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

"Willi Goetshel's work on Spinoza is to be read for two reasons. One, it contributes to the growing literature on Spinoza, which recognizes his great importance both for the history of western ideas and current philosophical discussion. Two, it shows Spinoza's significance for the whole Enlightenment project from its very beginnings. This book is masterful in its learning and its insights."--David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto "An extraordinary work with immense erudition and scholarship behind it. This has the potential to be a discipline-altering book." Warren Montag, author of "Bodies, Masses, Power: Spinoza and His Contemporaries" "Willi Goetshel's work on Spinoza is to be read for two reasons. One, it contributes to the growing literature on Spinoza, which recognizes his great importance both for the history of western ideas and current philosophical discussion. Two, it shows Spinoza's significance for the whole Enlightenment project from its very beginnings. This book is masterful in its learning and its insights." David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto

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.