Format:
1 Online-Ressource (xl, 291 Seiten)
ISBN:
9781400890446
Content:
The first complete and annotated English translation of Maimon's influential and delightfully entertaining memoirSolomon Maimon's autobiography has delighted readers for more than two hundred years, from Goethe, Schiller, and George Eliot to Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. The American poet and critic Adam Kirsch has named it one of the most crucial Jewish books of modern times. Here is the first complete and annotated English edition of this enduring and lively work.Born into a down-on-its-luck provincial Jewish family in 1753, Maimon quickly distinguished himself as a prodigy in learning. Even as a young child, he chafed at the constraints of his Talmudic education and rabbinical training. He recounts how he sought stimulation in the Hasidic community and among students of the Kabbalah--and offers rare and often wickedly funny accounts of both. After a series of picaresque misadventures, Maimon reached Berlin, where he became part of the city's famed Jewish Enlightenment and achieved the philosophical education he so desperately wanted, winning acclaim for being the "sharpest" of Kant's critics, as Kant himself described him.This new edition restores text cut from the abridged 1888 translation by J. Clark Murray, which has long been the only available English edition. Paul Reitter's translation is brilliantly sensitive to the subtleties of Maimon's prose while providing a fluid rendering that contemporary readers will enjoy, and is accompanied by an introduction and notes by Yitzhak Melamed and Abraham Socher that give invaluable insights into Maimon and his extraordinary life. The book also features an afterword by Gideon Freudenthal that provides an authoritative overview of Maimon's contribution to modern philosophy
Content:
The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon -- Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Translator'S Note -- Maimon'S Autobiography: A Guide For The Perplexed -- Original Editor'S Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: My Grandfather's Household -- Chapter 2: Earliest Childhood Memories -- Chapter 3: Private Education and Independent Study -- Chapter 4: Jewish Schools. The Joy of Being Delivered from Them Results in a Stiff Foot -- Chapter 5: My Family Is Driven into Poverty, and an Old Servant's Great Loyalty Costs Him a Christian Burial -- Chapter 6: New Residence, New Misery. The Talmudist -- Chapter 7: Happiness Turns Out to Be Short- Lived -- Chapter 8: The Student Knows More Than the Teacher. A Theft à la Rousseau Is Discovered. The Pious Man Wears What the Godless Man Procures -- Chapter 9: Love Affairs. Marriage Proposals. The Song of Solomon Can Be Used as a Matchmaking Device. Smallpox -- Chapter 10: People Fight over Me. I Suddenly Go from Having No Wives to Having Two. In the End, I Wind Up Being Kidnapped -- Chapter 11: Marrying as an Eleven Year Old Makes Me into My Wife's Slave and Results in Beatings at the Hands of My Mother- in- Law. A Spirit of Flesh and Blood -- Chapter 12: Marital Secrets. Prince R., or the Things One Isn't Allowed to Do in Poland -- Chapter 13: Striving for Intellectual Growth amidst the Eternal Struggle against All Kinds of Misery -- Chapter 14: I Study the Kabbalah, and Finally Become a Doctor -- Chapter 15: Brief Account of the Jewish Religion, from Its Origins to the Present -- Chapter 16: Jewish Piety and Exercises in Penance -- Chapter 17: Friendship and Rapture -- Chapter 18: Life as a Tutor -- Chapter 19: Another Secret Society and Therefore a Long Chapter -- Chapter 20: Continuation of the Story, as well as Some Thoughts on Religious Mysteries -- Chapter 21: Trips to Königsberg, Stettin, and Berlin, to Further My Understanding of Humanity -- Chapter 22: My Misery Reaches Its Nadir. Rescue -- Preface to the Second Book -- Introduction to the Second Book -- Introduction: Expansion of My Knowledge and Development of My Character. On Both of Which the Writings of the Famous Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon Had the Greatest Influence. Precise Account of These Writings -- Chapter 1: More Newochim: Its Plan, Goal, and Method. Theologica Politica -- Chapter 2: Continuation. Interpretation of Expressions with Multiple Meanings. Language in the Hands of Theologians, like Clay in the Hands of the Potters. Anti- Rousseauean Refutation of an Objection. Cautionary Rule for Aspiring Metaphysicians: One Must First Learn to Swim before Plunging into the Great Oceans of the World -- Chapter 3: Continuation. The Crow Is Robbed of the Feathers Stolen from Other Birds, or the Denial of God's Positive Characteristics -- Chapter 4: Continuation. Explanation of the Manifold Names of God as Names for His Actions. Destiny of Metaphysics. It Becomes the Slave of Theology. Its Degeneration into Dialectics -- Chapter 5: Continuation. The Concept of Angels. Some Remain at Their Stations as Ambassadors, Others Have Been Ordered Back. Genesis and Influence of the Uniform Beings. Aristotelians' Reasons for the Eternity of the World -- Chapter 6: Continuation. Counter- Reasons. A Psychological Explanation of Prophesy That Doesn't Undermine the Dignity of Prophesy -- Chapter 7: Continuation. Relation of All Natural Events to God. A Very Comfortable and Pious Method. Divine Equipage, a Cosmological Idea That the Prophet Ezekiel Wouldn't Have Dreamed of. Excellent Morals, but Not in Line with Today's Taste. Origins of Evil. Prophesy. Final Causes -- Chapter 8: Continuation. Overcoming Doubts about God's Omniscience. The Book of Job as the Vehicle for a Metaphysical Treatise on Providence -- Chapter 9: Mosaic Jurisprudence. The Silly Paganism of the Sabians, an Impetus to Many Otherwise Inexplicable Laws, of Which the Beard Still Remains -- Chapter 10: Conclusion of the More Newochim. Excellent Morals. Definition of the True Worship of God, Which Makes Priests Unnecessary -- Admonition -- Chapter 11: My Arrival in Berlin. Acquaintances. Mendelssohn. Doubting Metaphysical Systems. Teaching Locke and Adelung -- Chapter 12: Mendelssohn. A Chapter Dedicated to the Memory of a Great Friend -- Chapter 13: My Initial Aversion to Belle Lettres and My Ensuing Conversion. Departure from Berlin. A Stay in Hamburg. I Get Drunk the Way a Bad Actor Shoots Himself. A Foolish Old Woman Falls in Love with Me- and Is Rejected -- Chapter 14: I Return to Hamburg. A Lutheran Pastor Calls Me a Mangy Sheep and Claims That I Am Unworthy of Being Taken into the Christian Flock. I Become a Gymnasium Student and Make the Chief Rabbi as Mad as a Ram -- Chapter 15: Third Journey to Berlin. Failed Plan to Become a Hebrew Author. Journey to Breslau. Divorce -- Chapter 16: Fourth Trip to Berlin. Atrocious Conditions and Help. Study of Kant's Writings. A Depiction of My Own Works -- Concluding Chapter: The Merry Masquerade Ball -- Afterword: Maimon's Philosophical Itinerary -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780691163857
Language:
English
Keywords:
Autobiografie
DOI:
10.1515/9781400890446
URL:
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URL:
Volltext
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Author information:
Maimon, Salomon 1753-1800
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