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Rival Enlightenments

Rival Enlightenments

Rival Enlightenments

Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany
Ian Hunter, Griffith University, Queensland
November 2006
Available
Paperback
9780521025492

    Rival Enlightenments, first published in 2001, is a major reinterpretation of early modern German intellectual history. Ian Hunter approaches philosophical doctrines as ways of fashioning personae for envisaged historical circumstances, here of confessional conflict and political desacralization. He treats the civil philosophy of Pufendorf and Thomasius and the metaphysical philosophy of Leibniz and Kant as rival intellectual cultures or paideiai, thereby challenging all histories premised on Kant's supposed reconciliation and transcendence of the field. This study reveals the extraordinary historical self-consciousness of the civil philosophers, who repudiated university metaphysics as inimical to the intellectual formation of those administering desacralized territorial states. The book argues that the marginalization of civil philosophy in post-Kantian philosophical history may itself be seen as a continuation of the struggle between the rival enlightenments. Combining careful and well-documented scholarship with vivid polemic, Hunter presents penetrating insights for philosophers and historians alike.

    • Interesting interpretations of four leading early modern thinkers: Leibniz, Pufendorf, Thomasius and Kant
    • Makes available the latest German scholarship on early modern political, juridical, religious and philosophical thought
    • Major contribution to topical debates: 'detranscendentalizing' of philosophy; revival of interest in early modern natural law doctrines and the problem of sovereignty

    Reviews & endorsements

    "...we should thank Hunter for a provocative and valuable book..." Paul Saurette, University of Ottawa

    "Hunter's rereading of German intellectual history is original and controversial..." Review of Metaphysics

    "Rival Enlightenments is a study of the German Enlightenment by one of the leading scholars of the history of European political, legal, and moral philosophy. It is a work of outstanding scholarship and originality." Economy and Society

    See more reviews

    Product details

    January 2005
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9780511031830
    0 pages
    0kg
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • Preface
    • Acknowledgments
    • List of abbreviations and texts used
    • Note on conventions
    • Introduction
    • Part I. Rival Enlightenments:
    • 1. University metaphysics
    • 2. Civil philosophy
    • Part II. Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy:
    • 3. Leibniz' political metaphysics
    • 4. Pufendorf's civil philosophy
    • 5. Thomasius and the desacralisation of politics
    • 6. Kant and the preservation of metaphysics
    • Postscript: the kingdom of truth and the civil kingdom
    • List of references
    • Index.
      Author
    • Ian Hunter , Griffith University, Queensland

      Ian Hunter is Professor of Humanities and Founding Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.