Table Of ContentOUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/4/2020,SPi
Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant
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Reason and
Experience
in Mendelssohn
and Kant
Paul Guyer
1
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3
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Acknowledgments
In some ways, this book has been long in the making. I first heard about Moses
Mendelssohn in Sunday school in my Reform synagogue, perhaps around sixth or
seventhgrade;itwasclearthathewasaculturalheroforhiseffortstobridgethegulf
between the Jewish community and their grudging hosts in eighteenth-century
Prussia, but it was not made clear to us in our age-appropriate textbook what his
specific contributions to either Judaism or the secular culture had actually been.
I next encountered Mendelssohn in graduate school, after I had left contact with
organizedreligionbehind,whenIwasstudyingthehistoricalbackgroundtoKant’s
aesthetics in preparation for my dissertation, and I wrote some pages on
Mendelssohn’s aesthetics as part of that work. When I rewrote the dissertation as
KantandtheClaimsofTaste()Iomittedthepre-Kantianhistoryforreasonsof
space,butmycontinuingworkonthehistoricalcontextofKant’saestheticskeptme
intouchwithMendelssohn’saesthetics,andmyfirstpublishedessayontheaesthet-
ics of Mendelssohn and Kant (and Karl Philipp Moritz) was written in and
appeared in my collection Kant and the Experience of Freedom (). My first
attemptatacomparisonoftheessaysthetwophilosopherscontributedtotheRoyal
PrussianAcademyofScience’scompetitionontheprospectsforthesuccessof
mathematical method in philosophy, in which Mendelssohn’s essay took first place
andKant’ssecond,appearedinPhilosophicalTopicsin,andwasincludedinmy
collection Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (). At some point after that,
IbegantothinkthatthesignificanceofhisinteractionswithMendelssohnforKant
wasgreaterthanthehistoriographyofphilosophyandperhapsKanthimselfalways
recognized, and the idea of a book charting the history of this interaction began to
form.Thepresentvolumeistheresultofthatthought.
Neitherofthoseearlierpapershasbeenincorporatedintothepresentvolume,but
severalmorerecentpieceshave.IowethankstoThomasHöwing,FlorianMarwede,
and Marcus Willaschek for the invitation to present the paper at a conference on
Kant on the highest good at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University of
Frankfurt am Main that became of this volume; it has previously been published
in the volume edited by Thomas Höwing, The Highest Good in Kant’s Philosophy
(Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, ), and thanks are due to Walter de
Gruyterforpermissiontousethismaterialhere.Thesecondhalfofwasoriginally
presented at a conference organized by Corey Dyck and Falk Wunderlich and
published by them in the volume entitled Kant and his German Contemporaries,
Volume I: Logic, Mind, Epistemology, Science, and Ethics (Cambridge University
Press, );thanksareduetoCambridgeUniversityPressforpermissiontoreuse
thatmaterialhere.wasoriginallypresentedasaplenarylectureattheMultilateral
Kant Conference at Hofstra University in , but has not previously been pub-
lished. All the other material in this volume has been written specifically for it,
althoughanabbreviatedversionofChaptersandhasinthemeantimeappeared
inKantandHisGermanContemporaries,VolumeII:Aesthetics,History,Politics,and
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viii
Religion,editedbyDanielO.Dahlstrom(CambridgeUniversityPress,).Again,
thanks to Cambridge University Press for permission to reuse this material.
Dahlstrom’s work as a Mendelssohn scholar, especially his translations of
Mendelssohn’sPhilosophicalWritingsandMorningHours(withCoreyDyck),merits
thegratitudeofallreadersofEnglishinterestedinMendelssohn.
Apart from what Ihave already mentioned, much of the materialin this volume
was written during my tenure as a Daimler Fellow at the American Academy in
BerlinfromJanuarythroughMay,.IamdeeplygratefultotheAcademyandits
staff,especiallylibrarianYolandeKorb,formyselectionandfortheirsupportofmy
work intheir commodiousvilla on theright (in bothsenses of“right”)bank ofthe
WannseeinBerlin.AnabbreviatedversionofChaptersandformedthebasisfor
my public lecture at the Academy of May , , and I am grateful to my dear
friends Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Jay Wallace, Dina Emundts, Stefan Gosepath, and
SallySedgwick fortheirvaluablequestionsonthatoccasion,andfortheircompan-
ionshipandhospitalitythroughoutmystayinBerlin.Iamdeeplygratefultomywife
Pamela Foa for her encouragement of this project at every stage but especially for
accompanying me during my fellowship in Berlin in spite of her family’s suffering
duringanearlierperiodofGermanhistory.Iamalsogratefultothetwoanonymous
refereesforOxfordUniversityPressfortheirdetailedandhelpfulcomments.
IdedicatethisbooktothememoryofmyteachersStanleyCavell,MortonWhite,
Robert Nozick, Israel Scheffler, Nelson Goodman, and Hilary Putnam, and to my
friendsandmentorsLewisWhiteBeckandMauriceMandelbaum.Althougheachof
thesewasaverydifferentphilosopherfromtheothersandfromme,Ilearnedfrom
allofthem,andIliketothinkthateachwouldhavefoundsomethingtointeresthim
inthisbook.
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Abbreviations
Mendelssohn:
J Jerusalem
JubA Jubliäumsausgabe
LW LateWritings(MorningHours)
PW PhilosophicalWritings
Kant:
CF ConflictoftheFaculties
CPJ CritiqueofPowerofJudgment
CPracR CritiqueofPracticalReason
CPuR CritiqueofPureReason
EAT TheEndofAllThings
G GroundworkfortheMetaphysicsofMorals
ID Inauguraldissertation(OntheFormandPrinciplesoftheSensibleand
IntelligibleWorld)
ND NovaDelucudatio(NewExpositionoftheFirstPrinciplesofMetaphysical
Cognition)
OPB OnlyPossibleBasisforaDemonstrationoftheExistenceofGod
PP TowardPerpetualPeace
RBMR ReligionwithintheBoundsofMereReason
WIE? WhatisEnlightenment?
WOT? WhatDoesitMeantoOrientOneselfinThought?
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Introduction
In November, , Kant wrote to Christian Gottfried Schütz, a professor in Jena
and a co-founder of the new Allgemeine Literaturzeitung, which would become
a major organ for supporters of the Kantian philosophy, with reference to Moses
Mendelssohn’s newly published Morgenstunden (Morning Hours or Morning
Lessons)—which was, unbeknownst to either of the correspondents or to anyone
else,abouttobecomeMendelssohn’slastmajorbook—thefollowing:
Although the worthy M’s book must be regarded in the main as a masterpiece of the self-
deceptionofourreason,insofarasittakesthesubjectiveconditionsofourreason’sdetermin-
ationofobjectsingeneralasconditionsofthepossibilityoftheseobjectsthemselves,aself-
deceptionwhosetruecharacteritisnoeasytasktoexposeandfromwhichitisnoteasyto
liberateourunderstandingcompletely,thisbookwillneverthelessbehighlyuseful—notonly
for what is said with penetration, originality, and exemplary clarity in its “Preliminary
Notions” concerning truth, appearance, and error, things that can be used very well in any
philosophylecture,butalsoforitssecondpart,whichhassignificantvalueforthecritiqueof
humanreason...thisextremelypenetratingpursuitofourchainofconcepts,extendingitself
untilitembracesthewholeofreality,providesuswiththemostsplendidoccasionandatthe
sametimechallengetosubjectourfacultyofpurereasontoatotalcritique,inorderthatwe
maydistinguishthemerelysubjectiveconditions ofitsemployment fromthosefromwhich
somethingvalidaboutitsobjectscanbeinferred.Purephilosophymustcertainlyprofitfrom
this,evenassumingthatafteracompleteinvestigationillusionintervenes,sothatsomething
mayappeartobevictoryoverafieldofhighlyremoteobjectswhenitisreallyonly(though
veryusefully)thedirectionofthesubjecttoobjectsthatareverycloseby.Onecanregardthis
finallegacyofadogmatizingmetaphysicsatthesametimeasitsmostperfectaccomplishment,
bothinviewofitschain-likecoherenceandintheexceptionalclarityofitspresentation,andas
amemorial,nevertodetractfromitsworth,tothesagacityofamanwhoknowsandcontrols
the full power of the mode of reasoning that he has adopted, a memorial that a critique of
reason, which casts doubt on the happy progress of such a procedure, can thus use as an
enduringexamplefortestingitsprinciples,inordereithertoconfirmorrejectthem.¹
Itisclear fromthis thatKant regardedMendelssohn themanwith respect. But the
passage also suggests that he regarded Mendelssohn’s book—fully titled Morning
Hours:LecturesontheExistenceofGod—asacarefuland,asitwouldturnout,final
¹ Kant to ChristianGottfied Schütz, end of November, ; :–; Correspondence, pp. –.
Zweigcapitalized“CritiqueofReason”inhistranslation,asifreferringtothebooktheCritiqueofPure
Reason,butsinceallnounsarecapitalizedinGermanandKantdoesnototherwisemarkthatheisreferring
tohisbook,IuselowercaseletterstosuggestthatKantisreferringtotheprojectofacritiqueofthe
pretensionsofpurereasonratherthantohisbookitself.
ReasonandExperienceinMendelssohnandKant.PaulGuyer,OxfordUniversityPress(2020).©PaulGuyer.
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198850335.001.0001
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statementoftherationalist projectofprovingtheexistenceofobjects,aboveallthe
existenceofGod,byaprioriargumentsfromreasonalone,andinthatregarduseful
primarilyfordemonstratingtophilosophystudentsofthefuturetheimpossibilityof
proving the existence of any object from reason alone, thus of the failure of the
rationalistprojectasa whole. This letteris consistentwith,if not the source of,the
pictureofMendelssohnthathasprevailedinmanyquarterseversinceitwaswritten,
namelyasaphilosopherwhoproducedanelegantandprecisestatementofadoomed
philosophy, a philosophy that in his own words was destined to be destroyed once
andforallbythe“all-crushing”(alleszermalmenden)Kant(MS,JubA.:),neverto
raiseitsadmittedlylovelyheadagain.
ThisgreatlysimplifiestherelationbetweenMendelssohnandKant,asindeedKant
himselfwellknew.Kant’srecognitionthattherewasmorecommongroundbetween
himself and Mendelssohn than his letter to Schütz might suggest is clear from the
opening of the public statement on the controversy between Mendelssohn and his
opponentFriedrichHeinrichJacobi,thecontroversyknownasthePantheismusstreit,
thatKantpublishedsomemonthslater,intheBerlinischeMonatsschriftforOctober,
.²Thisistheessayentitled“WhatDoesItMeantoOrientOneselfinThinking?”
HereKantstartswithacardinalprincipleofhisownphilosophy—asheputitinthe
Critique of Pure Reason, that “Without sensibility no object would be given to us,
and without understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without content are
empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” (A /B )—and then suggests that
Mendelssohnactuallyagreedwithit:
Howeverexaltedtheapplicationofourconcepts,andhoweverfarupfromsensibilitywemay
abstract them, still they will always be appended to picture-like [bildiche] representations,
whose proper function is to make these concepts, which are not otherwise derived from
experience,serviceableforexperientialuse.Forhowwouldweprocuresenseandsignificance
for our concepts if we did not underpin them with some intuition (which ultimately must
always be an example from some possible experience)? If from this concrete act of the
understandingweleaveouttheassociationoftheimage[Bild]—inthefirstplaceanaccidental
perceptionthrough thesenses—thenwhatisleftoveristhepureconceptofunderstanding,
whoserangeisnowenlargedandcontainsaruleforthinkingingeneral.Itisinjustsuchaway
thatgenerallogiccomesabout;andmanyheuristicmethodsofthinkingperhapsliehiddenin
the experiential use of our understanding and reason; if we carefully extract these methods
from that experience, they could well enrich philosophy with many useful maxims even in
abstractthinking.
OfthiskindistheprincipletowhichthelateMendelssohnexpresslysubscribedforthefirst
time,sofarasIknow,inhislastwritings(theMorningHours...andtheLetterstoLessing’s
Friends...):namely,themaximthatitisnecessarytoorientoneselfinthespeculativeuseof
reason (which Mendelssohn otherwise trusted very much in respect of the cognition of
supersensibleobjects,evensofarasclaimingforittheevidenceofdemonstration)bymeans
² For a description of the Pantheismusstreit, see Frederick C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German
Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), chapter ,
pp.–.ForfurtherdescriptionaswellasselectionfromtherelevantwritingsbyMendelssohnand
Jacobi,seeGérardVallee,TheSpinozaConversationsbetweenLessingandJacobi:TextwithExcerptsfrom
theEnsuingControversy(Lanham:UniversityPressofAmerica,).
