Mendelssohn and Spinoza: Different Routes to Liberalism

The query of both Mendelssohn’s and Spinoza’s liberalism is valuable: it asks us to elucidate the relationship between both philosophers’ political dogmas and one of the most important political developments of our time, liberalism. In the Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza sought to enfeeble the grasp of religion over the individual and encouraged Jews to discard their exclusive adherence to their own beliefs in favor of a universal system based upon natural law. While both Spinoza and Mendelssohn wished to secure freedom of thought, Mendelssohn desired to guarantee the freedom of religion as well. On one hand, Spinoza subordinated all religious measures to the state. Contrastingly, Mendelssohn guarded Judaism. In his defense, Mendelssohn applied Spinoza’s discount of Judaism to law and fit it into a virtue. Both philosophies do not assume that freedom is valuable. Rather, they stress the significance of safeguarding freedom only on the foundation that people happen to value it. Thus, in accordance with Ze’ev Levy’s assessment in Spinoza to Lévinas, the two Jewish thinkers concur with modern liberalism, which advocates that the states should foremost protect freedom. Nonetheless, both scholars arrive at their conclusions by very different routes.

Liberalism generally represents an affirmation of the political value of individual emancipation. Therefore, Spinoza is most frequently described as a liberal in Spinoza to Lévinas because his politics accentuate the importance of freedom. As a prime example, he argues in his work, Theological-Political Treatise, that states should protect freedom of thought and speech. Spinoza’s evaluation of freedom is based on two political claims. The first is that “the purpose of the state is,...

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... absolutist terms and the same is true for the church. The belief that the state demands an absolute claim to sovereignty, which includes the authority over the individual's natural rights, is something Mendelssohn would sharply oppose. Instead he would ensure that the relationship between church and state is neither aggressive nor completely balanced. Rather, the two exist in a arrangement that provides a feasible structure for human existence as we see today.

Overall, Spinoza and Mendelssohn’s visions of the relationship between the state and individual religious belief were revolutionary responses to the challenges of modernity. Though they parted ways over the affirmation of Torah and the importance of maintaining a distinct Jewish identity, these two intellectuals shared much in common between philosophies regarding the need for individual freedom of thought.