Moses Mendelssohn
1729-1786 · Jewish Thought · Prominent
Mendelssohn was the central figure of the Jewish Enlightenment and a voice of the Berlin Aufklärung. In Jerusalem, published in 1783, he told the state where its power ends: it can compel what you do and never what you believe. Reason on its own establishes a God who provides and a soul that survives death. Judaism he described as revealed law, a body of practice commanded to Jews, its beliefs open to anyone's reason.
Signature
The position Mendelssohn is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
Positions on the 0 axes the sources answer
20 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Mendelssohn refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Wisdom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law / Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Evaluative Judgment
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine / Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?