Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings

The most comprehensive collection to date in English of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Author), H. B. Nisbet (Edited and translated by)

9780521831208, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 February 2005

282 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.55 kg

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), thinker, dramatist and controversialist of many-sided interests, is the most representative figure of the German Enlightenment. His defence of Spinoza, who had traditionally been condemned as an atheist, provoked a major controversy in philosophy, and his publication of H. S. Reimarus' radical assault on Christianity led to fundamental changes in Protestant theology. This volume presents the most comprehensive collection to date in English of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings, several of which are here translated for the first time. They are edited and translated by H. B. Nisbet, who also provides an introduction that sets them in their historical and philosophical contexts.

The Christianity of Reason
On the Reality of Things outside God
Spinoza only put Leibniz on the Track of [his Theory of] Pre-established Harmony
On the Origin of Revealed Religion
Leibniz on Eternal Punishment
[Editorial Commentary on the 'Fragments' of Reimarus]
On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power
The Testament of St John
A Rejoinder
A Parable
Axioms
New Hypothesis on the Evangelists as Merely Human Historians
Necessary Answer to a Very Unnecessary Question of Herr Hauptpastor Goeze in Hamburg
The Religion of Christ
That More than Five Senses are Possible for Human Beings
Ernst and Falk: Dialogues for Freemasons
The Education of the Human Race
[Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Recollections of Conversations with Lessing in July and August].

Subject Areas: Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]