Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill (Mcgill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas)

Jacobi had an enormous impact on philosophical thought in the later part of the 18th century, notably the way Kant was received and the early development of post-Kantian idealism. His polemical tract "Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Herr Moses Mendelssohn" propelled him to notoriety in 1785. This work, as well as "David Hume on Faith, or Idealism and Realism, Jacobi to Fichte", and the novel "Allwill", are included in George di Giovanni's translation. In an introductory essay, di Giovanni situates Jacobi in the historical and philosophical context of his time. Avoiding a commonplace, simplistic portrayal of Jacobi as a fideist or proto-existentialist, he shows how Jacobi's life and work reflect the tensions inherent in the late Enlightenment. This book should be of interest to students of German Idealism and to those interested in the Enlightenment and early Romanticism.