The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy, and Philosophy
Abraham P. Socher
Abstract
With extraordinary chutzpa and deep philosophical seriousness, Solomon ben Joshua of Lithuania renamed himself after his medieval intellectual hero, Moses Maimonides. Solomon Maimon was perhaps the most brilliant and certainly the most controversial figure of the late eighteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment. He scandalized rabbinic authorities, embarrassed Moses Mendelssohn, provoked Immanuel Kant, charmed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and inspired Johann Gottlieb Fichte, among others. This study of Maimon integrates his idiosyncratic philosophical idealism with his popular autobiography, and wi ... More
Keywords: Solomon Maimon, Lithuania, Moses Maimonides, Jewish Enlightenment, rabbinic authorities, Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, European Jew
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 | Print ISBN-13: 9780804751360 |
| Published to Stanford Scholarship Online: June 2013 | DOI:10.11126/stanford/9780804751360.001.0001 |
