Innerhalb des Gedankenexperiments eines natürlichen Zustandes bewegt sich Meier in der für seine Zeit üblichen Weise der Grundlegung einer Naturrechtslehre mit der Suche nach dem obersten Prinzip, aus dem alle weiteren Grundsätze und Regeln abzuleiten sind. Berücksichtigt man die naturrechtliche Tradition von Christian Wolff und Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, in die sich Meier mehrfach ausdrücklich stellt, würde man nun hier das Gebot des Strebens nach Vollkommenheit erwarten. Doch überraschenderweise legt Meier seinem Recht der Natur ein anderes Prinzip zu Grunde, nämlich: „beleidige (...) niemanden äusserlich in dem natürlichen Zustande.“ Sämtliche natürlichen Rechte und Pflichten des Menschen im Naturzustand folgen für Meier aus diesem ersten Grundsatz, der nun weniger an das Vollkommenheitsgebot des Christian Wolff erinnert als vielmehr eine systematische Parallele zu dem Bereich der für den äußeren Frieden förderlichen Handlungen des justum von Christian Thomasius aufweist, dessen Regel „Behindere andere nicht in der Ausübung ihrer Rechte“ aus den Fundamenta juris naturae et gentium dem Meierschen, „keinem andern Menschen das Seine“ zu nehmen, entspricht. Within the thought-experiment of a natural condition, Meier follows the usual method of his age by basing a doctrine of natural law on the search for a highest principle from which all further principles and rules are to be derived. Considering the tradition of Christian Wolff’s and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in defining natural law, a tradition in which Meier several times expressly places himself, we would expect to find here the commandment to strive for perfection. But, surprisingly, Meier bases his natural law on a different principle: “offend no-one outwardly in the natural condition.” For Meier, all natural laws and duties of mankind in the natural condition follow from this first principle, which now seems less an echo of Christian Wolff’s precept of perfection than a systematic parallel to the sphere of actions required four outward oeace, the justum of Christian Thomasius, whose rule of “Do not hinder others in the exercise of their rights,” from the Fundamenta juris naturae et gentium correspondes to Meier’s rule not to take “from any other man what is his.”. (shrink)

The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of Samuel Pufendorf’s road from his early Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis, published in late 1660 to the eight ‘books’ of De jure naturae et gentium from 1672. In the latter, Pufendorf completed a methodical shift from the more geometrico method to a universal jurisprudence based upon a wide range of humanistic arts, including history. In this connection, Pufendorf gave more credit to Hugo Grotius and his De jure belli ac pacis (...) than in the earlier work. The paper redefines the role that Pufendorf’s contacts with the Chief Minister from Mainz, Johann Christian von Boineburg and his closest collaborators, Hermann Conring and Johann Heinrich Boecler played in Pufendorf’s shift of approach to ‘universal jurisprudence’. Hitherto underexplored correspondence of Boineburg with Boecler permits a reconstruction of the polemic that Boineburg incited and fuelled between Pufendorf and Boecler. Pufendorf’s reflections of the events in the Preface of the first edition of De jure naturae et gentium and later Christian Thomasius’s account in Paulo plenior, historia juris naturalis made the intermezzo into an essential part of the foundation myth of modern natural law. (shrink)

Tõde või eimiski [= Truth or Nothingness]. A collection of philosophical essays 1990-2021. In Estonian. -/- Kogumikku hoolikalt valitud tekstid on ühelt poolt loomingulised, lugejat intrigeerivad ning interdistsiplinaarsed – kõige rohkem põimitakse filosoofilisi arutlusi psühholoogilistega. Kuid teisest küljest on esseed filosoofiliselt ranged, demonstreerides oskust jääda ka rakenduslikes teemaarendustes üdini filosoofiks. Raamatus leidub nii filosoofia olemuse üle arutlevaid tekste, kaasahaaravaid filosoofia suurkujude tõlgendusi, põhjalikult käsitletakse ka praktilise filosoofia alla kuuluvaid teemasid kuni meie kaasaja poliitilise olukorra diagnoosi ja kriitikani välja. Raamatu lõpus (...) on intervjuu väljaandjaga. (shrink)

In his "Elementa Iuris Naturae et Gentium" Johann Gottlieb Heineccius presents a unique account of love as the principle of natural law, referring to the main concern of early modern protestant theories of natural law: the importance of securing subjective rights by a law. Heineccius accepts the universal character of subjective rights derived from human nature, claiming their protection as natural duties required by a law. This chapter provides an attempt to explain the specific ways in which Heineccius (...) deals with the paradoxical situation that the protection of subjective rights by a natural law theory requires certain limitations of the use of such rights, in order to avoid the mutual collision of such rights. For this purpose it focuses on the rights to free thought and free speech, which are very good example for that. While the first part reconstructs the way in which Heineccius claims the specific concern of natural law and points out continuities and discontinuities with his predecessors, the second part focuses on the requirement of natural law for limitation of free thought and free speech in case of collision of subjective rights. (shrink)

The relationship between the political theory of Rousseau and modern natural law continues to be the subject of debate, both with regard to Rousseau's faithfulness to the idea of natural law itself and regarding the precise extent of the debt he owed to his predecessors. In this article the author re-examines this relationship by focusing attention on what has been defined as the protestant tradition of natural law. In particular she concentrates on the political and theoretical exercise that Jean Barbeyrac (...) had sought to perform by constructing a particular version of this tradition, namely that of using the science of natural law to promote a policy of tolerance between protestants and to justify the right of citizens to resist catholic sovereigns who denied them religious freedom, as well as the right of protestant countries to come to the aid of persecuted fellow believers. The thesis asserts that Rousseau was fully aware of this exercise, just as he was aware that some of Barbeyrac's ideas had been adopted and reworked by another illustrious Genevan, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, a member of the Small Council, to support anti-populist and antidemocratic politics in Geneva. Viewed in this way it is possible to perceive in Rousseau's political thought not so much a “first crisis” of natural law as an intention to reformulate this science from a republican perspective in order to derive rigorous principles of political law from it. And in developing his republican political theory Rousseau took up and overturned the analysis of democratic sovereignty carried out by Pufendorf, who in opposing the “pro-monarchist” excesses of authors such as Hobbes and Horn had unhesitatingly demonstrated the complete validity of democratic sovereignty. ☆ I would like to thank Matthew Armistead for his excellent English translation. The article is a revised version of ‘Rousseau, Pufendorf e la tradizione giusnaturalistica settecentesca’, in M. Ferronato (ed.), Dal “De Jure naturae et gentium” di Samuel Pufendorf alla codificazione prussiana del 1794, Padova, Cedam, 2005, pp. 115–185. (shrink)

It would be difficult to find a major figure in the history of European political thought who would not have attempted to say something about how authority emerges, or is justified and critiqued, in the world beyond the single polity. Quite frequently, that effort would have involved some idea about a legal order, or at least a set of rules or regularities applicable in that world. Thomas Hobbes was neither the first nor the last major thinker who believed that the (...) 'international' realm was characterised by the independence of states existing 'in the state and posture of gladiators', thus apparently denying that legal rules or practices or legal thinking could have much relevance therein. Yet others believed, as Immanuel Kant did, that without a constitutional vocabulary not much that was meaningful could be said about the human pursuit of freedom, and that silence about the latter would not only constitute a moral failure but an intellectual and perhaps political mistake. For a long time, the idiom of natural law claimed to offer a universally valid frame for thinking about the nature of the political, as well as providing authority for lawyers' speculations about the rules and principles governing the conduct of individuals and corporate bodies wherever they might move. The name of the relevant discipline at German universities from the late seventeenth century onwards-ius naturae et gentium, the law of nature and of nations-revealed the full scope of its ambition. That discipline may have died away (although that is a debatable proposition) but any political thinking worth its salt will today (perhaps especially in the twenty-first century) aim to say something about how authority emerges, is maintained or critiqued not only within but also outside the single state. The world of 'nations' or even 'humanity' is established as an important theme of political and legal speculation. (shrink)

At the latest following Pufendorf's Jus naturae et gentium , the attempt to develop natural law out of one basic principle is prominent. Although John Locke characterizes Pufendorf's natural law as worthy of emulation and his own Treatises of Government reveal obvious traces of Pufendorf's ideas, still one fails to find any influence by the "basic-principle idea." Furthermore, Locke never explicates the mathematically demonstrative principle for law and morals, which he introduced in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding . (...) Locke, however, does indicate in his Reasonableness of Christianity of 1695 that he sees the execution of such a program unrealistic at least by this point in time. He instead develops a form of heurism, which, in reliance on the New Testament , permits him to introduce a rational moral theory and a rational natural law. His natural law theory reveals its rationality not through its justification or by providing a systematic exposition, but rather by resisting any possible objections of reason. (shrink)

In his De Natura et Origine Animae, an answer to a work by Vincentius Victor, Augustine was drawn into attempting to answer some questions about what kind of reality dream-bodies, dream-worlds and dream-pains have. In this paper I concentrate on Augustine's attempts to show that none of Victor's arguments for the corporeality of the soul are any good, and that Victor's inflated claims about the extent of the soul's self-knowledge are the result of mistaking self-awareness for self-knowledge. Augustine takes the (...) position that the feelings we have in dreams and the feelings of the dead, although they are real feelings, are not always the feelings they seem to be. This position is consistent with Augustine's later works, though it departs from his understanding of these issues in his earliest works. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 2 Seiten: 735-752.

Nombreux sont les programmes de recherche ambitieux mais irréaliste s visant à déterminer le régime du jury. Cet article, qui se limite aux arguments touchant à la vérité et à la rectitude, s’intéresse aux rapports entre les variables institutionnelles, subjectives et de résultat qui sont en jeu. Il étudie en particulier l’influence des facteurs institutionnels sur les variables intermédiaires sur plusieurs points, étant bien entendu que ces facteurs tournent, très diversement, autour du choix entre débat public ou secret, ces variables (...) pouvant influencer positivement aussi bien que négativement le résultat. L’article se termine en soulignant la nature discutable de bien des discours sur les effets du débat public ou secret. Concernant l’adoption du régime envisagé, il souligne le gros avantage du status quo. (shrink)

La conscience de soi a-t-elle été méconnue des hommes du Haut Moyen Âge? Se restreignant à l’époque de Charlemagne et parcourant les diverses sources théologiques – les commentaires exégétiques, les traités anti-adoptianistes, l’œuvre rédigée afin de réfuter l’adoration des icônes instaurée par le concile de Nicée II, les traités sur les vices et les vertus – la recherche permet de mieux percer la relation dialectique entre natura et persona ou encore entre commun et individuel et de détecter quelques modèles de (...) la perception de soi. Le « souci de soi » carolingien met en œuvre une stratégie : comment, en évitant la corruption de soi par les vices, on parvient à la perfection de la persona aux temps eschatologiques. (shrink)

This contribution aims at reconstructing the system of legal sources as it can be recognised in all its clarity in the De iure praedae. After pointing out that Grotius applied in this work the mathematical method, it is observed that the law has a clear voluntaristic character: 'voluntas universorum ad universos directa lex dicitur'. Even the 'first notion', quoted in Regula I, that is the lex aeterna, has this specific character: 'Quod Deus se velle significarit, id ius est'. Interesting is (...) also the way in which the issue of the ius naturae is developed. Actually, natural law is consistent with Regula I precisely because it is bound to God as a manifestation of his will: 'Dei voluntas non oraculis tantum et extraordinariis significationibus, sed vel maxime ex creantis intentione apparet'. Thus, the creation of the ius gentium primarium and ius gentium secundarium follows the same pattern: it is always a voluntas that splits into a cascade like a 'baroque fountain'. At the end of the same argument we find finally the ius civile: 'Quidquid respublica se velle significavit', as Regula V states. In conclusion, the system of legal sources in De iure praedae is based on premises that differ in many respects from the legal sources of De iure belli ac pacis. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs some important medieval interpretations of the first two words of the Aristotelian Metaphysics: “Omnes homines natura scire desiderant”. After presenting lay readings of the 14th-15th centuries, it returns to earlier scholastic and clerical interpretations of the Aristotelian “natural” desire for knowledge. Medieval readers of Aristotle coming from various backgrounds noted the strong discrepancy between the Aristotelian definition of man and the discriminatory social reality of their time. They elaborated different strategies of reading that allowed them to downplay (...) or emphasize, to legitimize or challenge, the monopolization of knowledge by a clerical elite. (shrink)