Spinoza's Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine

CHAPTER 12 Lessing’s Spinozist Exercises

with the announcement of lessing’s alleged confession of Spinozism , Jacobi initiated what was to become the most controversial debate in eighteenth-century German culture. The publication of Jacobi’s conversations with Lessing marks a decisive demarcation line that separates the Enlightenment from the new movements, both Sturm und Drang and the emerging German idealism. The disclosure—if it was one—that Lessing died a Spinozist has deWned the discussion on Lessing’s Spinozism in such a profound way that even most critical accounts Wnd themselves compelled to argue within the Jacobian framework. But Jacobi’s particular framing of the debate has only further confused the picture when reaching some degree of clarity seems already difWcult enough. Jacobi’s self-interested, polemical launching of the discussion in a strictly bipolar scheme, dividing the debate into Spinozist and anti-Spinozist camps, still haunts most of the discussion of Lessing’s relationship to Spinoza. From the days Jacobi ignited the controversy by presenting Lessing with Goethe’s poem “Prometheus”—the impetus for Lessing’s formulation of what seemed to be his Spinozist credo—to the present, critics have regularly addressed the question of Lessing’s Spinozism more as a test of Lessing’s intellectual competence than as an opportunity to gain an insight into the development and formation of his critical thought. Although Spinoza, as Lessing would later say in a conversation with Jacobi, was but a “todter Hund” (dead dog),1 to speak or write about 183 c h a p t e r 1 2
lessing’s spinozist exercises him posed a direct risk to those involved, at least prior to the explosion of the Spinoza controversy, and even sometime after that. The eviction of the paramount philosopher of German early Enlightenment, Christian Wolff, from Halle in 1737 was only the most prominent example of how allegations of Spinozism could threaten the reputation, the career, and even the life of those accused of it.2 Crypto-Spinozists like Edelmann, mostly residing in Berlin, were living examples of how damaging a careless interest in Spinoza could be. Nevertheless, underground Spinozism was alive and well, especially in eighteenth-century Berlin. Lessing came into early contact with Spinoza (most likely after 1746), whose reputation must have inspired Lessing’s interest in the legendary outcast who was suspected, hated, and viliWed for his radical avant-garde stand. But his name is not mentioned by Lessing until 1753. Attempts at periodizing Lessing’s Spinoza studies prove somewhat difWcult. A Wrst period of the reception starts as early as 1746, but it seems that it is not until the early 1750s that Lessing is ready for a serious study of Spinoza . It well might have been Lessing who introduced Mendelssohn to Spinoza.3 In the course of their discussions, Spinoza plays a central role. Traces of that early common study, which also plays a crucial part in forging their lifelong friendship, can be found in several publications and the correspondence of that time. The seed that is planted in these early conversations informs their relationship up to their very last publications . In the Wrst half of the 1750s their discussions focus on the metaphysical centerpiece of Spinoza’s philosophy: the way Spinoza conceives of God, Nature, and the macrostructure of his ontology. In the second half of the decade, however, in the context of the exchange on tragedy, the discussion shifts, on Mendelssohn’s initiative, to the role Spinoza’s theory of affects could play in a modern and effective theory of the stage play. During his time in Breslau (1760–64), Lessing returns to an intensive study of Spinoza. As Lessing engages in a critical study, Spinoza now becomes an important conductor for Lessing’s rethinking of his own metaphysical position. In the 1770s Lessing returns to Spinoza once again, but this time it is no longer the metaphysical and ontological conundrums of the Ethics that catch his interest but the theory of religion and political theory, with its pioneering formulation of the separation of theology and philosophy put forward in the Theological-Political Treatise. With his appointment as chief librarian of the duke of Braunschweig in 1770, Lessing moves in 1777 to a new residence in Wolfenbüttel graced 184 spinoza through lessing by the magniWcent portrait of Spinoza that, hanging in the living room, comes to stand for more than just a household name or conversation piece. Although Lessing does not...