Religion, law, and politics: historical contexts -- Religion and the limits of philosophy -- The prince and the church: the critique of Lutheran papalism -- Ecclesiastical history and the rise of clerical tyranny -- The history of Roman law -- Natural law (I): the institutes of divine jurisprudence -- Natural law (II): the transformation of Christian Thomasiuss natural jurisprudence -- The interpretation of nature -- Conclusion: reason and faith in the early German Enlightenment.

In the European Enlightenments it was often argued that moral conduct rather than adherence to certain theological doctrines was the true measure of religious belief. Thomas Ahnert argues that this characteristically “enlightened” emphasis on conduct in religion was less reliant on arguments from reason alone than is commonly believed. In fact, the champions of the Scottish Enlightenment were deeply skeptical of the power of unassisted natural reason in achieving “enlightened” virtue and piety. They advocated a practical program of “moral culture,” (...) in which revealed religion was of central importance. Ahnert traces this to theological controversies going back as far as the Reformation concerning the key question of early modern theology, the conditions of salvation. His findings present a new point of departure for all scholars interested in the intersection of religion and Enlightenment. (shrink)

This book is about Enlightenment ideas of "character." It argues for their central importance in eighteenth-century thought and culture. The scope of this volume extends well beyond the confines of literary history. It examines discussions of race, nation, the self, virtue, sociability, and historical progress. The specially commissioned essays in this volume are the first, collectively, to address the broader significance of Enlightenment "character," and to do so from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on the Scottish Enlightenment, but contributors (...) consider these debates in their international contexts and in relation to parallel developments in Britain, Europe, and America. (shrink)

Throughout his career Hutcheson praised the achievements of the pagan moral philosophers of classical antiquity, the Stoics in particular. In recent secondary literature his moral theory has been characterized as a synthesis of Christianity and Stoicism. Yet Hutcheson's attitude towards the ancient heathen moralists was more complex and ambivalent than this idea of ‘Christian Stoicism’ suggests. According to Hutcheson, pagans who did not believe in Christ and who had never even heard of him were capable of virtue, and even, he (...) asserted controversially, of salvation. Yet Hutcheson did not think that the virtue of pagans, let alone their salvation, was a result of their moral philosophical theories. Hutcheson's applause for pagan philosophy as an intellectual achievement did not indicate a commitment to it, but was based on a detached and cautious evaluation that involved significant reservations concerning the truth and usefulness of pagan ethical thought. (shrink)

This volume of essays is a much-needed contribution to research on the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Scotland. This history still tends to be eclipsed by the fame of the eighteenth-cen...