Home Literary Studies Lessings exoterische Verteidigung der Orthodoxie
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Lessings exoterische Verteidigung der Orthodoxie

Die Wolfenbütteler Beiträge gegen die Aufklärungstheologie (1770–1774)
  • Eleonora Travanti
  • Funded by: Wilhelm Hahn und Erben-Stiftung
Language: German
Published/Copyright: 2023
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About this book

In his early years in Wolfenbüttel, Lessing published a series of writings about philosophy and religion directed against Enlightenment theology. The Enlightenment thinker took the side of dogmatic theology to attack Socinians, Neologists, and Deists. Lessing's position in these texts remains one of the most controversial issues in Lessing research to this day: why was the well-known freethinker a bitter enemy of rational Christianity?

Lessing's opinion pieces written in favour of orthodoxy have been viewed as indecisive, tactical, and hypocritical. By reconstructing the Aristotelian tradition of the twofold philosophical manner of teaching, this study shows that Lessing, even in his theological writings, made use of both an exoteric and an esoteric art of writing, with the result that the key to understanding Lessing’s orthodoxy can be found in his vindications of Leibniz.

Lessing’s defence of orthodoxy thus proves to be merely exoteric. The Enlightenment thinker defended dogmatic Lutheranism because the rationalization of Christianity compromised philosophy’s autonomy from theology. Only a strict separation between faith and reason, he believed, would guarantee the libertatem philosophandi.

Author / Editor information

Eleonora Travanti, University of Marburg, Germany.

Reviews

"Die hier vorgestellte Arbeit hat für die sie leitende Frage – bildlich gesprochen – das Terrain
gründlich sondiert und nach allen Richtungen vermessen und den geschichtlichen Horizont beträchtlich
erweitert und wird mit der von ihr gegebenen Antwort der weiteren Lessing-Forschung
Anstöße geben." Stefan Lorenz in: DAJ 1/2024


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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
April 3, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9783110793055
Hardcover published on:
April 3, 2023
Hardcover ISBN:
9783110792164
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
15
Main content:
336
Coloured Illustrations:
29
Tables:
7
Downloaded on 21.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110793055/html
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