Identity Or History?: Marcus Herz and the End of the EnlightenmentIdentity or History? is a unique study of Marcus Herz, a Jewish philosopher and doctor in late eighteenth-century Berlin, and of German-Jewish culture at the end of the Enlightenment. More than a biography, this book explores questions of German-Jewish identity and of the discrepancies between Enlightenment theory and practice. Martin Davies draws parallels between Herz's personal life and Prussian politics and culture to make sense of the end of the eighteenth century when Enlightenment tradition and Romantic thought coincided. Identity or History? attempts to reconstruct Herz's cultural and social identity from his misunderstandings of the movements in which he participated and to infer from his contradictions the coherence of his intellectual positions. Davies illustrates that the contradictions that mark Herz's life and works are symptomatic for his position as a German Jew and for his time. |
Contents
Identity or History? | 1 |
A Clever Jewish Student | 19 |
Herz and the dilemma of speculative reason | 47 |
3 | 72 |
4 | 145 |
Herzs philosophy of taste and the aesthetics of salon culture in the 1790s | 163 |
Identity or History? | 216 |
NOTES | 220 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 300 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic aller Arendt argues Arzt Aufklärung beauty Berlin Betrachtungen Briefe an Aerzte Christian concept culture David Friedländer eighteenth century einiger emancipation empirical Enlightenment Erfahrung Ernst essay existence experience Frankfurt am Main Friedrich Schleiermacher German German-Jewish Geschichte Geschmack habe Haltung Haskalah Hence Henriette Herz Henriette's Herrn Herz's human interests ideal ideas identity Immanuel Kant intellectual Jahrhunderts Jewish Jews Johann JPAW Juden jüdischen Kant's Kantian Karl Philipp Moritz knowledge Königsberg können Kritik der reinen Kunst Leben Leipzig letter Maimon Marcus Herz medicinischen Menschen ment metaphysical moral Moses Mendelssohn muß nature Neue object observations philosophical medicine philosophische political practice principle psychological Rahel Rahel Varnhagen rational reason reinen Vernunft religion religious Salomon Maimon salon Schmitz Schriften Schwindel scientific Sendschreiben sense seyn social society soul spekulativen Weltweisheit taste Theil theory tion Ueber vaccination Verstand Versuch vindicated vols Welt wenig Wilhelm Wilhelm von Humboldt Wissenschaften Zeit