Debates, Controversies, and Prizes

This collection brings together a series of cutting-edge studies on the most significant controversies and prize essay contests of the German Enlightenment. It sheds new light on the role of and practices arising from the philosophical debates of the period, while analysing specific theoretical questions. In doing so, it focuses on controversies as a condition for the advancement of knowledge, framing the era as one that structured the Republic of Letters. Chapters address questions such as the condition of possibility of the debates, their institutional support and their aims. They demonstrate how these debates did not lead to reconciliation, but rather the creation of a common territory of an epistemic community. This volume also offers novel perspectives on the major role played by the Berlin Academy not only on the European intellectual scene, but primarily within the German Enlightenment. By introducing several relatively unknown but key figures such as Johann Heinrich Abicht, Pierre Le Guay de Premontval, Guillaume Raynal and H.S. Reimarus, it advances our understanding of the richness and complexity of the period.Set out into four parts on natural law and belles-lettres, metaphysics, psychology, and mathematics and physics, the essays provide new material on areas such as anthropology, the problem of language, colonialism and the origins of aesthetics for the wider study of 18th-century intellectual and philosophical life.>

Préface
A collection of essays on the significant controversies and prize essay contests of the German Enlightenment.

Auteur
Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet is Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Psychology of the Romanian Academy and at the University of Bucharest, Romania.Christian Leduc is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montreal, Canada.

Résumé
This volume brings together a series of cutting-edge studies on significant controversies and prize essay contests of the German Enlightenment. It sheds new light on the nature and impact of the philosophical debates of the period, while analyzing a range of pressing philosophical questions. In doing so, it focuses on controversies and prize competitions as conditions for the advancement of knowledge and the staking out of new philosophical terrain. Chapters address not only the rich content of the questions but also their wider context, including the theoretical framework of the debates and their institutional support and aims. Together they demonstrate how these debates created a rallying point and generated momentum for sustained philosophical argument and engagement in the Enlightenment era. The collection offers novel perspectives on the major role played by the Berlin Academy both within the German Enlightenment and across Europe more broadly. Through the introduction of several understudied but key figures such as Johann Heinrich Abicht, Leonhard Cochius, Pierre Le Guay de Prémontval, and Guillaume Raynal, it deepens our understanding of the richness and complexity of the period. Arranged in three parts natural law and history, metaphysics, and anthropology the essays provide fascinating new material on areas such as the problem of language, the emergence of psychology, colonialism, and the origins of aesthetics for the wider study of the intellectual milieu in eighteenth-century Germany and beyond.

Contenu
Acknowledgments Introduction- Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet and Christian Leduc Part One: Natural Law and History 1. The Presumption of Goodness and the Controversy over Christian Wolff 's Cosmopolitanism- Andreas Blank 2. The Duties of the HistorianRaynal's Failed Prize Question-Gesa Wellmann Part Two: Metaphysics 3. A Negative Monadology: Condillac's Answer to the Berlin Academy Prize Competition- Christian Leduc 4. Between Optimism and Anti-Optimism: Prémontval's Middle Point- Lloyd Strickland 5. The Public Debate about the Abuse of Power by the Berlin Academy against Samuel König- Ursula Goldenbaum 6. On Progress in Metaphysics: Responses to the Berlin Academy's 1792/1795 Prize Essay Question- Stephen Howard and Pavel Reichl Part Three: Anthropology 7. Aesthetics as Apolaustic: Baumgarten and the Controversy over Sensitive Pleasures- Alessandro Nannini 8. Drives, Inclinations, and Perfectibility: Leonhard Cochius' Response to the 1768 Prize Question- Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet 9. The Origin of Language as an Anthropological Topic: The 1769/1771 Prize Question of the Berlin Academy- Gualtiero Lorini 10. The Philosophical Context of the 1773/1775 Preisfrage: Johann Georg Sulzer on Knowledge and Sensibility- Daniel Dumouchel Note on the Contributors Index