What Enlightenment Was: How Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant Answered the Berlinische Monatsschrift

Abstract

What Enlightenment Was: How Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant Answered the Berlinische Monatsschrift JAMES SCHMIDT 1. A QUESTION AND SOME ANSWERS IN DECEMBER 178 3 THE Berlinische Monatsschrift published an article by the theologian and educational reformer Johann Friedrich Z611ner on the advisability of purely civil marriage ceremonies. Noting the journal's frequent use of the terms aufldiiren, aufgekliirte, and Aufkl~rung, he asked in a footnote: "What is enlightenment? This question, which is almost as important as what is truth, should indeed be answered before one begins enlightening! And still have I never found it answered!", Few footnotes have made such a mark on the history of philosophy. For the next decade a discussion of the nature and limits of enlightenment filled the pages of German literary and scholarly journals." Immanuel Kant's response is by far the most famous. But, as Kant himself An earlier version of this essay was discussed with members of my 1989 NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers. I profited enormously from these discussions and am also indebted to Frederick C. Beiser for his insightful comments on a later draft. Johann Friedrich Z611ner,"Ist es rathsam, das EhebiindniB nicht ferner durch die Religion zu sanciren?" Berlinische Monatsschrift lI (1783): 516. Reprinted in Was ist Aufkliirung? Beitriige aus der Berlinischen Monatsschrift, ~d. ed., ed. Norbert Hinske (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , 1977), 115. For a discussion of the genesis of Z611ner'squestion and its immediate impact, see my article "The Question of Enlightenment: Kant, Mendelssohn, and the M/ttw0chsgesellschafl ,"Journal of the History of ldeas 5o/2 (1989): 269-91. ' See H. B. Nisbet, " 'Was ist Aufld~rung?': The Concept of Enlightenment in EighteenthCentury Germany,"Journal ofEuropean Studies a2 (1982): 77-95. For collections of the eighteenthcentury essays see Hinske, ed., Was ist Aufkl~rung? and Aufldiirung und Gedankenfreiheit, ed. Zwi Batscha (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977). [77] 7 8 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3o: 1 JANUARY 1992 noted, the Berlinische Monatsschrift had already published Moses Mendelssohn 's answer to the question before he had the chance to submit his response .s "I have not seen this journal, otherwise I should have held back the above reflections. I let them stand only as a means of finding out by comparison how far the thoughts of two individuals may coincide by chance."4 There is no record of what Kant thought of Mendelssohn's essay, nor--aside from a brief unpublished notes--do we know much about Mendelssohn's response to Kant's answer. Subsequent discussions of the question paid little attention to these first two contributions and few scholars since have taken up Kant's suggestion and compared his response to Mendelssohn's. 6 That rather simple assignment is the task of this paper, which will argue that the most significant point to emerge from the comparison is the remarkable /ack of agreement between the two responses. 2. THE TERMS OF THE DEBATE It is doubtful that ZOllner was as confused about the meaning of AufklArungas his article implied. Like Mendelssohn, ZOllner was a member of the Mittwochs gesellschaft, a secret society of "Friends of the Enlightenment" closely linked to the BerlinischeMonatsschrifl.7On December 17, 1783--the month of ZOllner's Moses Mendelssohn, "l]'ber die Frage: was heisst aufkl~iren?" Berlinische Monatsschrift IV (1784): 193-2oo. Reprinted in Mendelssohn, Gesamm~lte Schriften Jubiltiumsausgabe, Vol. 6/1 (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 198 0, 115-19. For discussions of Mendelssohn 's essay see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (University, Alabama : University of Alabama Press, 1973), 66o-66; Werner Schneiders, Die wahre Aufkltirung (Freiburg: Alber, a974), 43-51; and Norbert Hinske, "Mendelssohns Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufkl~irung? oder I]ber die Aktualit~it Mendelssohns," in Norbert Hinske, ed., lch handle rait Vernunft . . . : Moses Mendelssohn und die europ~ische Aufld~irung (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1981), 85-1 a7. 4 Immanuel Kant, "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufkltirung?" Berlinische Monatsschrift IV (1784): 494. Reprinted in AA VIII:42 (trans. by H.B. Nisbet in Kant's Political Writings, ed. H_ Reiss [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 197o], 6o). s See Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften 8:~27-~8. 6 For previous attempts to compare the essays see Frieder...

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