Freedom and Necessity: Spinoza's Impact on Lessing

Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) was an undeniably significant and pivotal figure not only during his own lifetime but also during the Enlightenment. The over-arching purpose of this paper is to consider how Lessing dealt with the impact of Spinozist thought and its consequences and to analyse the extent to which he can be said to exemplify a post-Spinozist mentality in dealing with the relationship between freedom and necessity. It aims to prove not that Lessing was a direct disciple of Spinoza, but that he was influenced by the post-Spinozist climate pervading the eighteenth-century intellectual world. In particular, this paper examines Lessing's exploration of a nexus of causality which has been set out by Spinoza's ideas on freedom and necessity. In a similar manner to Spinoza, he demonstrates that man's subjection to external causes is balanced by his ability to exert a degree of free necessity, that is, freedom within the necessary constraints of the order of nature and the designs of Providence. Furthermore, he parallels Spinoza's thinking in arguing for a necessary causal relationship between virtue, necessity and freedom.