Tolerance for the Tolerant “Other”—Moses Mendelssohn’s Claim for Tolerance in the “Vorrede/Preface” (1782)

In this paper I discuss Moses Mendelssohn’s argumentation on religious tolerance in his “Vorrede” (“preface”) that he added to his translation of Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel’s letter “Vindiciae judaeorum” in 1782. Instead of solely deducing Mendelssohn’s idea of religious tolerance, I examine Mendelss...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Matviyets, Anne Sarah (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI 2024
In: Religions
Year: 2024, Volume: 15, Issue: 4
Further subjects:B Vorrede
B Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel
B Religious Tolerance
B Moses Mendelssohn
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Summary:In this paper I discuss Moses Mendelssohn’s argumentation on religious tolerance in his “Vorrede” (“preface”) that he added to his translation of Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel’s letter “Vindiciae judaeorum” in 1782. Instead of solely deducing Mendelssohn’s idea of religious tolerance, I examine Mendelssohn’s argumentation strategies. For this purpose, I firstly determine the political and social conditions in which Mendelssohn wrote the “Vorrede”. Secondly, I examine the normative reasons or resources that Mendelssohn argues for tolerance with. In my observation, he is legitimizing religious tolerance on the normative resources of philosophical reasons (natural law/universal reason) and pragmatic reasons (utility). Further, I will analyse Mendelssohn’s concept of a tolerant Judaism in the “Vorrede”.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel15040516