Enlightenment Political Thought Research Papers

Josiah Tucker, who was the Anglican dean of Gloucester from 1758 until his death in 1799, is best known today as a controversialist, a political economist and a lesser contemporary of Adam Smith. Little attention has been paid, however,... more

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X20000473 Frederick II's writings have conventionally been viewed either as political tools or as means of public self-fashioning – part of his campaign to raise the status of Prussia from middling... more

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- by Avi Lifschitz
- •
- 17
  German Studies, Political Philosophy, Political Theory, German History

Introduction to the volume: Women, Enlightenment and Catholicism
(Routledge: 2017).

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- by Ulrich L. Lehner
- •
- 25
  Religion, Sociology of Religion, Theology, History of Religion

La modernité philosophique consiste principalement en le postulat de la Raison comme moyen d'émancipation de l'homme? Quel est dès lors le processus rationnel d’émancipation de l’homme ? Et quelle peut être sa transcription collective ?... more

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- by John Clark
- •
- 46
  Social Theory, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Political Theory

Herder’s This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity (1774) is known for its pioneering use of the word ‘nationalism’, and for its scathing critique of various Enlightened narratives of European history and their... more

Herder’s This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity
(1774) is known for its pioneering use of the word ‘nationalism’, and for its scathing
critique of various Enlightened narratives of European history and their corresponding
ethical views (cosmopolitanism). This article seeks to reconstruct this critique and
Herder’s account of the process of civilization, so as to uncover the possible moral and
political message of this work. Tracing the evolution of Herder’s early philosophy of
history, and positioning it in his contemporary debates on the development of the
human mind and sociability, the article argues that Herder posited a distinctive natural
dynamic of mental and moral development in human history. For Herder, human languages
and thinking gradually became ever more abstract and refined, which, however,
led to the weakening of the intensity of feeling and undermined the efficacy of
moral motivation. In This Too a Philosophy, Herder specified the spiralling pattern of
European history, identifying two crucial cycles in it: in the first stage, nations followed
only the natural dynamic of mental and moral development, while the second
and ‘higher’ one was initiated through the adoption of the universalistic Christian
religion by the barbarous Germanic tribes conquering the Roman territories. Herder’s
famous defence of national prejudices and antagonism concerned the first (pre-
Christian) period specifically, while he identified the rise of a Christian ideal of the
‘brotherhood of nations’ in the second. With the continuing progress of abstract thinking
and social differentiation in modern Europe, however, various modern moral and
political pathologies emerged, including the development of an entirely abstract ‘love
of mankind’. While remaining pessimistic about the chances for Europe’s moral and
political regeneration, Herder advocated the pursuit of a distinctively modern ‘pure’
and sociable virtue, which would seek to avoid the various pitfalls of abstract cosmopolitanism.

If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it... more

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- by David Lay Williams
- •
- 100
  Intellectual History, Law, Jurisprudence, Philosophy

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- by Anton Matytsin
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- 17
  Intellectual History, French Literature, French History, Enlightenment

Dopo la metà del Settecento i pensatori illuministi maturano un atteggiamento di ripudio del diritto romano giustinianeo, considerato fondamento del sistema giuridico di Antico Regime e privo di qualsiasi legittimazione sul piano della... more

In recent years the seventeenth century Ethiopian philosopher Zera Yacob has been championed as a modern rationalist philosopher and forerunner of human rights, whose work uniquely preempted concepts traditionally attributed to European... more

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- by Jonathan Burke
- •
- 17
  African Studies, Philosophy, African Philosophy, Ethiopian Studies

FULL TEXT!! This volume publishes for the first time an untitled anti-Hasidic manuscript, which the editors have called Reshit Hokhmah (The Origin/Beginning of Wisdom), from the Joseph Perl Archive in Tarnopol. The manuscript was copied... more

FULL TEXT!! This volume publishes for the first time an untitled anti-Hasidic manuscript, which the editors have called Reshit Hokhmah (The Origin/Beginning of Wisdom), from the Joseph Perl Archive in Tarnopol. The manuscript was copied in 1819, the year that Perl’s Megale Temirin was published. It is housed today in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. The identity of the author is unknown, but he probably came from Galicia and was associated with Mitnagdim and Maskilim. The book expresses harsh and detailed criticism of the hagiographic work, Shivhei ha-Besht (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, Kapost 1815), which is the first extensive engagement with this book. Moreover, the work is erudite and anticipates the views of Isaac Baer Levinson in his work Te‘udah be-Yisrael (A Warning to Israel, Vilna and Grodno 1828). The manuscript was read by many Maskilim in Galicia and it seems to have influenced both Joseph Perl and Isaac Baer Levinson. This work is therefore of great importance as an example of anti-Hasidic literature, which influenced nineteenth-century Haskalah literature. A transcription of the manuscript is presented in this volume, accompanied by explanatory notes, references to literature that influenced the author, references to anti-Hasidic literature, and an introduction that describes the character of the work and its reception.

Table of Contents

Early Manuscripts in Joseph Perl Archive / Jonatan Meir
Introduction / Shmuel Werses

Reshit Hokhmah (1819): Critical Edition
Introduction • The History of Heresy • In Praise of Wisdom and The Sages • On the Ways of the Fools • Hasidic Tales and their Secrets • On the Besht’s Path • The Besht’s Family • The Secret of Healing a Barren Woman • A Hasidic Sermon on Wine and Sons • Another Question and a Sermon on the Secrets • A Question and Sermon on Hasidic Tales • A Story about the Wonders of the great Tzaddik • On the Besht and a Priest who had an Accidental Emission • Another Story on the Besht and a Priest • The Besht and Wine • The Besht and Adultery • The Besht and the Messiah • Exaggerated Praise Concerning the Besht and the Origins of Praise • An Elegy on the Heretics, the Besht, and the Hasidim • A Reproach against the Besht’s Sayings Concerning the Messiah • Stories of False Tzaddikim • Two Types of Hasidic Rabbis • On the Tzaddikim and the Damage They Cause • Praising Wisdom and Work

Bibliography
Indexes

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- by Jonatan Meir and +1
  Shmuel Werses (1915-2010)
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- 356
  Religion, Gnosticism, New Religious Movements, Mythology And Folklore

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786), best known as Frederick the Great, was a prolific writer of philosophical discourses, poems, epics, satires, and more, while maintaining extensive correspondence with prominent intellectuals, Voltaire... more

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- by Avi Lifschitz
- •
- 19
  European History, German Studies, German History, Enlightenment

L’abbé de Saint-Pierre, célèbre pour son Projet de paix perpétuelle, s’affirme, avant Bentham, comme l’un des premiers utilitaristes. Exploitant la totalité de l’œuvre, cet ouvrage y souligne une dimension méconnue des Lumières... more

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- by Wulf D. Hund
- •
- 12
  Race and Racism, Critical Race Theory, Race and Ethnicity, Enlightenment

Речь К.Г. Лангера, профессора Императорского Московского университета в 1764–1774 гг., — первая оригинальная публикация по политической науке в Московском университете. Проблемное и предметное поле и междисциплинарные связи этой... more

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Fundamental Political Writings includes the Social Contract, Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, and “Preface to Narcissus.” Each text has been newly translated, and... more

Современники Войны за независимость США уже выработали довольно четкое представление о революционном процессе. Под термином «революция» понимался резкий переворот, будь то в политике, законодательстве или общественном мнении.... more

Современники Войны за независимость США уже выработали довольно четкое представление о революционном процессе. Под термином «революция» понимался резкий переворот, будь то в политике, законодательстве или общественном мнении. Философы-просветители также обосновали право народа на сопротивление угнетению. «Где кончается закон, начинается тирания... И если кто-либо из находящихся у власти превышает данную ему по закону власть... то ему можно оказывать сопротивление, как и всякому другому человеку, который силой посягает на права другого», – рассуждал Дж. Локк [3, т. 3, с. 379; см. также: 2].
С самого начала англо-американского конфликта патриоты (американские виги) доказывали, что британский подданный не обязан подчиняться законам, на которые он не давал своего согласия, и вправе добиваться отмены таких законов. Именно в этом, как правило, и видели сопротивление угнетению. «Если по решению британского сената колонисты оказались бы отданными на произвол французской или турецкой тирании, – рассуждал виргинец P. Блэнд, – то они могли бы отказаться подчиниться такому решению и сопротивляться его исполнению насильственными средствами». Парламент не мог лишить их ни естественных, ни гражданских прав [8, p. 84].

Liberalism is a term employed in a dizzying variety of ways across the humanities and social sciences. This essay seeks to reframe how the liberal tradition is understood. I start by delineating different types of response – prescriptive,... more

This book will examine the deeply esoteric eighteenth century Rite of Seven Degrees, a Masonic rite that was based in London, but was led by French engraver Pierre Lambert de Lintot. The work will not only present the story of de Lintot... more

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- by Dr David Harrison
- •
- 20
  History, Intellectual History, French Revolution, Enlightenment

DUE TO THE FINAL PUBLICATION OF THIS PAPER AS A CHAPTER IN THE NEW BOOK Adam Ferguson and the Politics of Virtue Edited by Michael Brown and Jack A. Hill, Aberdeen University Press, 2023. (Chapter 4. pp.98-117) I HAVE REMOVED THIS... more

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The principles of penal parsimony, which Beccaria places at the heart of the criminal reform proposed in his 1764 Dei delitti e delle pene (‘On Crimes and Punishments’), derive from a precise interpretation of the social contract.... more

Cet imposant ouvrage en deux volets comprend d’abord un essai consacré à la police parisienne au temps des Lumières, inscrit dans les tendances les plus récentes de l’historiographie policière. Il propose un regard neuf et nuancé sur... more

"On the Aesthetic Education of Man is one of the most profound works of German philosophy, in which Friedrich Schiller analyses politics, revolution and the history of ideas to define the relationship between beauty and art. Resulting... more

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- by Alexander Schmidt and +1
  Keith Tribe
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- 21
  Intellectual History, German Literature, Aesthetics, History of Ideas

Recent scholarship has claimed Adam Smith's frontal attack on the mercantile system as a precocious expression of liberal anti-imperialism. This paper argues that settler colonialism in North America represented an important exception and... more

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- by Onur Ulas Ince
- •
- 43
  History, Intellectual History, Cultural History, Economic History

Review of Jonathan Israel's Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

A bold new look at war and diplomacy in Europe that traces the idea of a unified continent in attempts since the eighteenth century to engineer lasting peace.

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- by Stella Ghervas
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- 20
  History, European History, Military History, Intellectual History

Abstract: This essay elaborates on and interprets Kant’s primary text when it comes to subject-matter of philosophy of history. Since Kant’s text on universal history presents human nature and mankind, nature and history as being forces... more

Introduction to the Korean translation of Catherine II's letters to Voltaire, D'Alembert, etc.

Cet article s’interroge sur le silence observé par Beccaria sur l’idée d’une fonction correctrice ou éducative des peines. Ce silence est frappant pour deux raisons. L’idée que les peines doivent avoir pour but d’amender le coupable est... more

This paper examines Rousseau’s use of the Spartan legend in his quest to rescue Europe from modernity, particularly in the First Discourse, the Letter to D’Alembert, and the Government of Poland. The Enlightenment marked the advent of... more

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- by Varad Mehta
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- 17
  History, Intellectual History, Classics, History of Ideas

Монография составлена из ранее опубликованных автором статей и материалов по истории и методологии исследования российского дворянства конца XVIII — начала XIX века. В книгу вошли результаты более чем двадцати лет работы. Предлагается... more

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- by Mikhail Mikeshin
- •
- 32
  Russian Studies, Metaphysics, History of Ideas, British History

This essay draws on Immanuel Kant’s concept of enlightenment as an escape from self- imposed ignorance and argues that a similar concept of enlightenment can be understood within the Muslim context as escape from self-imposed jahiliyyah,... more

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- by Muqtedar Khan
- •
- 79
  Religion, Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Movements

This AHRC funded PhD thesis examines the relationship between Scottish Enlightenment philosophy and Abolitionist activism. This work asserts that Scottish philosophers opposed legislative Abolition, and that Henry Dundas’s ‘gradual’... more

This AHRC funded PhD thesis examines the relationship between Scottish Enlightenment philosophy and Abolitionist activism. This work asserts that Scottish philosophers opposed legislative Abolition, and that Henry Dundas’s ‘gradual’ amendment to Wilberforce’s 1792 Slave Trade bill was partly motivated by fear of radical change. This amendment has been acknowledged by many as the reason the Slave Trade was allowed to continue, despite public disapprobation, until 1807. First, by examining the writings of those Scottish Enlightenment thinkers critical of slavery, this work demonstrates that their ideas were largely theoretical and lacked engagement with the problem of slavery in British society. Second, in examining why, when their writings against slavery have been so lauded, they made so little a direct contribution to the Abolitionist movement, this thesis explores the Scottish Enlightenment theory of spontaneous order in the generation of social institutions. Drawing upon the warnings of some of these Scottish literati, this thesis will argue that their belief in spontaneous order encouraged them to view any attempt at altering social structures (such as the Slave Trade) through legislation as dangerous innovations that should be opposed by enlightened thinkers and politicians. This thesis next examines the parliamentary debates surrounding the 1792 Abolition bill, highlighting the similarities between the Scottish Enlightenment polemic against radical change and the arguments of those opposing Wilberforce’s Slave Trade bill. MPs embraced Dundas’ gradual Abolition idea despite petitions in support of the original bill signed by their constituents, the views of whom were considered secondary to their own judgement on such matters. That the 1792 failure of Abolition was not due to a denial of the principle of ending slavery but a rejection of abrupt change demonstrates that the Scottish Enlightenment, through the agency of Dundas, encouraged delaying the abolition of the Slave Trade for fifteen years.

Биография графа Семена Романовича Воронцова (1744–1832), участника событий, связанных с переворотом 1762 г., героя Русско-турецкой войны 1768–1774 гг., выдающегося дипломата — посла Российской империи в Великобритании при Екатерине II,... more

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- by Mikhail Mikeshin
- •
- 16
  Diplomatic History, Russian Studies, Russian Politics, Enlightenment

François-Guillaume-Léon Du Tillot, thanks to its leading role in the government of the Duchy of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla and the interest aroused in Europe by his reform activity during the seventh decade of the 18th century, wove... more

Tra i pensatori settecenteschi, Denis Diderot è senz’altro tra quelli di più difficile classificazione. Autore di romanzi, opere teatrali, testi scientifici e di critica d’arte, oltre che di filosofia. È difficile separare le sue opere... more

Anarchism and geography have a long and disjointed history, characterized by towering peaks of intensive intellectual engagement and low troughs of ambivalence and disregard. This paper traces a genealogy of anarchist geographies back to... more

Enlightenment Political Thought

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