Hamann agreed with Mendelssohn that there are “no eternal truths save as incessant temporality,” and in this he locates the difference between Judaism and Christianity: “it is solely a matter of temporal truths of history, which occurred once and never come again – of facts which have become true at one point in time and place through a coherence of causes and effects, and which, therefore, can only be conceived as true in respect to that point in time and space, and must be confirmed by authority.” Authority, he recognizes, can suppress reason, but he adds, again following Mendelssohn, that “without authority the truth of history vanishes along with the event itself.”
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War
What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…
How the State Failed Noelia Castillo
On March 26, Noelia Castillo, a twenty-five-year-old Spanish woman, was killed by her doctors at her own…
The Mind’s Profane and Sacred Loves
The teachers you have make all the difference in your life. That they happened to come into…
