View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Columbia University Academic Commons HOW TO BELIEVE IN NOTHING: MOSES MENDELSSOHN'S SUBJECTIVITY AND THE EMPTY CORE OF TRADITION Yuval Kremnitzer Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 © 2017 Yuval Kremnitzer All rights reserved Abstract How to Believe in Nothing: Moses Mendelssohn’s Subjectivity and the Empty Core of Tradition Yuval Kremnitzer The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, it aims to illuminate key aspects of the work of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the ‘Father of Jewish Enlightenment,’ in particular, his well-known, and universally rejected, theory of Judaism. Secondly, it brings Mendelssohn’s ideas and insights to bear on the problem of Nihilism, a problem in the development of which Mendelssohn is usually considered to have played a merely incidental role. It is argued that these two domains, seemingly worlds apart, are mutually illuminating. Moses Mendelssohn enters our history books in two separate contexts, which seem to have nothing in common. In the context of ‘Jewish Studies,’ Mendelssohn is best known for his idiosyncratic view of Judaism as a religion devoid of any principles of belief, and for his confidence in its compatibility with reason – positions developed in his Jerusalem: Or, On Religious Power and Judaism (1783). In the history of philosophy, Mendelssohn is known as the last representative of the dogmatic Leibniz-Wolff School, rendered obsolete by Kant’s critical, transcendental turn. In this broader context, Mendelssohn is also widely recognized to have played a role, if only contingently, in the emergence of the term Nihilism at a decisive moment in the historical development of the problem, namely, the so-called pantheism controversy, in the context of which he published his last work of philosophy, Morning Hours: Lectures on God’s existence (1785). And yet he has never been taken as belonging to the development of the problem in its essence. This dissertation aims to show that Moses Mendelssohn’s work offers a decisive intervention in the problem of Nihilism, arguably the fundamental problem of Modernity, an intervention that has great value for contemporary debates of the problem. Following and expanding on Kant’s intervention in the controversy, which I show to have been deeply engaged with Mendelssohn, makes it possible to bring to light Mendelssohn’s unrecognized contribution. In response to Kant’s groundbreaking critical philosophy, which seeks to account for the conditions of possible experience, Mendelssohn develops a theory of the experience of possibility. Implicit in this theory is a profound reformulation of the problem of Nihilism, as a crisis in the experience of possibility. Mendelssohn’s unique post-Kantian philosophical position regarding subjectivity, nature and the divine absolute is given more concrete articulation in being related and traced back to his political theology and his reflections on Judaism. In this way, the two separate lines in Mendelssohn’s reception – as the father of Jewish enlightenment and as an incidental facilitator, or vanishing mediator, in the consequential pantheism controversy – coalesce, and illuminate each other. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION: HOW TO BELIEVE IN NOTHING? MOSES MENDELSSOHN’S SUBJECTIVITY AND THE EMPTY CORE OF TRADITION 1 NIHILISM: OVERVIEW, OR MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 9 NAME CALLING 19 IN THE UNIVERSITY 24 INTERVENTION: MENDELSSOHN’S NEITHER/NOR 29 PART 1: MENDELSSOHN AND THE PANTHEISM CONTROVERSY 42 1. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN: MENDELSSOHN’S MORNING HOURS AND THE ECLIPSE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 42 1.1 MENDELSSOHN AND KANT, STYLE AND SUBSTANCE 42 1.2 MENDELSSOHN AND THE CRISIS OF ENLIGHTENMENT: INTELLECTUAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PANTHEISM DEBATE 44 1.3 THE PANTHEISM CONTROVERSY 51 1.4 JACOBI’S CHOICE: HYPER CRITICISM OR HYPOCRISY 67 1.5 CONTINGENCIES: MENDELSSOHN V JACOBI ON SPINOZA AND CONTINGENCY 70 1.6 REORIENTATION: KANT AS A READER OF MENDELSSOHN 76 1.7 THE FIGURATIVE: MEDIATING INTELLIGIBILITY AND SENSIBILITY 80 1.8 COMMON SENSE: THE DOGMATIC ERROR 84 1.9 THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE SUPERSENSIBLE: HOW TO GET THERE, WHERE TO GO, AND WHAT TO DO 87 1.10 RATIONAL BELIEFS: HOW TO BELIEVE WITHOUT BELIEVING 96 2. MENDELSSOHN AND THE EXPERIENCE OF POSSIBILITY 99 2.1 MORNING HOURS – A POST-KANTIAN TEXT? 99 2.2 GOD IS UNCONSCIOUS – MENDELSSOHN’S ORIGINAL PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 107 2.3 THE COGITO’S SHADOW: FROM CONDITIONS OF POSSIBLE EXPERIENCE TO THE EXPERIENCE OF POSSIBILITY. 114 2.4 SURPLUS KNOWLEDGE 121 2.5 THE ACTUALITY OF POSSIBILITY 129 2.7 MENDELSSOHN’S CLASH OF THE FACULTIES: THE DIVISION AND UNITY OF COGNITION AND DESIRE 140 2.8 DIVIDED BY COMMON SENSE: JACOBI, KANT, MENDELSSOHN 148 2.9 THE OBJECT OF THOUGHT – BETWEEN DREAM AND REALITY 151 2.10 THE DREAM OF COMMON SENSE 155 2.1 FIGURES OF MIND 158 PART 2: MENDELSSOHN’S JERUSALEM 161 3. READING JERUSALEM 161 3.1 REFUSING THE CHALLENGE – MENDELSSOHN AND JACOBI 161 3.2 WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT? THE DIVISION AND UNITY OF THEORY AND PRACTICE 166 3.3 ENLIGHTENMENT’S PREJUDICE 168 3.4 JERUSALEM’S DIVISION 170 3.5 THE POWER OF DIVISION: THE POLITICAL THEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE AS A TEMPORAL ONE 173 i 3.6 THE DIVISION OF POWER 182 3.7 THE ORIGINAL DIVIDE 186 3.8 MENDELSSOHN’S MINIMAL ATOMISM 188 3.9 THE FREEDOM OF FORCED CHOICE 192 3.10 THE ARTICULATION OF REALITY AND THE REAL OF THE IMPERATIVE 196 3.11 HAVING POWER 197 3.12 (NO) TIME FOR A CHOICE 199 3.13 THE IMPERATIVE BETWEEN THE PERFORMATIVE AND THE AFFORMATIVE 202 3.14 PROMISE, OATH AND BELIEF IN THE OTHER 207 4. MIRACLE AND TRADITION 214 4.1 THE CONTEXT – IN DEFENSE OF JUDAISM 214 4.2 THE CHALLENGES: CRANZ AND MÖRSCHEL 217 4.3 DIVINE LEGISLATION 220 4.4 THE DIVISION OF TRUTH: NECESSARY, CONTINGENT AND TEMPORAL (HISTORICAL) 222 4.5 EVENT AND AUTHORITY 225 4.6 HEARING VOICES 231 4.7 THE FIRST DETOUR: PROGRESS, BETWEEN THE NAIVE AND THE SKEPTIC 234 4.8 EVERYTHING FUNDAMENTAL: MENDELSSOHN’S ELUSIVE BELIEF 239 4.9 THE SECOND DETOUR: MENDELSSOHN’S CRITIQUE OF MEDIA 245 4.10 THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGE – THE PRIMAL SCENE OF SIGNIFICATION 247 4.11 THE SWERVE OF LANGUAGE 253 4.12 THE FETISHIZING OF MEDIA: MEANS AND MEANING 254 4.13 HIEROGLYPHS AND IDOLATRY 258 4.13 JUDAISM, BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE 271 BIBLIOGRAPHY 273 ii Acknowledgments In my time as a graduate student at Columbia University, and in the years leading up to my doctoral research, doing graduate and undergraduate work at Tel Aviv University, I had the privilege of learning from teachers, colleagues and friends, who have not only generously shared their insight and knowledge with me, but have also helped shape my intellectual perspective, influencing, often subtly and unbeknownst to me, the very way I listen, read, and ask questions. It is impossible to fully acknowledge all that I owe and everyone to whom I’m indebted, but that is surely no reason not to try. I was fortunate to have in my dissertation committee five scholars I deeply respect and from whom I have learned much more than I could hope to convey. Dan Miron, my dis- sertation supervisor, is a rare intellectual force, whose boundless erudition and absolute command of a wide array of fields of knowledge had left him, after six decades of schol- arship, and an unquestionable standing as a master of his field, as passionate for, and open to new ideas as a freshman college student. Both intellectually and in his institu- tional capacity as the Leonard Kaye professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature in the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) at Co- lumbia University, Dan had stubbornly kept Jewish studies a field to be pursued within uncommon, and often uncomfortable, challenging contexts. His students, and I amongst them, have been made to confront the necessity, both challenging and opportune, to iii negotiate the boundaries of the field, and aim to strike a balance between rigorous spe- cialization and broad intellectual concerns. Every time I had stepped into Dan’s office I left it both enlightened and uplifted, having learned something valuable I often hadn’t even considered inquiring about. I cannot thank him enough. Mladen Dolar’s ideas and work had a formative influence on me long before I had the good fortune to meet and eventually have him as a reader of my dissertation. Mladen’s capacity to combine conceptual rigor and philosophical originality with a masterful and careful textual work, historically sensitive, has set the standard by which I judge, unfa- vorably, my own work. Mladen’s reading cuts, without fail, straight to the heart of things and formulates the flaws and advantages of the text read with philosophical acumen and in the clearest of terms. I would not have a clear conception of my own work, nor a clear sense of purpose, if it wasn’t for his critical engagement and reading. For his friendship and emotional support throughout the turmoil of writing the dissertation I know not the proper words of gratitude. I wrote my first paper on Kant and Mendelssohn in Dorothea von Mücke’s seminar on Late 18th century German Aesthetics and The Philosophy of History at Columbia Univer- sity. Dorothea is a model citizen of the intellectual community, once known as the re- public of letters. I owe a great debt not only to Dorothea’s provocative intellectual frame- work, which combines intellectual and literary history with a deep engagement and un- derstanding of philosophy, and offers a fresh, critical approach to the enlightenment, but iv also to her encouragement, her exacting reading of my work, and her deep investment in the prospects and opportunities of young scholars, such as myself, lucky enough to have her as a mentor.