Rival Enlightenments

Rival Enlightenments 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

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.

‘This fresh assessment helps us see that Kant re-spiritualized morality and citizenship, as well as the state, although in an abstract and appealing ‘modern way’.’

– Thomas Robisheaux, Duke University

‘… a book Kant scholars should definitively take notice of. Based on intensive historical analysis, Hunter rejects the common notion that the German enlightenment found its high point in Kant. He does so in favour of a reconsideration of authors such as Pufendorf and Thomasius.’

– Kantian Review