Toshimasa Yasukata
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195144949
- eISBN:
- 9780199834891
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195144945.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) is held in high esteem as one who marks the cutting edge of the German Enlightenment. He was the very first German to achieve a spiritually and intellectually ...
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Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) is held in high esteem as one who marks the cutting edge of the German Enlightenment. He was the very first German to achieve a spiritually and intellectually mature state of being, the hallmark of which is independent and responsible use of one's own reason. He also stands as a key figure in German intellectual history, a bridge joining Luther, Leibniz, and German idealism. Yet despite his well‐recognized importance in the history of thought, and despite a substantial body of in‐depth studies, Lessing as theologian or philosopher of religion remains an enigmatic figure. Even today, his theology or philosophy of religion is a subject of dispute. With regard to the genuine core of his theological or religious‐philosophical thought, researchers hold diametrically opposed interpretations. It is not without reason that scholars refer to the “riddle” or “mystery” of Lessing, a mystery that has proved intractable because of his reticence on the subject of the final conclusions of his intellectual project. Confronted with this perplexity in Lessing studies, this book seeks to resolve the enigma. On the basis of intensive study of the entire corpus of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings as well as the extensive secondary literature, it leads the reader into the systematic core of Lessing's highly elusive religious thought. From a detailed and thoroughgoing analysis of Lessing's developing position on Christianity and reason, there emerges a fresh image of Lessing as a creative modern mind, both shaped by and giving shape to the Christian heritage.Less
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) is held in high esteem as one who marks the cutting edge of the German Enlightenment. He was the very first German to achieve a spiritually and intellectually mature state of being, the hallmark of which is independent and responsible use of one's own reason. He also stands as a key figure in German intellectual history, a bridge joining Luther, Leibniz, and German idealism. Yet despite his well‐recognized importance in the history of thought, and despite a substantial body of in‐depth studies, Lessing as theologian or philosopher of religion remains an enigmatic figure. Even today, his theology or philosophy of religion is a subject of dispute. With regard to the genuine core of his theological or religious‐philosophical thought, researchers hold diametrically opposed interpretations. It is not without reason that scholars refer to the “riddle” or “mystery” of Lessing, a mystery that has proved intractable because of his reticence on the subject of the final conclusions of his intellectual project. Confronted with this perplexity in Lessing studies, this book seeks to resolve the enigma. On the basis of intensive study of the entire corpus of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings as well as the extensive secondary literature, it leads the reader into the systematic core of Lessing's highly elusive religious thought. From a detailed and thoroughgoing analysis of Lessing's developing position on Christianity and reason, there emerges a fresh image of Lessing as a creative modern mind, both shaped by and giving shape to the Christian heritage.
Frederick C. Beiser
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199573011
- eISBN:
- 9780191722202
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199573011.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, History of Philosophy
This chapter focuses on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who is considered as the last great thinker in the rationalist tradition of aesthetics. Lessing occupies a unique place in the rationalist tradition. ...
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This chapter focuses on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who is considered as the last great thinker in the rationalist tradition of aesthetics. Lessing occupies a unique place in the rationalist tradition. He was its single thinker to be not only a great aesthetician but also a great writer. No one else in this tradition combined so well critical reflection on the arts with the practice of them. Lessing's work as a dramatist shaped his aesthetic thought, which in turn altered the course of the rationalist tradition. Since he saw that writers need inspiration, Lessing became more sceptical of rules, and more appreciative of genius, than most of his predecessors and contemporaries.Less
This chapter focuses on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who is considered as the last great thinker in the rationalist tradition of aesthetics. Lessing occupies a unique place in the rationalist tradition. He was its single thinker to be not only a great aesthetician but also a great writer. No one else in this tradition combined so well critical reflection on the arts with the practice of them. Lessing's work as a dramatist shaped his aesthetic thought, which in turn altered the course of the rationalist tradition. Since he saw that writers need inspiration, Lessing became more sceptical of rules, and more appreciative of genius, than most of his predecessors and contemporaries.
Fania Oz-salzberger
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205197
- eISBN:
- 9780191676543
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205197.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the influence of Adam Ferguson's work on the religious philosophy of German philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It aims to determine which of Ferguson's books influenced ...
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This chapter examines the influence of Adam Ferguson's work on the religious philosophy of German philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It aims to determine which of Ferguson's books influenced Lessing. Some critics have suggested that it was Institutes of Moral Philosophy while others believed it was Essay on the History of Civil Society. This chapter also analyses the significance of the Fergusonian fingerprints which arguably appear in Lessing's Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts.Less
This chapter examines the influence of Adam Ferguson's work on the religious philosophy of German philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It aims to determine which of Ferguson's books influenced Lessing. Some critics have suggested that it was Institutes of Moral Philosophy while others believed it was Essay on the History of Civil Society. This chapter also analyses the significance of the Fergusonian fingerprints which arguably appear in Lessing's Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts.
Paul Fleming
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804758901
- eISBN:
- 9780804769983
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804758901.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Following Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's analysis of art's increasing difficulty to both engage and extricate itself from prosaic reality, this book investigates the strategies employed by German ...
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Following Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's analysis of art's increasing difficulty to both engage and extricate itself from prosaic reality, this book investigates the strategies employed by German literature from 1750 to 1850 for increasingly attuning itself to quotidian life—common heroes, everyday life, non-extraordinary events—while also avoiding all notions of mediocrity. It focuses on three sites of this tension: the average audience (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing), the average artist (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller), and the everyday, or average life (Franz Grillparzer and Adalbert Stifter). The book's title, Exemplarity and Mediocrity, describes both a disjunctive and a conjunctive relation. Read disjunctively, modern art must display the “exemplary originality” (Immanuel Kant) which only genius can provide and is thus fundamentally opposed to mediocrity as that which does not stand out or lacks distinctiveness; in the conjunctive sense, modern art turns to non-exceptional life in order to transform it—without forsaking its commonness—thereby producing exemplary forms of mediocrity that both represent the non-exceptional and, insofar as they stand outside the group they represent, are something other than mediocre.Less
Following Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's analysis of art's increasing difficulty to both engage and extricate itself from prosaic reality, this book investigates the strategies employed by German literature from 1750 to 1850 for increasingly attuning itself to quotidian life—common heroes, everyday life, non-extraordinary events—while also avoiding all notions of mediocrity. It focuses on three sites of this tension: the average audience (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing), the average artist (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller), and the everyday, or average life (Franz Grillparzer and Adalbert Stifter). The book's title, Exemplarity and Mediocrity, describes both a disjunctive and a conjunctive relation. Read disjunctively, modern art must display the “exemplary originality” (Immanuel Kant) which only genius can provide and is thus fundamentally opposed to mediocrity as that which does not stand out or lacks distinctiveness; in the conjunctive sense, modern art turns to non-exceptional life in order to transform it—without forsaking its commonness—thereby producing exemplary forms of mediocrity that both represent the non-exceptional and, insofar as they stand outside the group they represent, are something other than mediocre.
Bruce Rosenstock
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231294
- eISBN:
- 9780823235520
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823231294.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter deals at length with the Spinoza Quarrel and how it reflects to be Friedrich Jacobi's gnostic assault on the Jewish God as the true face of the abstract and ...
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This chapter deals at length with the Spinoza Quarrel and how it reflects to be Friedrich Jacobi's gnostic assault on the Jewish God as the true face of the abstract and lifeless God of Enlightenment Reason. The Spinoza Quarrel began when Jacobi confronted Moses Mendelssohn with a story about Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's confession to him, shortly before his death in 1781, that he was a Spinozist. The personal animus involved in Jacobi's attempt to divide Mendelssohn from his late friend contributed to the fact that, tragically, neither could understand what the other was saying. Ironically, both Jacobi and Mendelssohn attempt to defend the claim of revelation against the excesses of Enlightenment Reason, but they are unable to find any common ground of dialogue. Jacobi views Judaism through the figure of a hyper-rationalist Baruch Spinoza and he understands Mendelssohn as committed to replacing revelation with a religion of reason.Less
This chapter deals at length with the Spinoza Quarrel and how it reflects to be Friedrich Jacobi's gnostic assault on the Jewish God as the true face of the abstract and lifeless God of Enlightenment Reason. The Spinoza Quarrel began when Jacobi confronted Moses Mendelssohn with a story about Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's confession to him, shortly before his death in 1781, that he was a Spinozist. The personal animus involved in Jacobi's attempt to divide Mendelssohn from his late friend contributed to the fact that, tragically, neither could understand what the other was saying. Ironically, both Jacobi and Mendelssohn attempt to defend the claim of revelation against the excesses of Enlightenment Reason, but they are unable to find any common ground of dialogue. Jacobi views Judaism through the figure of a hyper-rationalist Baruch Spinoza and he understands Mendelssohn as committed to replacing revelation with a religion of reason.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804758901
- eISBN:
- 9780804769983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804758901.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche declares that when the “man of everyday life” assumes the tragic stage, it spells doom for tragedy—and with it great art. This chapter ...
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In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche declares that when the “man of everyday life” assumes the tragic stage, it spells doom for tragedy—and with it great art. This chapter examines bourgeois tragedy by focusing on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–1768). In particular, it considers the theoretical underpinnings of lending “dear mediocrity” a tragic nimbus as well as the aesthetic-ethical stakes of wanting to move an audience to feel compassion. The chapter discusses Lessing's theory as well as his correspondence with Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn. It also analyzes bourgeois tragedy's rejection of sublime, public heroes in favor of common, domestic protagonists and how it aesthetically enacts the end of the age of heroes while ushering in the age of the common man. Finally, the chapter explores how Lessing establishes theater as the educative arena for converting an average audience into an exemplary public and considers his view that it is the common hero, not the exceptional one, who instigates exemplarity.Less
In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche declares that when the “man of everyday life” assumes the tragic stage, it spells doom for tragedy—and with it great art. This chapter examines bourgeois tragedy by focusing on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–1768). In particular, it considers the theoretical underpinnings of lending “dear mediocrity” a tragic nimbus as well as the aesthetic-ethical stakes of wanting to move an audience to feel compassion. The chapter discusses Lessing's theory as well as his correspondence with Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn. It also analyzes bourgeois tragedy's rejection of sublime, public heroes in favor of common, domestic protagonists and how it aesthetically enacts the end of the age of heroes while ushering in the age of the common man. Finally, the chapter explores how Lessing establishes theater as the educative arena for converting an average audience into an exemplary public and considers his view that it is the common hero, not the exceptional one, who instigates exemplarity.
Laurence A. Rickels
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816675951
- eISBN:
- 9781452947167
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816675951.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter provides an overview of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s works. Upon his father’s death Lessing returned to—Emilia Galotti, which he had conceived as turning on the absence of the father. In ...
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This chapter provides an overview of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s works. Upon his father’s death Lessing returned to—Emilia Galotti, which he had conceived as turning on the absence of the father. In Emilia Galotti, every trace of that Lessing so garrulously present in Nathan the Wise seems effaced; instead, at the end of the series of removals and retreats, which characterized Lessing’s search for the “true father,” we find a daughter who, alone in Lessing’s works, achieves through her suicide mission the father’s corporeal resurrection. According to Lessing, metaphor stimulates natural signification through “another similarity” whereby two things are associated and subsumed under one concept which remains renewable.Less
This chapter provides an overview of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s works. Upon his father’s death Lessing returned to—Emilia Galotti, which he had conceived as turning on the absence of the father. In Emilia Galotti, every trace of that Lessing so garrulously present in Nathan the Wise seems effaced; instead, at the end of the series of removals and retreats, which characterized Lessing’s search for the “true father,” we find a daughter who, alone in Lessing’s works, achieves through her suicide mission the father’s corporeal resurrection. According to Lessing, metaphor stimulates natural signification through “another similarity” whereby two things are associated and subsumed under one concept which remains renewable.
Katja Garloff
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501704963
- eISBN:
- 9781501706011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501704963.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter reads Lessing's and Mendelssohn's reflections on interfaith love and marriage in the light of their interventions in the debates about Jewish emancipation. In Jerusalem (1783), ...
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This chapter reads Lessing's and Mendelssohn's reflections on interfaith love and marriage in the light of their interventions in the debates about Jewish emancipation. In Jerusalem (1783), Mendelssohn affirmatively cites the Judaic injunction against interfaith marriage while appealing to the “brotherly love,” or political goodwill, of his Christian readers. Lessing plots his famous plays on religious tolerance, The Jews (1749) and Nathan the Wise (1779), around impossible Christian-Jewish romances. The plays' logic is best described as one of incomplete sublimation, a redirection of erotic energies that never comes to a standstill and that thwarts any complacent vision of interfaith harmony. Both Lessing and Mendelssohn suggest that “affective kinship” may serve as a foundation of communities in which different religious groups enjoy political equality. At the same time, their awareness of the precariousness of such kinship— and of all interreligious love—enhances the appeal character of their texts.Less
This chapter reads Lessing's and Mendelssohn's reflections on interfaith love and marriage in the light of their interventions in the debates about Jewish emancipation. In Jerusalem (1783), Mendelssohn affirmatively cites the Judaic injunction against interfaith marriage while appealing to the “brotherly love,” or political goodwill, of his Christian readers. Lessing plots his famous plays on religious tolerance, The Jews (1749) and Nathan the Wise (1779), around impossible Christian-Jewish romances. The plays' logic is best described as one of incomplete sublimation, a redirection of erotic energies that never comes to a standstill and that thwarts any complacent vision of interfaith harmony. Both Lessing and Mendelssohn suggest that “affective kinship” may serve as a foundation of communities in which different religious groups enjoy political equality. At the same time, their awareness of the precariousness of such kinship— and of all interreligious love—enhances the appeal character of their texts.
Luca Giuliani
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226297651
- eISBN:
- 9780226025902
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226025902.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine
This chapter discusses the narrative nature and content of mythological images and aims to show how to distinguish narrative images from nonnarrative ones. It argues that, without a clear idea of ...
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This chapter discusses the narrative nature and content of mythological images and aims to show how to distinguish narrative images from nonnarrative ones. It argues that, without a clear idea of this nonnarrative antithesis, the distinctiveness of the narrative mode of representation itself remains unclear. This issue was already addressed in the mid-eighteenth century by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his treatise Laocoon: An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry. Lessing systematically compared narration and description as two fundamental possibilities of representation that are both antithetical and complementary. Laocoon provided both a significant impulse and a conceptual framework for this book. Since this framework will not be explicitly addressed in the following chapters, it is important to recall here the major features of Lessing's argument, not least to emphasize those points that are in need of revision and reformulation.Less
This chapter discusses the narrative nature and content of mythological images and aims to show how to distinguish narrative images from nonnarrative ones. It argues that, without a clear idea of this nonnarrative antithesis, the distinctiveness of the narrative mode of representation itself remains unclear. This issue was already addressed in the mid-eighteenth century by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his treatise Laocoon: An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry. Lessing systematically compared narration and description as two fundamental possibilities of representation that are both antithetical and complementary. Laocoon provided both a significant impulse and a conceptual framework for this book. Since this framework will not be explicitly addressed in the following chapters, it is important to recall here the major features of Lessing's argument, not least to emphasize those points that are in need of revision and reformulation.
Dorothea von Mücke
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231172462
- eISBN:
- 9780231539333
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172462.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Rethinking the relationship between eighteenth-century pietistic traditions and Enlightenment thought and practice, this book unravels the complex and often neglected religious origins of modern ...
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Rethinking the relationship between eighteenth-century pietistic traditions and Enlightenment thought and practice, this book unravels the complex and often neglected religious origins of modern secular discourse. Mapping surprising routes of exchange between the religious and aesthetic writings of the period and recentering concerns of authorship and audience, it revitalizes scholarship on the Enlightenment. It engages with three critical categories: aesthetics, authorship, and the public sphere, tracing the relationship between religious and aesthetic modes of reflective contemplation, autobiography and the hermeneutics of the self, and the discursive creation of the public sphere. Focusing largely on German intellectual life, the book also extends to France through Jean-Jacques Rousseau and to England through Shaftesbury. Rereading canonical works and lesser-known texts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Johann Gottfried von Herder, the book challenges common narratives recounting the rise of empiricist philosophy, the idea of the “sensible” individual, and the notion of the modern author as celebrity, bringing new perspective to the Enlightenment concepts of instinct, drive, genius, and the public sphere.Less
Rethinking the relationship between eighteenth-century pietistic traditions and Enlightenment thought and practice, this book unravels the complex and often neglected religious origins of modern secular discourse. Mapping surprising routes of exchange between the religious and aesthetic writings of the period and recentering concerns of authorship and audience, it revitalizes scholarship on the Enlightenment. It engages with three critical categories: aesthetics, authorship, and the public sphere, tracing the relationship between religious and aesthetic modes of reflective contemplation, autobiography and the hermeneutics of the self, and the discursive creation of the public sphere. Focusing largely on German intellectual life, the book also extends to France through Jean-Jacques Rousseau and to England through Shaftesbury. Rereading canonical works and lesser-known texts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Johann Gottfried von Herder, the book challenges common narratives recounting the rise of empiricist philosophy, the idea of the “sensible” individual, and the notion of the modern author as celebrity, bringing new perspective to the Enlightenment concepts of instinct, drive, genius, and the public sphere.
Dorothea E. von Mücke
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231172462
- eISBN:
- 9780231539333
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172462.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter examines some of the writing and publication strategies that invoked and expanded existing conventions of the traditional republic of letters, making deliberate use of the vernacular, ...
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This chapter examines some of the writing and publication strategies that invoked and expanded existing conventions of the traditional republic of letters, making deliberate use of the vernacular, and consciously provoked and called attention to questions of authority and censorship. It begins with an analysis of Immanuel Kant's programmatic essay “What Is Enlightenment?” in the context of the academy competitions as a reflection on the expansion of the conventions of the republic of letters. It then discusses Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's so-called theological writings and how he postulates a radically different public from the corporate model he is criticizing. It interprets Lessing's writings on religion as active interventions in the position of authority claimed by theologians in matters of belief. It shows that the relatively deregulated, open boundary between the group that constitutes an audience or readership and the group that publishes positions, findings, opinions, and theories as polemicists, reviewers, scholars, or scientists constitutes the crucial background for Kant's and Lessing's model of a critical public that would further the cause of the Enlightenment.Less
This chapter examines some of the writing and publication strategies that invoked and expanded existing conventions of the traditional republic of letters, making deliberate use of the vernacular, and consciously provoked and called attention to questions of authority and censorship. It begins with an analysis of Immanuel Kant's programmatic essay “What Is Enlightenment?” in the context of the academy competitions as a reflection on the expansion of the conventions of the republic of letters. It then discusses Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's so-called theological writings and how he postulates a radically different public from the corporate model he is criticizing. It interprets Lessing's writings on religion as active interventions in the position of authority claimed by theologians in matters of belief. It shows that the relatively deregulated, open boundary between the group that constitutes an audience or readership and the group that publishes positions, findings, opinions, and theories as polemicists, reviewers, scholars, or scientists constitutes the crucial background for Kant's and Lessing's model of a critical public that would further the cause of the Enlightenment.
Gould Warwick and Reeves Marjorie
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199242306
- eISBN:
- 9780191697081
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242306.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity, Theology
The burden of virtually all the early nineteenth-century visionaries — whatever their particular political or philosophical outlook — was the necessity of ‘religion’ in the approaching new era. They ...
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The burden of virtually all the early nineteenth-century visionaries — whatever their particular political or philosophical outlook — was the necessity of ‘religion’ in the approaching new era. They were remarkably vague in their definitions or descriptions of what they meant by ‘religion’, but — whether it would still be Christian, or would supersede Christianity — all emphasized the element of novelty. So far, however, we have found no evidence that Joachim of Fiore's doctrine of history was directly known or studied. This is all the more significant because many used concepts and language very close to those of Joachimism. This chapter focuses on the rediscovery of Joachimism and the Eternal Evangel by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Jules Michelet, and Edgar Quinet.Less
The burden of virtually all the early nineteenth-century visionaries — whatever their particular political or philosophical outlook — was the necessity of ‘religion’ in the approaching new era. They were remarkably vague in their definitions or descriptions of what they meant by ‘religion’, but — whether it would still be Christian, or would supersede Christianity — all emphasized the element of novelty. So far, however, we have found no evidence that Joachim of Fiore's doctrine of history was directly known or studied. This is all the more significant because many used concepts and language very close to those of Joachimism. This chapter focuses on the rediscovery of Joachimism and the Eternal Evangel by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Jules Michelet, and Edgar Quinet.
Avi Lifschitz and Michael Squire (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198802228
- eISBN:
- 9780191840562
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198802228.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ever since its publication in 1766, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s treatise Laocoon, or On the Limits of Painting and Poetry has shaped debates about aesthetic experience and the medial distinctions ...
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Ever since its publication in 1766, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s treatise Laocoon, or On the Limits of Painting and Poetry has shaped debates about aesthetic experience and the medial distinctions between words and images. Rethinking Lessing’s Laocoon provides a reassessment of this seminal work on its 250th anniversary, examining Lessing’s interpretation of ancient art and poetry, the Enlightenment contexts of the treatise, and its subsequent legacy in the fields of aesthetic, semiotics, and philosophy. Lessing’s essay is focused on an ancient statue and its interpretation, revisiting Greek and Roman texts and images to think about the spatial and temporal ‘limits’ (Grenzen) of what Lessing calls ‘poetry’ and ‘painting’. Yet the text is also embedded within Enlightenment theories of art, perception, and historical interpretation—as well as within the nascent eighteenth-century study of classical antiquity (Altertumswissenschaft). Rethinking Lessing’s Laocoon is concerned not just with Lessing’s reception of antiquity, but also with the reception of that reception up to the present day. It examines Lessing’s work from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, highlighting the importance of Lessing’s Laocoon not only to the Enlightenment, but more generally also within shifting attitudes to the classical past.Less
Ever since its publication in 1766, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s treatise Laocoon, or On the Limits of Painting and Poetry has shaped debates about aesthetic experience and the medial distinctions between words and images. Rethinking Lessing’s Laocoon provides a reassessment of this seminal work on its 250th anniversary, examining Lessing’s interpretation of ancient art and poetry, the Enlightenment contexts of the treatise, and its subsequent legacy in the fields of aesthetic, semiotics, and philosophy. Lessing’s essay is focused on an ancient statue and its interpretation, revisiting Greek and Roman texts and images to think about the spatial and temporal ‘limits’ (Grenzen) of what Lessing calls ‘poetry’ and ‘painting’. Yet the text is also embedded within Enlightenment theories of art, perception, and historical interpretation—as well as within the nascent eighteenth-century study of classical antiquity (Altertumswissenschaft). Rethinking Lessing’s Laocoon is concerned not just with Lessing’s reception of antiquity, but also with the reception of that reception up to the present day. It examines Lessing’s work from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, highlighting the importance of Lessing’s Laocoon not only to the Enlightenment, but more generally also within shifting attitudes to the classical past.
Fania Oz-salzberger
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205197
- eISBN:
- 9780191676543
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205197.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the transmission of political ideas during the Enlightenment. This book compares the Scottish and German Enlightenments, ...
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This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the transmission of political ideas during the Enlightenment. This book compares the Scottish and German Enlightenments, discusses Adam Ferguson's ideas in the context of civic discourse and offers an analysis of the translation of political ideas across languages and cultures. It also analyses the relevant works and views of various philosophers including Isaak Iselin, Christian Garve, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and Friedrich Schiller.Less
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the transmission of political ideas during the Enlightenment. This book compares the Scottish and German Enlightenments, discusses Adam Ferguson's ideas in the context of civic discourse and offers an analysis of the translation of political ideas across languages and cultures. It also analyses the relevant works and views of various philosophers including Isaak Iselin, Christian Garve, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and Friedrich Schiller.
Henry W. Pickford
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823245406
- eISBN:
- 9780823250776
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823245406.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers Lanzmann’s film Shoah and Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus in light of the epistemology of testimony. Two epistemic dimensions are involved: (a) propositional knowledge, ...
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This chapter considers Lanzmann’s film Shoah and Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus in light of the epistemology of testimony. Two epistemic dimensions are involved: (a) propositional knowledge, conveyed by reports from speaker to listener; and (b) expressive knowledge, which under proper circumstances elicits appropriate responsiveness from the listener. The justification of testimonial knowledge is developed by considering work by Wittgenstein and Richard Moran. Shoah and Maus exhibit contrasting but complementary asymmetries in their aesthetic presentations of testimonies: Shoah eschews all historical illustration of the narratives (propositional knowledge) being recounted by the witnesses, but does focus, at times invasively, on the faces of the witnesses as they recount their narratives. By contrast, Maus eschews the portrayal of human faces (instead they are imaged as various kinds of animals) while illustrating the content of the eyewitness’s testimony (the story of Spiegelman’s father during the Holocaust). Sartre’s theory of the imaginary, suitably modified in light of subsequent criticisms of it, explicates the witness’s and viewer’s distinctive roles in these works as required by the aesthetic presentation. In this way both artworks, each in its own way, fulfill the dual desiderata of Holocaust artworks.Less
This chapter considers Lanzmann’s film Shoah and Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus in light of the epistemology of testimony. Two epistemic dimensions are involved: (a) propositional knowledge, conveyed by reports from speaker to listener; and (b) expressive knowledge, which under proper circumstances elicits appropriate responsiveness from the listener. The justification of testimonial knowledge is developed by considering work by Wittgenstein and Richard Moran. Shoah and Maus exhibit contrasting but complementary asymmetries in their aesthetic presentations of testimonies: Shoah eschews all historical illustration of the narratives (propositional knowledge) being recounted by the witnesses, but does focus, at times invasively, on the faces of the witnesses as they recount their narratives. By contrast, Maus eschews the portrayal of human faces (instead they are imaged as various kinds of animals) while illustrating the content of the eyewitness’s testimony (the story of Spiegelman’s father during the Holocaust). Sartre’s theory of the imaginary, suitably modified in light of subsequent criticisms of it, explicates the witness’s and viewer’s distinctive roles in these works as required by the aesthetic presentation. In this way both artworks, each in its own way, fulfill the dual desiderata of Holocaust artworks.
Dorothea E. von Mücke
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231172462
- eISBN:
- 9780231539333
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172462.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter examines the use of teleological models to fuse or confuse the order of nature and how the resistance they generate characterizes an emphatic Enlightenment. It presents two examples of ...
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This chapter examines the use of teleological models to fuse or confuse the order of nature and how the resistance they generate characterizes an emphatic Enlightenment. It presents two examples of this discourse that call attention to the use of teleological explanations and argues that the inherent purposiveness of natural phenomena, with their appeal to a sense of harmony and beauty, cannot be used to justify human values and moral standards. More specifically, the chapter analyzes the highly engaged responses of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing to such texts of their contemporaries, in which teleological models from nature are being smuggled into the moral domain by way of their appeal to beauty. First it offers a reading of one passage from Lessing's Laocöon before turning to a piece from Goethe's naturalist writings that discusses beauty from an evolutionary perspective. It also discusses each author's turn to aesthetics that involves a critique of teleology when discussing beauty in nature, and how they both criticize their opponent's uses of teleology through their rhetorical strategies.Less
This chapter examines the use of teleological models to fuse or confuse the order of nature and how the resistance they generate characterizes an emphatic Enlightenment. It presents two examples of this discourse that call attention to the use of teleological explanations and argues that the inherent purposiveness of natural phenomena, with their appeal to a sense of harmony and beauty, cannot be used to justify human values and moral standards. More specifically, the chapter analyzes the highly engaged responses of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing to such texts of their contemporaries, in which teleological models from nature are being smuggled into the moral domain by way of their appeal to beauty. First it offers a reading of one passage from Lessing's Laocöon before turning to a piece from Goethe's naturalist writings that discusses beauty from an evolutionary perspective. It also discusses each author's turn to aesthetics that involves a critique of teleology when discussing beauty in nature, and how they both criticize their opponent's uses of teleology through their rhetorical strategies.
Andrew Kloes
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- April 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190936860
- eISBN:
- 9780190936891
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190936860.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter examines how a distinctive historical consciousness informed how awakened Protestants understood their religious beliefs and activities. An intrinsic problem that is common to the ...
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This chapter examines how a distinctive historical consciousness informed how awakened Protestants understood their religious beliefs and activities. An intrinsic problem that is common to the historical study of all strongly partisan movements in the history of Protestantism is understanding the mentality, or worldview, of those who desired to see religious changes. To understand the Awakening movement, there is a need to understand what the Protestant activists wanted to awaken. This chapter answers this question by considering two competing interpretations of the history of modern Protestantism that appeared within the Protestant churches of Germany before and during the Awakening. The former of these narratives perceived changes in faith and theology as signs that Christianity was progressively advancing through the providential enlightenment of the church. The latter regarded these same changes as a falling away from the forms of faith and theology that were taught by the Bible.Less
This chapter examines how a distinctive historical consciousness informed how awakened Protestants understood their religious beliefs and activities. An intrinsic problem that is common to the historical study of all strongly partisan movements in the history of Protestantism is understanding the mentality, or worldview, of those who desired to see religious changes. To understand the Awakening movement, there is a need to understand what the Protestant activists wanted to awaken. This chapter answers this question by considering two competing interpretations of the history of modern Protestantism that appeared within the Protestant churches of Germany before and during the Awakening. The former of these narratives perceived changes in faith and theology as signs that Christianity was progressively advancing through the providential enlightenment of the church. The latter regarded these same changes as a falling away from the forms of faith and theology that were taught by the Bible.
T.J. Reed
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226205106
- eISBN:
- 9780226205243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226205243.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Religion was a major restriction of freedom of thought, hence a prime object of Enlightenment criticism. Speaking out still carried risks—to career, status, even one—s life. Gradually the pressure ...
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Religion was a major restriction of freedom of thought, hence a prime object of Enlightenment criticism. Speaking out still carried risks—to career, status, even one—s life. Gradually the pressure eased as writers and thinkers gained a sense of solidarity. Goethe, Kant, Lichtenberg, Lessing (only he concerned to rescue what Christian substance he could) moved independently of one another in a common direction: away from dogmatic belief and the intolerance it entailed and towards a secular ethics which reversed an ancient order. It became clear that true morality was not something merely prescribed by a god, and that the idea of god itself grew out of human moral aspiration.Less
Religion was a major restriction of freedom of thought, hence a prime object of Enlightenment criticism. Speaking out still carried risks—to career, status, even one—s life. Gradually the pressure eased as writers and thinkers gained a sense of solidarity. Goethe, Kant, Lichtenberg, Lessing (only he concerned to rescue what Christian substance he could) moved independently of one another in a common direction: away from dogmatic belief and the intolerance it entailed and towards a secular ethics which reversed an ancient order. It became clear that true morality was not something merely prescribed by a god, and that the idea of god itself grew out of human moral aspiration.
Vittorio Hösle
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691167190
- eISBN:
- 9781400883042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691167190.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter considers the origin of the German human science. At the end of the eighteenth century, a transformation of Lutheranism took place among Germany's intellectual elites involving the ...
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This chapter considers the origin of the German human science. At the end of the eighteenth century, a transformation of Lutheranism took place among Germany's intellectual elites involving the retention of the religious motivation of philology, which was now extended to universal history and philosophically grounded, i.e., creating a trinity of theology, philosophy, and philology. The word of God was no longer limited to the Bible but manifested itself in the whole history of the human spirit. Understanding it as a unity is not only a valid scholarly interest; it is a religious duty, and presumably it is only by fulfilling such a duty that one has a chance to do something really lasting. No one so energetically pursued the breakdown of the old Lutheran orthodoxy as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781).Less
This chapter considers the origin of the German human science. At the end of the eighteenth century, a transformation of Lutheranism took place among Germany's intellectual elites involving the retention of the religious motivation of philology, which was now extended to universal history and philosophically grounded, i.e., creating a trinity of theology, philosophy, and philology. The word of God was no longer limited to the Bible but manifested itself in the whole history of the human spirit. Understanding it as a unity is not only a valid scholarly interest; it is a religious duty, and presumably it is only by fulfilling such a duty that one has a chance to do something really lasting. No one so energetically pursued the breakdown of the old Lutheran orthodoxy as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781).
George Oppitz-Trotman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198858805
- eISBN:
- 9780191890901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198858805.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, Early and Medieval Literature
The reception of the English Comedians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is connected to their representation in modern theatre histories by ideations of travelling theatre in Enlightenment ...
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The reception of the English Comedians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is connected to their representation in modern theatre histories by ideations of travelling theatre in Enlightenment theatre projects. Theatre-historical chronicles began to be written in the second half of the eighteenth century, by which time there was already a vocabulary for itinerant theatre ready to be applied to the English Comedians in order to understand their effect on national dramatic culture. Setting these relations next to the development of Theaterwissenschaft out of philology in early twentieth-century German universities, this concluding chapter reflects on the influence of disciplinary structure upon the investigation of controversial historical phenomena. Various sorts of patriotism and methodologism have distorted the comprehension of the itinerant theatre and concealed its involvement in the generation of dramatic art. The contemporary crisis within the discipline of theatre history is explained with reference to the underestimation of theatre professionalization, which was a profound discontinuity in the history of Western culture.Less
The reception of the English Comedians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is connected to their representation in modern theatre histories by ideations of travelling theatre in Enlightenment theatre projects. Theatre-historical chronicles began to be written in the second half of the eighteenth century, by which time there was already a vocabulary for itinerant theatre ready to be applied to the English Comedians in order to understand their effect on national dramatic culture. Setting these relations next to the development of Theaterwissenschaft out of philology in early twentieth-century German universities, this concluding chapter reflects on the influence of disciplinary structure upon the investigation of controversial historical phenomena. Various sorts of patriotism and methodologism have distorted the comprehension of the itinerant theatre and concealed its involvement in the generation of dramatic art. The contemporary crisis within the discipline of theatre history is explained with reference to the underestimation of theatre professionalization, which was a profound discontinuity in the history of Western culture.