 5 The Literary Afterlife of Solomon Maimon Maimon as a home-grown Spinoza in the Jewish imagination, from Auerbach and Guenzberg to Singer and Potok. Colorful anecdotes, legends, literary depictions and forgeries. Attempts at philosophical and cultural recuperation. Chapter 7 Conclusion Cultural anxiety, literary irony and classical Hebrew thought as ingredients of Jewish modernity. Methodological and substantive value of case studies (intellectual micro-histories). Maimon's achievement and persistent appeal. Notes Bibliography INDEX
by "Nielsen BookData"
