Scepticism against Intolerance? Moses Mendelssohn and Pierre Bayle’s “Dialogue” on Spinoza in Mendelssohn’s Philosophische Gespräche (1755)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very fine paper overall and adds a number of interesting layers to a handful of issues, from Spinoza to Leibniz and Spinoza to Mendelssohn's efforts to find a place for a Jewish thinker in a secularizing yet still Christian world. It requires, however, a rigorous copy-edit read to correct a large number of small syntax miscues so that the style is as excellent as the content. (I am happy to help out if the author has nobody else to do that).

Please see my previous comment. The quality of the English is excellent overall, but there is a good number of small syntax or occasional typo issues that require attention!

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your stylistic remarks. As you indeed point out, I have found a considerable number of errors. I am enclosing the final file with the corrected errors. Here are all the errors that have been detected and corrected:

- namely (p.2, line 9); Leibniz (p.2, line 33); else (p.2, line39); a direct acces (p.3, line 53); anonynum (p.3, line 66); Sinagogue (p.3, line 71); an spinozist (p.4, line 79); withexamples (p.4, line 81); Atheus (p.4, line 84); first (p.4, line 88); been (p.4, footnote n. 5); inacceptable (p.4, footnote n.6); demark (p.4, footnote n.6); pre-established (p.4, footnote n.7); on (p.4, footnote n.7); fanatism (p.5, line 125); bels spirits (p.6, line 165); but (p.6, line 166); critical as, for instance, Bayle’s Dictionnaire is (p.7, lines 197-98); realize (p.7, line 207); it (p.7, footnote n.10); hyphothesis (p.7, footnote n.10); subtilities (p.7, footnote n.10); By (p.8, line 234); preestablished (p.8, footnote n.11), viceversa (p.8, footnote n.11); Gelenheit (p.8, footnote n.11); approcahes (p.8, footnote n.11); yet (p.9, line 252); exposé (p.9, line 265); on (p.9, line 266); Malebrachian (p.10, line 304); June (p.10, footnote 14); establishment (p.10, footnote 14); constituve (p.11, footnote 18); greatest (p.11, line 398); of Spinoza's devising (p.11, line 407); discovery (p.12, line 416); at (p.13, line 443); Labrouse (p.13, line 452); verstandes (p.15, line 497); Rouletdge ((p.15, line 502); alternatuve (p.15, line 516); Ze'ev (p.15, line 542).

If you find any more errors, please do not hesitate to correct them: I thank you for the offer.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is carefully written, accurate and precise in dealing with all relevant bibliography on the subject. Sometimes some sentences may appear as redundant; yet, the thesis is clearly developed.

I signal few imperfections:

Note 7: after "Leibnizian pre-established" something is missing.

The expression "gratis malus atheus” is odd. I would leave out "gratis"

Note 8: Mendelssohns [sic]

"bels sprits" (l. 160) is not French.

Note 18: insitgation [sic]

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments! Please find attached the final document with the revisions indicated by the two reviewers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf