Early Modern Natural Law Theories : Contexts and Strategies in the Early Enlightenment

The study of natural law theories in the early Enlightenment continues to be one of the most fruitful areas of research in early modern intellectual history. In recent years there have been substantial reassessments of Grotius, Pufendorf, Thomasius 1 and the whole university-based tradition associated with the Frühaujklärung. The appeal of the discourse of natural jurisprudence to groups and individuals operating outside conventional educational and political structures - such as the Huguenot diaspora - has also been highlighted? Moreover the contextual understanding of the work of unambiguously major philosophers such as Hobbes and Kant - and its reception - has been greatly enhanced by studies that have sought to view them as 3 participants in rather than bystanders alongside the discourse of natural law. Thus thinkers previously not considered central to this discourse have been incorporated into it afresh. However, there is no danger of natural jurisprudence going unchallenged as the meta-discourse of political theory in this period, for recently new studies of the role of libertine and jansenist thought in shaping the priorities of the early Republic of Letters have challenged its position among the intellectual 4 achievements of the social and political theory of the early Enlightenment. This volume therefore offers a timely opportunity to reassess both the coherence of the concept of 'early Enlightenment' and the specific contribution of natural law theories to it. Front Matter....Pages I-XVIII Before and after Natural Law....Pages 1-30 Taming the Leviathan: Reading Hobbes in Seventeenth-Century Europe....Pages 31-52 Malebranche and Natural Law....Pages 53-87 The Reception of Hugo Grotius’s De Jure Belli AC Pacis in the Early German Enlightenment....Pages 89-105 Revolution Principles, IUS Naturae and IUS Gentium in Early-Enlightenment Scotland: The Contribution of Sir Francis Grant, Lord Cullen ( C . 1660–1726)....Pages 107-140 Natural Jurisprudence, Argument from History and Constitutional Struggle in the Early Enlightenment: The Case of Gottlieb Samuel Treuer’s Polemic Against Absolutism in 1719....Pages 141-167 The Love of a Sage or the Command of a Superior....Pages 169-193 Voluntarism and Moral Obligation: Barbeyrac’s Defence of Pufendorf Revisited....Pages 195-225 The Politics of Self-Preservation: Toleration and Identity in Pufendorf and Locke....Pages 227-255 De Sympathia et Antipathia Rerum : Natural Law, Religion and the Rejection of Mechanistic Science in the Works of Christian Thomasius....Pages 257-277 “Decorum” and “Politesse”: Thomasius’s Theory of Civilized Society in Comparative Perspective....Pages 279-296 Natural Law and Enlightenment in France and Scotland — A Comparative Perspective....Pages 297-317 Back Matter....Pages 319-341 The study of natural law theories is presently one of the most fruitful areas of research in the studies of early modern intellectual history, and moral and political theory. Likewise the historical significance of the Enlightenment for the development of ̀modernisation' in many different forms continues to be the subject of controversy. This collection therefore offers a timely opportunity to re-examine both the coherence of the concept of an ̀early Enlightenment', and the specific contribution of natural law theories to its formation. The works of major thinkers such as Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Malebranche, Pufendorf and Thomasius are reassessed, and the appeal and importance of the discourse of natural jurisprudence both to those working inside conventional educational and political structures and to those outside - such as in the Huguenot diaspora - is evaluated. This volume will therefore be of importance to all those readers concerned to study the character of the debates in the period 1650-1750 surrounding moral and political agency, sovereignty and obligation, and the legitimation of religious toleration in the divergent states and patriotic contexts of Europe The study of natural law theories is presently one of the most fruitful areas of research in the studies of early modern intellectual history, and moral and political theory. This text offers a timely opportunity to re-examine the coherence of the concept of an 'early Englightenment'