Phoedon

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) is considered the father of the Jewish Enlightenment and the last great Leibnizian in the German philosophical tradition. One of his most successful works was this dialogue on the immortality of the soul, modelled on Plato's "Phaedo".



Phædon: or, The Death of Socrates, originally published in German in 1767 and translated by Charles Cullen in 1789, has never been rendered into modern English. Cullen's translation is thus the only recourse for present-day scholars who cannot read German. It is long out of print and difficult to find, even in the largest academic libraries. Now that the English-speaking philosophical world is delving ever more deeply into the history of German philosophy, this facsimile of the 1789 edition - newly introduced by Curtis Bowman - will be widely welcomed.