1. T. Isaak Iselins Leben und Bildungsgang bis 1764.--2. T. Iselins Stellung in der Geistesgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhunderts.

I will first provide a brief outline of Iselin’s main work on the philosophy of history, focusing on these questions: What are the aims of universal history? What function does it have? Subsequently, I will examine the particular concept of humanity that is the subject of Iselin’s history. I argue that the subject of universal history is denoted by a kind of hybrid concept that connects morality qua human nature with humankind understood as the collective of all humans (...) - this being Iselin’s most impressive and influential philosophical invention. Regarding the ‘constellation’ that Iselin is situated in, I will briefly argue that the book methodically sketches a unique approach to universal history within the German-speaking world, while making certain advantages and limitations in this project transparent and arguing that it is also the first book to introduce the term "humanity" ("Menschheit") in a prominent place, a term that was to play a central role in late German Enlightenment. I claim that this concept of humanity most likely had a significant impact on Kant’s and Herder’s conceptions of humanity, as a consequence of which some ideas found in both authors can be interpreted as implicit reactions against Iselin. (shrink)

Rousseau is often seen as the quintessential representative of Swiss republicanism. But to most of his Swiss contemporaries Rousseau's brand of republicanism and his self-professed Protestantism remained deeply suspect. They found his thinking, and especially his discussion of the natural origins of morality, far too sceptical and thus ultimately unsuited for their own attempt to forge a theory of republican reform. The article focuses on the reply by Rousseau's most sympathetic yet also most persistent critics, the Basle secretary of state (...) and author of the famous ‘History of Mankind’. (shrink)

Das Buch präsentiert zwei sehr unterschiedliche Textformate: eine Forschungsarbeit von 1974 zur «Patriotischen Gesellschaft in Bern», die jetzt erstmalig gedruckt vorliegt, und eine vorläufige Dokumentation zum Anteil des Basler Ratsherrn Isaak Iselin (1728-1782) an der europäischen Geschichtsphilosophie. Iselin war Gründungsmitglied der Berner Gesellschaft und Autor der ersten deutschsprachigen Geschichtsphilosophie. Die gegenseitige Bezugnahme der beiden Studien zum «Ursprung» des geschichtsphilosophischen Denkens und dem simultanen Beginn der Patriotischen Gesellschaften am Beispiel der Berner zeigt vor allem eins: Sie macht den (...) Anspruch jener Aufklärer plausibel, die theoretische Entwürfe mit der sozioökonomischen Praxis im Bestreben um politische Reformen verbunden wissen wollten. (shrink)

Homo Juridicus focuses on the normative foundations underlying all socio-cultural formations. The book uses the concept of ''normativity'' in an inclusive sense. It includes law, but it is not limited to it. As such, it explores the various social and cultural forces that persuade, incite, seduce, influence, direct, restrain, repress or control behavior. It is a major interdisciplinary study cutting across several disciplines of social science, such as law, anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics and philosophy. Its primary audience is law students, (...) as well as the scholarly community across law and the social sciences. ''Isaak Dore is one of the very few scholars who straddles a broad range of legal and nonlegal disciplines. This important book deconstructs the idea of normativity in culture and illuminates it through various strains of thought in anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics and philosophy. Its grasp of these disciplines is impressive in terms of nuance, breadth, particularity and lucidity. It is a unique work, brilliantly executed, providing a rich background against which the promotion of social order through legal and nonlegal norms can be evaluated. It both provokes and compels one to think outside of the conventional structures and assumptions of law and social order. I know of no other work that offers the broad intellectual reach that this ambitious book presents.'' - Laura S. Underkuffler, J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. (shrink)

148 JM GUYAU I51 SMILE BOUTROUX 153 GABRIEL SEAILLES * . . . . l6l JEAN JAURES . ..... 163 ANDRE LALANDE 164 CHARLES DUN AN l6S HENRI BERGSON 1 69 THE ...

Green Logic seeks to highlight the key questions regarding entrepreneurship and sustainability in terms of motivation, government intervention and ethics. This new book aims to examine how 'Green Logic' works, how it differs from other logics and how green thinking can be targeted in order to create environmentally responsible businesses in an era of rapid change. In short, what does it really take to motivate entrepreneurs to design and start up green businesses? Green Logic is suitable for both business and (...) academic audiences and significantly pushes forward the debate on environmental responsibility. (shrink)

The past three decades of policy process studies have seen the emergence of a clear intellectual lineage with regard to complexity. Implicitly or explicitly, scholars have employed complexity theory to examine the intricate dynamics of collective action in political contexts. However, the methodological counterparts to complexity theory, such as computational methods, are rarely used and, even if they are, they are often detached from established policy process theory. Building on a critical review of the application of complexity theory to policy (...) process studies, we present and implement a baseline model of policy processes using the logic of coevolving networks. Our model suggests that an actor’s influence depends on their environment and on exogenous events facilitating dialogue and consensus-building. Our results validate previous opinion dynamics models and generate novel patterns. Our discussion provides ground for further research and outlines the path for the field to achieve a computational turn. (shrink)

Philosophy's traditional "man of reason"—independent, neutral, unemotional—is an illusion. That's because the "man of reason" ignores one very important thing—the woman. Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic collects new and old essays that shed light on the underexplored intersection of logic and feminism.

Both books published in 1996 explore the role that gender plays in the psychology of art (dealing with both making and viewing), complicating current philosophical distinctions between the aesthetic and the cognitive, and providing new insights into basic topics in the history and psychology of perception, representation, and disinterestedness.

Betr. Isaak Iselin und die "Basler Preisfrage nach Aufwandgesetzen in einer Republik" von 1779.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William Robertson’s History of Manners in German, 1770–1795László KontlerThe work I have had in preparing this new edition of Robertson’s History of Charles V has not been very agreeable. To compare an already existing translation line by line with the original... costs more trouble than a new translation would require. I do not flatter myself that I have noticed everything that could have been improved, and would hardly undertake (...) such a task for a second time.... 1Anybody familiar with the frustrating side of editorial work can only sympathize with the sentiments expressed in these sentences by Julius August Remer, the editor of the second German edition of William Robertson’s The History of the Reign of Emperor Charles V in 1779. What makes this complaint somewhat peculiar is that just shortly before its author had spoken very highly about their object: “The translator, the late councillor Mittelstedt had too much wisdom and common sense, and was too proficient in both languages... to produce a translation that is not faithful,” and the “excellent book” only needed to be supplemented with a few notes in order to improve its accuracy. 2 Nevertheless, a few years later Remer thought it appropriate to revise Robertson’s work completely, radically changing its structure and its organizing principles and adding substantially to its size. In the process much of the meaning of the [End Page 125] original was lost; and what was gained instead bore the imprint of the environment, the personality, and the limitations of the stature of the new author. At the same time Robertson’s History—in the original, in Mittelstedt’s translation, and in Remer’s version alike—was held in considerable esteem in German-speaking areas well into the nineteenth century. 3A study of the patterns of thought involved in its several incarnations may offer an insight into the way of the transmission of ideas through cultural boundaries. Looking at the German publishing history of the celebrated Scottish historian William Robertson’s greatest accomplishment between the 1770s and the 1790s, this article is intended as a contribution to the study of the limits of translatability as well as of the intellectual horizons of cultural exchanges, through translation, between such different enlightened intellectual communities as those of late-eighteenth-century Scotland and North Germany. 4Although it is only recently that William Robertson has started to emerge from the obscurity he suffered in the shadow of the more glittering names of the Scottish Enlightenment, an analysis of the ways in which he was influential no longer needs either to be defended or prefaced by a survey of his various activities. Robertson is the protagonist of Richard B. Sher’s study of Church, academe, and polite society in Edinburgh; and his character and oeuvre as a historian have been analyzed from several points of view. 5 Robertson’s contemporary admirers already placed him on a par with Hume and Smith, describing him as a chief component in Scotland’s “strong ray of philosophic [End Page 126] light.” 6 His “combination of philosophy and history” was said to have avoided, more successfully than all others, “the inconveniences which it threatens.” 7 Indeed, his History of Charles V was one of the most formidable eighteenth-century attempts to use “stadial” or conjectural history—which figured prominently not only in the thought of the Scottish theorists but also of the French physiocrats and the German-Swiss thinker Isaak Iselin—as a conceptual background to his account of the historical process as a result of which the foundations of modernity were laid.Such development studies were deemed essential to the proper understanding of contemporary commercial society; and especially in the long introduction of Robertson’s work, A View of the Progress of Society in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, “descriptive and narrative history” 8 were magisterially interwoven to produce a richly documented piece of historiography. It also offered an overview of the natural succession of various stages in people’s mode of subsistence from hunting through shepherding and agriculture to commerce and the ways in which these gave rise... (shrink)

Während der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts erlebte die Geschichtsphilosophie in Deutschland ihre Blütezeit. Knapp zwanzig Jahre, nachdem Isaak Iselin als Erster mit seinem Werk Philosophische Mutmaßungen über die Geschichte der Menschheit (1764) die Fragen und Methoden aufgegriffen hatte, die Voltaire später in einem Begriff bündeln sollte, entwickelte Kant in Königsberg seinen epochemachenden Neuentwurf der Philosophie. Der Autor der drei Kritiken schreibt aber nicht nur zur Erkenntnistheorie und Moralphilosophie, sondern auch zur Diskussion um die philosophische Betrachtung des Phänomens (...) Geschichte, am prononciertesten in seinem 1784 erschienenen Aufsatz Idee zu einer Geschichte in Weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Vorliegende Arbeit verortet die Geschichtsphilosophie Kants anhand der vier systematischen Fragen,,Was kann ich wissen?",,,Was soll ich tun?",,,Was darf ich hoffen?" und,,Was ist der Mensch?" und zeigt, wie sie sich stimmig als Teil des kritischen Projekts lesen lässt. (shrink)

In 1813 Isaak von Sinclair published a poem entitled “The New Acquaintance.” It recounts a meeting between himself, his friend Friedrich Hölderlin, and one other unidentified guest whom Sinclair awaited with keen anticipation. Because of Hölderlin’s well established friendship with Hegel it has been assumed in the past that the unknown acquaintance was in fact Hegel. However, at the time to which the poem refers, Hegel was a relatively obscure and unknown figure with no reputation. If we are therefore (...) to accept that the poem does indeed allude to Hegel then we must assume that Sinclair, as early as 1813, had recognized Hegel’s genius and wanted retrospectively to associate his name with the newly rising star of German philosophy. In that case we must ask why he refrained from mentioning Hegel by name or at least making the character of the unknown unambiguously clear? In translating this poem for the first time into English I offer for consideration another candidate as the “acquaintance,” namely, Wilhelm Heinse. (shrink)