Spinoza's Modernity (Studies in German Jewish Cultural History and Literature Series): Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine

Book Description
Spinoza's Modernity is a major, original work of intellectual history that reassesses the philosophical project of Baruch Spinoza, uncovers his influence on later thinkers, and demonstrates how that crucial influence on Moses Mendelssohn, G. E. Lessing, and Heinrich Heine shaped the development of modern critical thought. Excommunicated by his Jewish community, Spinoza was a controversial figure in his lifetime and for centuries afterward. Willi Goetschel shows how Spinoza's philosophy was a direct challenge to the theological and metaphysical assumptions of modern European thought. He locates the driving force of this challenge in Spinoza's Jewishness, which is deeply inscribed in his philosophy and defines the radical nature of his modernity.

From the Publisher
Studies in German Jewish Cultural History and Literature Paul Mendes-Flohr, Series Editor

About the Author
Willi Goetschel is associate professor of German and philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Constituting Critique: Kant's Writing as Critical.


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Spinoza's Modernity is a major, original work that reconstructs a key moment in the European Enlightenment and offers a ground-breaking reading of the intersection of German literature and philosophy in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Willi Goetschel reassesses the philosophical project of Baruch Spinoza, uncovers his influence on later thinkers, and demonstrates how that crucial influence on Moses Mendelssohn, G. E. Lessing, and Heinrich Heine shaped the development of modern critical thought.


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