Phaedon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele, in drey Gesprächen.

2 parts in one vol. 8vo. Contemporary half calf, ribbed spine with gilt floral stamp in compartments with two title labels lettered in gold, marbled end-papers, red painted edges. Woodcut vignette on title. (10), 52, 224 pp.

One of the ca. 10 editions of one of Mendelssohns most famous books printed during his lifetime. Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was a German Jewish philosopher and a central figure in the Haskalah (i.e., Jewish Enlightenment, in 18th-century Germany) and he is certainly the best known representative today. For some he was the third Moses, the other two being the Biblical lawgiver and Moses Maimonides heralding a new era in the history of the Jewish people. For others, his ideas led towards assimilation, loss of identity for Jews and the dilution of traditional Judaism. He was also the grandfather of the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdi. In 1762 Mendelssohn won the prize offered by the Berlin Academy for an essay on the application of mathematical proofs to metaphysics; among the competitors were Thomas Abbt and Immanuel Kant. As a result of his correspondence with Abbt, Mendelssohn resolved to write on the Immortality of the Soul. Materialistic views were at the time rampant and fashionable, and faith in immortality was at a low ebb. At this favourable juncture appeared the <I>Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele</I> (Phädon or On the Immortality of Souls; first edition: Berlin & Stettin, F. Nicolai, 1767). Modelled on Plato's dialogue of the same name , Mendelssohn's work possessed some of the charm of its Greek exemplar and impressed the German world with its beauty and lucidity of style. The Phädon was an immediate success, and besides being often reprinted in German was speedily translated into nearly all the European languages, including English. The author was hailed as the "German Plato," or the "German Socrates". Moses did meet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in the '70s and became good friends. Mendelsohn served as a model for Lessing's famous <I>Nathan der Weise</I>, published in 1779.In Plato's Phaedo dialogue, Phaedo is asked to relate for him the execution day of Socrates. Phaedo had been present that day with his fellow Athenians. It took some courage to be counted as a friend of Socrates at that point, as then people who oversaw Socrates' execution, and the Persian-controlled "Democratic" party of Athens who organized Socrates trial, would have noted who was prepared to carry on Socrates' work. Plato's sublime treatment of Socrates' life and death, willfully and deliberately created what we today call "classical" culture. By his dialogues, he recruited youth to Socrates' example of truth-seeking behavior, establishing the Platonic Academy that lasted a thousand years. Moses Mendelssohn translated Plato's Phaedo into German, but recast Socrates with the advances that Leibniz had made from Plato's time. As Mendelssohn states, opening up his<B><I> </I></B>Preface:<B><I> </I></B>The following work is written in imitation of the <I>Phaedon</I> of Plato. But the author "has recourse solely to the lights of the moderns, and makes Socrates speak as a philosopher of the eighteenth century".Mendelssohn launched his Phaedon project in the decade before the American Revolution, because European culture, he argued, suffered from the suppression of Gottfried Leibniz's powerful thoughts and works.<B><U> </U></B>Mendelssohn smashed the stranglehold over Leibniz's methods. At the same time, 1765, Mendelssohn's collaborators in Göttingen, Professors<B> </B>R. E. Raspe and Abraham Kaestner, published the first edition of Leibniz's <I>New Essays on Human Understanding, </I>decimating John Locke's feudal notions of man's mind and mission.In Mendelssohn's homeland of Prussia, the ruler, Frederick the Great, suffered from a Voltairean infection of the sophistical and cynical "Enlightenment". In 1759, Voltaire's sophomoric work, <I>Candide </I>had attempted to ridicule Leibniz's graceful development of Plato's notion that the world was bent toward the Good. Mendelssohn's re-working of Plato's<I> Phaedo</I> included specific arguments crafted to devastate such influences.The result was his Phaedon movement, a movement that was at the core of the European support for the American Revolution, and that inspired Mozart, Schiller, and the German classical revival. Plato responded to the unjust execution of Socrates by going beyond his own destiny. Mendelssohn responded to the attempted second burial of Leibniz by taking courage from Socrates, and launching a beautiful pursuit of happiness.This 'modern Socrates' of the German classical period, Mendelssohn, has created a beautiful translation and elaboration of Plato's <I>Phädo</I> leadingto a revolution in thought, and a subsequent renaissance in Germany. The debt of the German classical period to ancient Greece is embodied in Mendelssohn's <I>Phädon</I>, as is the promise of the American Revolution.After the title and preface follows the 'Leben und Character des Socrates' (pp. 1-52), and 'Phädon, oder über de Unsterblichkeit der Seele ('pp. 1-224, both with separate half-titles).
Good copy.- (Some damp staining and usual browning at places, binding rubbed, spine damaged, one leaf from the preliminaries missing? Some of the Karlsruhe editions have 5, some 6 preliminary lvs., all have 224 pp.).
Goedeke IV/1, 488, 8; Graesse IV, p. 485; cf. <I>Gesamtverz. deutschspr. Schrifttums</I>, 94, p. 423.

[Schlagwörter: 18th Century; Literary History; Enlightenment; Germany; *AMERICA; Hebraica, Judaica & Holy Land]

Artikel-Nr.: B51FKNZ5160D