Moses Mendelssohn and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: A Controversy Regarding the Limits of Enlightenment Progress

Abstract

In his writing On the Question: What is Enlightenment? Mendelssohn asserts that the progress of enlightenment finds its limits when it threatens the religious and moral foundations of society. These assumptions can be read as part of the criticisms he develops in Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism against his friend Lessing's philosophy of history. Hence, this article aims to show how, based on the differences in the ways both authors define the concept of enlightenment and the perfection of the human being, it is possible to understand Mendelssohn's defense of religious pluralism in the face of the danger of a definitive unity that Lessing sets as the goal of the progress of history.